Formula 1 Race Sixteen: Race

Post number 100!

Pre Race: Since qualifying was delayed I made no post. However, to summarize: Red Bull one-two. Massa didn't even make it into qualifying 3. However, Kubica went third after Hamilton was demoted five grid places to eighth. On the warm-up lap, Di Grassi's Virgin failed and he didn't even make it to the start.

Start: Four cars went out before the first corner: Petrov crashed into Hulkenberg, and Massa hit Liuzzi. Petrov's incident means he has a five-place grid penalty on the next race, but Massa's had no further action taken. The safety car was immediately sent out, and then it was worse luck for Renault as they lost Kubica when his right rear tyre came off.

Red Bull and Alonso: This is Red Bull's seventh one-two, and Vettel's eighth pole position. He maintained it throughout the race, and although they did not get as far ahead from the field as they used to do they completed the race as they had started, with Webber setting the fastest lap right at the end. He now has 220 points, with Vettel second on 206 and equal with Alonso. Alonso went third after Kubica stopped, and stayed there.

MacLaren: They qualified better than expected, especially Lewis Hamilton with his lack of practice time over the weekend (practice three was a washout). Button started fifth on different tyres to Hamilton. After Kubica went out he went into fourth, and was first for a time after the others did their pit stops. After his stop, Button went fifth, and he would have stayed there if Hamilton hadn't lost third gear. This really affected his ability to accelerate, so he allowed Button to overtake him and it finished Button fourth, Hamilton fifth. In the championship, Hamilton has 192 points and Button has 189. It would take a lot of luck for them to win this now.

Kobayashi: Or, as he's been dubbed, 'Kobaybashi'. He raced very aggressively in front of a home crowd, overtaking four times on the hairpin – three of those on the inside. His overtakes were Alguersuari twice (after pitting); Sutil, which would have been twice if the Force India hadn't had problems; Barrichello; and his teammate Nick Heidfeld who outqualified him. Kobayashi finished an impressive seventh (Heidfeld was eighth).

Mercedes: Rosberg was able to spend most of the race holding up his older teammate Schumacher. However, a car failure right at the end of the race caused him to crash out, and Schumacher finished sixth. It was a good performance from both drivers, and especially from Schumacher compared to previous races.

The new teams: Apart from Di Grassi there were no retirements. Other drivers crashing out got Lotus their desperately-desired twelfth place from Kovalainen, almost certainly guaranteeing them tenth place in the driver's championship – worth a lot of money. There was also some good competition between Yamamoto and Glock, although in the end the Virgin got ahead.


Tuesday: Euro 2012 continues with more qualification matches.