Celebrations!
Red Bull's Mark Webber celebrated his 34th birthday today (Friday), which is especially exciting since he's leading the World Championship. Meanwhile, it's the 300th Grand Prix for Brazilian Rubens Barrichello, which is the most of any Formula 1 driver ever, and he's still going strong!
This race, Michael Schumacher is demoted 10 grid places after his actions in Hungary. He didn't turn up to Barrichello's 300th race celebrations yesterday evening, which was probably a good thing as it avoided questions. The most awkward questions would be about how he apologized to his ex-teammate: by text!
The most intriguing thing about this race is how close the points are between the top five drivers: Webber has 161, but fifth-placed Alonso has 141. That's a difference of only 20 points, where a victory gets you 25 points. Anything could happen. Anyone could win, and three of the five drivers - Hamilton, Button and Alonso – have won a world championship. The other two are in super-fast Red Bulls!
The weather looks to be all over the place this weekend. We've seen pouring rain and sunshine already in Friday practice. With changeable weather, things seem to be in Schumacher's favour, so he may well be able to take back his lost positions. I predict that he will finish in Q2 and end up amongst the new teams' drivers.
Chandhok was again up in the BBC commentary box for practice 1 and 2. It must be a bit disappointing not to race, although it gives Yamamoto a chance. Next week he will be in Korea in a Red Bull! Not for the race, which is in October, but in their show car around the new track. As a former Red Bull Junior Team member, he has represented them before.
The biggest event of today was the red flags in Practice 2, caused, apparently, by kids climbing a fence around the circuit. In the end, Alonso went fastest in both sessions. More to come tomorrow.
Random Interesting Point: Only two drivers have not had a single retirement this season: Alonso and Massa, two drivers in the same team. Ferrari are winning the reliability contest.
No comments:
Post a Comment