The intention when petrolheadblog.com started was to cover as many forms of motorsport as possible.  As time has gone on, I’ve found it necessary to become an F1 blogger making [...]]]> Where does the time go?  Memories of petrolheadblog.com’s blue and white beginning are still fresh.  Just 9 months later, it’s time to bid farewell to 2009.

The intention when petrolheadblog.com started was to cover as many forms of motorsport as possible.  As time has gone on, I’ve found it necessary to become an F1 blogger making very occasional mention of other forms of motorsport.  Time is the problem, in that I don’t have enough of it to write about every race I watch while also working for a living.  Because of that, I’ve concentrated on the form of motorsport I know the most about, and because of that, Ohio’s finest blogger isn’t getting his NASCAR beginners guide.  Sorry, Kevin.  Then again, he is getting a ride-along in a NASCAR this week, so don’t feel too sorry for him.

I’ve really enjoyed giving my views on the racing year just past, and I’ve done my best to give them in a way you can enjoy too.  I hope you’ve been able to do that, and that you’ll stay with me through 2010 and beyond.  My sincere thanks go to every last one of you for being kind enough to stop by every so often; your company is very much appreciated.

Now, without further ado, the 2009 petrolheadblog.com Awards, coming to you live from the glittering west end of Hartlepool:

Driver of the Year: Lewis Hamilton

A more detailed explanation is given in the 2009 Top 10 post, but nobody else extracted the very maximum from their machinery as often as Lewis Hamilton in 2009.

Individual Performance of the Year: Sebastian Vettel

Unbeatable.  That’s the only way to describe Vettel’s performance at Silverstone in June.  On pole position despite having the heaviest car in the top 10 shootout, Sebastian’s first stint in the race was, on average, a whole second per lap faster than the chasing pack.  Of the 20 fastest race laps, 15 belonged to Vettel.  14 of those were set in the first 20 laps of the race.  Had he chosen to keep up that pace for the whole distance, he’d have won by a minute.  As it was, there was no reason to push on, so devastating had he been in the early stages.

Qualifying Lap of the Year: Lewis Hamilton

Yes, him again.  On pole position by two thirds of a second in Abu Dhabi, Hamilton’s lap was one of those rare efforts that leave you staring in slack-jawed disbelief.  Remarkably, it owed nothing to fuel loads and everything to raw, scintillating pace.

Overtaking Move of the Year: Nelson Piquet Jr

I assure you I’m serious.  While there are a good number of candidates – pick one of Jenson Button’s moves, Hamilton slicing by Barrichello in Brazil or Kovalainen’s cheeky pit-lane pass on Fisichella in Japan for starters – friend of petrolheadblog.com Nelson Piquet Jr takes the award.  Nelsinho’s pass on Lewis Hamilton in Istanbul, taking the place around the outside of turn 12, losing it in 13 and finally snatching it back for good into 14, was a brilliant, brilliant piece of driving.

Quote of the Year: Nelson Piquet Jr

Another hotly-contested category, in a year that saw Bernie Ecclestone admiring the way Hitler got things done, Rubens Barrichello avoiding his team’s blah-blah-blah and Flavio Briatore reminding the world that Crashgate didn’t have to be deliberate, since the driver involved had crashed 17 times in 18 months.  In the end, that very driver walks off with another prize for his kettle-pot-black effort, “I’m very angry because Monaco’s a long race and that’s why these young drivers need to be careful with what they’re doing.”

Top Trumps Player of the Year: Fernando Alonso

Hungary, the end of Q3.  The timing systems have crashed just as the top 10 shootout is drawing to a close.  In parc ferme, the drivers all know their own times but have no idea of where they’re starting.  What’s to be done?

“What time did you do?”
“22.5.”
“21.5.”
“No, 22.5.”
“I know.  I did 21.5.”
“F***ing Hell…”

Jenson Button wasn’t the only one.  Fernando Alonso asked every last one of the drivers, and in the Quickest Lap category, nobody could play a better card.

The OPEC Order of Merit: Nelson Piquet Jr, Timo Glock, Kazuki Nakajima and Romain Grosjean

Awarded to the drivers who amassed the highest number of No Stops Til Christmas awards through a season of Weighing Up posts, the surprise in this category is that there isn’t a clear winner.  15 different drivers had the heaviest car on the starting grid at some point this season, with only 3 men taking the honours twice, while Fisichella and Vettel shared it in Brazil.  Piquet Jr and Nakajima were regularly among the heaviest, trying to plod around on a one-stop strategy after qualifying poorly, while Glock’s long runs were less common but no less impressive; at Monza he started with 104.8 kilos of fuel aboard his Toyota.  Romain Grosjean can trump even that, with his Renault starting the final round in Abu Dhabi laden with 105.8 kilos of fuel.

Team of the Year: Brawn GP

If only Honda had known.  BGP 001 was a tremendous racing car, even after it had been modified at the last minute to include a Mercedes engine it was never meant to run.  Through the uncertain winter, into the start of the season, coping with downsizing, riding out a shaky mid-season run and carrying a different sponsor each race as if it was 1976 and the team was about to run out of money, Brawn were always in contention and often the class of the field.  Next season the team becomes Mercedes Grand Prix, and takes its leave with a 100% record: 1 season, 1 drivers title, 1 constructors title.

Race of the Year: Brazilian Grand Prix

One of the few races this year in which there was always something going on.  Vettel, Hamilton and Button charged through the field after miserable qualifying sessions in the wet, Trulli and Sutil put on a slapstick masterclass, while Barrichello promised much but ended up with yet more home heartbreak.  Raikkonen made a strong recovery from being set on fire by Kovalainen’s fast-moving fuel hose in the pits, while Kobayashi said hello to Formula One in the manner of a man who intends to stay there for a while yet.

Having merrily made these up as I went along, I’ll confess to some surprise that the most decorated driver at the end of proceedings is this chap:

Nelson Piquet Jr, friend of petrolheadblog.com, we salute you.

The teams we all expected to challenge were nowhere.  The teams we’d written off in pre-season were somewhere, and a team that barely made it to the first race won the whole show.  The world champion divided opinion, with his supporters matched in size and volume [...]]]> It’s the done thing at this time of year, isn’t it?

The teams we all expected to challenge were nowhere.  The teams we’d written off in pre-season were somewhere, and a team that barely made it to the first race won the whole show.  The world champion divided opinion, with his supporters matched in size and volume by those who felt he’d reversed into it having done nothing of note for the last 10 races.  The outgoing world champion faced serious scrutiny off the track but answered every critic on it, his nemesis tried his best to make sense of a team in crisis and the last of the big-spending Japanese car makers took their final bow.  How do you begin putting that into some kind of order?

With difficulty, as it turns out.  What follows is an attempt at ranking the 10 best Formula One drivers of 2009, and is nothing more than opinion, based on sessions watched and timesheets studied.  You can make statistics mean whatever you want – you can even use them to suggest that Jenson Button is better than Sir Stirling Moss, and if you dream of doing so then you’re either one of his family or in entirely the wrong place - and so they’ve been left to one side as far as possible.  Sometimes the numbers don’t do justice to the performance.  Sometimes they flatter it enormously.

To qualify for a place in this particular top 10, a driver needs to have completed at least half of the 2009 season, which means no place for the mightily impressive Kamui Kobayashi, whose two end-of-season races were wonderful but not enough to assess him fairly.  There’s also no room for Tonio Liuzzi, Jaime Alguersuari, Romain Grosjean or – but no!  But yes! – Luca Badoer.  I can but imagine your horror.

That leaves 20 drivers vying for 10 places (and I should mention that yes, friend of petrolheadblog.com Nelson Piquet Jr is eligible), and in a season where the title contenders haven’t always excelled and the best performers have been hiding in the middle of the pack, arriving at a final list hasn’t been easy.  You may well disagree, and if you do, I’d very much like to hear from you.  Right, shall we begin?

10. Kimi Raikkonen

Why so low?  The Ferrari F60 was rarely better than good and quite often a fair bit worse, but the Iceman only appeared interested from mid-season.  His rise coincided with the loss of Felipe Massa to injury, and his drives in Valencia, Monza and particularly Spa were brilliant efforts in a car whose development had long since tailed off.  At other times, at too many other times, the Finn was a man going through the motions.  Off to rally a Citroen in 2010, he’s a loss when operating at his peak but hasn’t truly done so since he left McLaren, 2007 title notwithstanding.

9. Nico Rosberg

Solid.  11 points-scoring finishes, 7th in the drivers championship, but too much promise unfulfilled.  He led strongly in Malaysia before crumbling in the rain, made all the wrong calls in China, underwhelmed in a good car through the early part of the European season and finally, after some strong runs mid-season, turned a potential win into a big fat out of control zero at the Singapore pit exit.  His drive from the back of the field to 4th at the Nurburgring was a reminder of what he can do, and his pace on Fridays was searing, but too often he fell away a little when it mattered.  Whether leading the team or learning from the master, Nico must begin to deliver on his undoubted promise at Mercedes.

8. Sebastien Buemi

20 years old, straight in at the deep end with one of the slowest cars in the field, Buemi outqualified a multiple CART champion in the same car and scored a point first time out in Melbourne.  Hello, world.  By mid-season the Toro Rosso was even worse, but Buemi clinically disposed of Sebastien Bourdais and was fazed not a jot by his promotion to team leader.  His qualifying aberration in Japan was the work of a rookie, his many measured drives weren’t, and his 4 points-scoring finishes were richly deserved.  If Red Bull get behind him, Buemi really could be special.

7. Felipe Massa

It isn’t possible to rank him higher without knowing what he might have gone on to achieve, though surviving to see Christmas was achievement enough, and you might feel 7th is too generous for a man who couldn’t complete the season.  Before a flying spring curtailed his season, though, Massa had scored more than double the points of teammate Raikkonen.  Sensational in dragging the F60 through to 4th at Silverstone and a remarkable 3rd at Nurburgring, spellbinding through a Monaco middle stint that should stand as a lesson in controlled aggression, Felipe operated at but never beyond his car’s limits every time he sat in it.  His stock has risen exponentially through the last 24 months, and it’s to be hoped that his return to racing will see him back at the front, in the position his 2009 drives deserved.

6. Rubens Barrichello

Generally brilliant once his season got going, his season kicked into gear just as his Brawn was fading.  He had plenty of rotten luck in the early part of the year, but too many of his performances in the dominant car through that period were lacklustre – only 5th in Bahrain after getting trapped behind Piquet Jr, too slow to win in Spain, hitting everything that moved in an entertaining Turkish cameo.  Only when we reached Britain did Rubinho really hit his stride, and through the second half of the season he held a definite edge on his title-winning teammate.  Wins at Valencia and Monza were richly deserved, and the old stager keeps his place in the 2010 field on merit, but this year was an opportunity missed.  At 37, he might not get another.

5. Mark Webber

12 months ago Mark Webber was beginning his recovery from a badly broken leg and shoulder, his bicycle having collided with a car during his Pure Tasmania Challenge charity event.  At the end of March he was in Melbourne, suited, booted and ready for action but only half-fit.  By mid-July he was a Formula One race winner.  A breakthrough season for the Australian might have been even better had he been able to prepare through the winter, and threatened to be more than that anyway before a run of 5 races without a point put paid to his title bid.  Only 9th in Valencia could be said to be Mark’s doing, and while his driving might lack that final tenth that separates the great from the world class, Webbo’s performances in the cockpit were a model of consistency.

4. Jenson Button

Button’s world championship year was built on the first 7 races.  6 wins, a 3rd place, a world title bought and paid for.  Then, on home soil, his year began to unravel.  His fans point out that he scored points in every race he finished and attempt to suggest that he drove sensibly once he’d built up a lead, but an honest analysis is less kind on an Englishman fading under pressure.  A number of those mid-season drives, notably runs to 6th at Silverstone, 7th in Hungary and 7th in Valencia, were recoveries from either bad qualifying, bad opening stints or both.  His only non-finish, at Spa, came through a first lap shunt after qualifying a dismal 14th.  At the same time, the man in the other Brawn, the man Jenson had taken to pieces in the early rounds, was demonstrating that the car was still a race winner.  It took Button until Interlagos to clear his head, and on that October afternoon he won the title by finally putting in a performance worthy of it.  Next year, partnered with Lewis Hamilton at McLaren, early-season JB stands half a chance.  Mid-season JB will be ruthlessly dismantled.

3. Fernando Alonso

It’s tempting to write, “Scored 26 points in a truck,” and move on, but it’s worth giving the Spaniard a little more time than that.  By the end of 2009 the Renault R29 was as bad as anything else in Formula One, yet somehow in Singapore it carried Alonso to a podium finish, only 16 seconds adrift of winner Lewis Hamilton.  Perhaps it’d be more accurate to say Alonso dragged it there.  Around the twists of Abu Dhabi, the fast esses of Suzuka and the sweeps of Spa, R29 was the dictionary definition of ‘recalcitrant’ and yet there was never room for a cigarette paper between Alonso and the ragged edge of adhesion.  He gave everything, everywhere, and his all-out approach brought a steady flow of points through the year, including a 5th place in Spain that simply shouldn’t have been possible in such a dog of a car.

2. Sebastian Vettel

It’s easy to forget that Vettel is 22 years old and has completed only 2 full seasons as a Grand Prix driver.  Every so often we’re given a reminder – slapping the barriers in Monte Carlo, falling off the road before a lap had been completed in Istanbul – and are hit by the realisation that hey, he’s not the complete package after all.  His win at Suzuka was the drive of a seasoned veteran, not a man who had never raced on the legendary circuit before.  At Silverstone his dominance was crushing, in the mould of another fast German driver.  Quick enough to have been this year’s world champion with better reliability and a little more luck, as well as being an immensely likable man, Vettel’s time will come.  Soon.

1. Lewis Hamilton

Why?  Because it’s incredibly difficult to recall a race in which Lewis let the car down, and incredibly easy now to answer those who instantly accepted Fernando Alonso’s claim that he brought 6 tenths of a second to McLaren.  The team might never again produce a racing car as bad as the MP4-24 was at the beginning of the season, yet Hamilton opened with 3 points finishes in the first 4 events, being denied a clean sweep by disqualification during the Australian ‘Liegate’ affair.  After that, no points for 5 races as the McLaren’s aerodynamic shortcomings were exposed, most notably at Silverstone where he fought brilliantly with Alonso for 16th position.  Hamilton helped drive the development of the car throughout that period, reaping the rewards in Hungary where he took a well-judged win; from zero to heroes in 4 months.  Another win in Singapore followed, while his charging drive at Monza was spectacular right to the premature finish.  17th on the grid became 3rd in the race at Interlagos, and his pole lap in Abu Dhabi was nothing short of astounding.  Simply, there is nobody better.

Go on, then.  Tell me I’m wrong.

With refuelling banned for 2010, this is the last time we get to do this for at least a year.  A reminder, one final reminder, that qualifying is made up of 3 knockout sessions, with the fastest 10 drivers competing in Q3 with race fuel aboard while [...]]]> This week, “Domination: the act of being in control.”

With refuelling banned for 2010, this is the last time we get to do this for at least a year.  A reminder, one final reminder, that qualifying is made up of 3 knockout sessions, with the fastest 10 drivers competing in Q3 with race fuel aboard while the slowest 10 declare their starting weight for the race separately.  20 drivers qualified, and assuming the man on pole gets to the finish, the other 19 surely can’t win.  Drivers, cars, weights in kilos from the FIA:

1.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes        658.5
2.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault        663.0
3.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault        660.0
4.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes          655.0
5.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes          657.0
6.  Trulli       Toyota                  661.0
7.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber              654.5
8.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber              664.0
9.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota         665.0
10.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari      661.5
11.  Raikkonen    Ferrari                 692.0
12.  Kobayashi    Toyota                  694.3
13.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes        697.0
14.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota         704.0
15.  Alguersuari  Toro Rosso-Ferrari      696.5
16.  Alonso       Renault                 708.3
17.  Liuzzi       Force India-Mercedes    695.0
18.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes    696.0
19.  Grosjean     Renault                 710.8
20.  Fisichella   Ferrari                 692.5

The weights show that Lewis Hamilton is on pole, in a car fuelled roughly as far as Mark Webber’s Red Bull and only a couple of laps lighter than Sebastian Vettel’s.  The weights don’t show exactly how far ahead the outgoing world champion is; for that, we must refer to the Q3 lap times:

Hamilton – 1:40.948
Vettel – 1:41.615
Webber – 1:41.726
Barrichello – 1:41.786

Miles, then.

That a McLaren is on pole isn’t a surprise in itself.  They were widely tipped for victory before the cars ever turned a wheel, and the pace shown by both Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen yesterday was more than quick enough to make those tips look good.  The size of the gap, though, has taken everybody by surprise, including the men in silver.  Had they known for a second that pole by the thick end of 7 tenths was on the cards, the car would have been fuelled more heavily, giving a strategic advantage to go with their speed.  It wasn’t, but that shouldn’t matter.

At no point in qualifying did anyone look like a match for Hamilton, but the men closest at all times were the Red Bull drivers, for whom the podium looks likely but the top step looks out of reach.  Best of the rest isn’t what any of the teams aspire to, but this weekend it’s all that’s on offer, and the Austrian outfit have a firm claim on the position that only Brawn and one Toyota have seriously threatened to snatch away.  Barrichello outqualified Button again but with a lap less fuel on board this time around, and with the incoming champion complaining of massive vibrations through the steering wheel in Q3.  Either of the Brawn drivers could end up sneaking onto the podium tomorrow, Button the heavier and generally slightly more impressive of the two all weekend until it mattered, but starting behind the heavier Red Bulls puts them at an immediate disadvantage.

Jarno Trulli, without a 2010 drive at present for reasons that aren’t immediately apparent, did his standard excellent job in qualifying and was a contender for the front row in Q3 before being shuffled back to P6.  His pace and his fuel load are comparable to the cars immediately ahead on the grid, and the Italian has been combative on Sunday afternoons of late – positively pugilistic at times, though not always while still inside a racing car, bless him – so his target must be to get involved in the Red Bull/Brawn battle directly ahead.  He’ll be relieved to note that Adrian Sutil is nowhere near him this weekend, the Force India falling away in Q1 having looked moderately competitive through free practice.

BMW say farewell to Formula One this weekend, though the team may yet be on the 2010 grid under new ownership and the engine department could be swallowed up by McLaren, rumours suggesting that the Woking outfit will be fully independent in the near future.  Kubica blew yet another powerplant in practice but both he and Heidfeld are set to give their squad a points-scoring send off, Quick Nick’s heavier fuel load suggesting an inter-team squabble could be on the cards tomorrow.  Nick is another one who should be secured for next season by now but isn’t, while Kubica is off to Renault, who can’t get away from 2009 quickly enough.

Romain Grosjean, whose performance has been that of a slower, more erratic version of this blog’s favourite Brazilian, wins the No Stops Til Christmas award and absolutely nothing else for another underwhelming showing, a spin in Q1 being the highlight.  In mitigation, he can point to comments made by his superstar teammate.

Fernando Alonso says, and you might struggle to argue against this, that the R29 is currently the worst car in Formula One, and this weekend not even he could propel it to a position any more advanced than 16th.  He too has fuelled up, the plan for tomorrow being to tool around for as long as possible, stop once and see how much ground can be made by simply stopping later than those around.  He’ll be aided in that task by Bridgestone, who’ve brought their soft and medium compounds to this race and are having no trouble at all with either of them.

The same strategy has been adopted by everyone outside of the top 10, including the potential spoilers of the flying Finns with their KERS buttons and Kobayashi with his tendency towards homicidal swerving.  Of those, the man with the biggest chance of making headway is Kovalainen, who would surely have been right in amongst it at the front had his gearbox not broken in Q2.  He wasn’t because it did, and the additional pain of a grid penalty for a gearbox change leaves Heikki starting 18th in the fastest car on the grid.  His race will be one to keep an eye on; nobody is better placed than Cakey to demonstrate whether it’s possible to overtake on this new layout.

It’ll be amazing if anyone at the very front gets to make the same demonstration.  With the polesitter in the weekend’s quickest car and with a KERS button to boot, there is no reason to suggest that the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix will fall to anyone other than Lewis Hamilton, or that he should be anything less than comfortable all afternoon.

- Martin Brundle called him ‘Teflonso’ on the grid.  How many of you are sat kicking yourselves right now for not [...]]]> A couple of quick ones for you, appearing here because to have put them in the main write-up would have given the altogether false impression that what took place today was an interesting motor race:

- Martin Brundle called him ‘Teflonso’ on the grid.  How many of you are sat kicking yourselves right now for not coming up with that?

- When Ron Dennis was around, he became known for something called Ronspeak, a way of speaking in which ‘the wheel fell off’ would become ‘we had a serious optimisation issue relating to the installation and alignment of a rotating cylinder.’  Today we learned that Ronspeak is still dear to the hearts of all at McLaren, which is why ‘Lewis, turn KERS off, it might be broken’ is actually pronounced ‘Lewis, there is a potential KERS issue, a potential KERS issue, we need you to set a default X three zero.’  It’s difficult to see why it would hurt them to give radio calls that aren’t then followed, as this one was, by the team explaining to their driver what a default X three zero actually is.

- Part of the reason I’d sooner see Rubens win this championship than Jenson is that when told both he and Jenson were struggling to make their brakes last, his first response wasn’t, “How far should I back off?” but, “Can we catch him?”

- Toro Rosso’s new pit strategy of allowing the driver to leave the pit box whenever he feels like it needs work.  Jaime Alguersuari’s first pit stop was brought to an end not because the mechanics were finished working, not because the fuel rig had been removed and not because the lollipop man had given the signal to go.  None of those things had happened.  Jaime just drove off.

Then again, if it’s a choice between that and the Singapore Grand Prix, it might be worth taking the Daily Star [...]]]> Del Amitri had the right idea.  If every third car was a cab, there might be a bit of overtaking, though the pit stops for fuel, tyres and a newspaper might not be that compelling.

Then again, if it’s a choice between that and the Singapore Grand Prix, it might be worth taking the Daily Star and 20 quid’s worth of diesel.  Races all have their own story, and each story has a beginning, middle and end, so let’s treat this one in the same way.

The Beginning

Lewis Hamilton made an outrageously good getaway from pole position, leading unchallenged into the first chicane from Nico Rosberg and Sebastian Vettel.  Further back, Jenson Button managed both to fend off Kimi Raikkonen and to overtake Kazuki Nakajima, both keys to a productive night.

Mark Webber, Fernando Alonso and Timo Glock engaged in a triangular scrap for P4 lasting half a lap, the Australian taking the place by means of an illegal move way off to the outside of the defined racetrack at turn 7.  It was the kind of move Kimi wasn’t penalised for at Spa, but Webbo would not be so lucky, ordered to give up the place he’d gained to Alonso.  To do that he had to let Glock past too, the German sat awkwardly between the two having muscled the Spaniard aside at turn 8.

After the first lap Hamilton led Rosberg, Vettel, Webber, Glock and Alonso.  Rubens Barrichello was in behind them, with title rival Button 10th behind Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen.  It stayed that way for, oooh, ages.

The Middle

The first three comfortably had the legs on everyone else, Hamilton usually the quicker of the trio but not by much, particularly during a brief episode that required him to disable his KERS.  Further back, Romain Grosjean’s brakes made it around the first 10 miles before giving up, the Frenchman becoming the first retirement.

Vettel began the pit sequence for the main contenders on lap 17, his stop running in butter-smooth fashion until a late release from his stall cost him a few tenths.  A lap later Rosberg was in for faultless service from the Williams crew, service which went to waste when Nico lost control exiting the pit lane.  Slithering across the kerbs on the inside of turn 1, Nico was on the racetrack before he’d even reached the white line separating pit lane from racing surface, a line drivers must not cross.  While he gained no advantage from it, rules are rules, and a drive-through penalty was to ruin his evening.

Nick Heidfeld’s race was even worse.  Cast to the back of the grid for a bizarre rules infringement – BMW found that their car was lighter than they expected when weighed post-qualifying, this being because a ballast weight was missing, and so the car would have finished underweight had it been left to run normally – Quick Nick had caught the back of a queue headed by Jaime Alguersuari.  The Toro Rosso rookie had a remarkable first lap but was quite some way off the pace thereafter, to the irritation of Adrian Sutil, who spun on lap 21 after a half-hearted passing attempt went wrong.  In attempting to recover, Sutil gave the throttle a kicking and buried his car into the right-rear corner of the innocent Heidfeld, who was passing by and no more.  So ended a remarkable run of race finishes, with Nick’s retirement being his first in 42 races stretching back to June 2007.

The safety car came out while the debris was cleared.  This threatened to ruin the races of those like Button, who had yet to pit and were planning to run for some laps before doing so but now had no choice but to fuel up.

When we got going again, everything was the same except for one of the Germans in the top trio, Rosberg’s penalty seeing him replaced by the remarkable Glock, whose Toyota was suddenly working on a street circuit at last and running marginally quicker than the leaders.  One of those leaders, Vettel, would remove himself from contention by speeding in the pit lane on lap 37, leaving Hamilton unchallenged at the front from Glock and good gracious, Alonso’s Renault, Fernando up there this year through his own brilliance and nothing more.

The End

Once everyone had pitted for the final time, Hamilton had a comfortable lead from Glock, who was well clear of Alonso.  Vettel had salvaged 4th, which kept him in title contention mathematically though not realistically, with Button crucially jumping Barrichello during the second stops to hold 5th after the Brazilian had difficulty engaging gears.

With no racing to worry about, the drivers were free to concern themselves with brakes, Webber’s having already pitched him into high-speed retirement 15 laps from home.  The Red Bull stable might perhaps have been a little too aggressive with their cooling solutions, with Vettel in a little trouble too while the Toro Rosso of Alguersuari was forced to stop in the pits while it was still capable of doing so.  Brawn weren’t in much better shape, first Rubens and then Jenson struggling.  Button, with 10 seconds back to his teammate, backed off.  Rubens didn’t, and anyone watching the FIA’s live timing online as the race progressed would have seen him produce two of his quickest laps of the day on the final couple of tours.  In the end he’d fall a couple of seconds short of catching Jenson, a further point behind him in the title chase, and another step further away from succeeding in his improbable pursuit of the Englishman.

At the front, Hamilton was dominant.  Another victory to go with his win in Hungary, and some compensation for opportunities lost in Valencia and Monza.  The reigning champion might not have had the technical tools to defend his crown, but today served as another reminder that the physical ones remain as sharp as ever.  An impressive drive would have been still better had he needed to fight for the win on-track, but even when his pursuers were close there was no danger of that happening.  Take the crashes out of this Singapore Grand Prix, and the one before it too, and see that nothing ever happens.  Nothing happens at all.

Qualifying starts with 20 drivers and, via a process of lap time based elimination, ends with 10 setting the top grid times [...]]]> This week, delayed because it is apparently written in law that the writer of this piece must attend at least one wedding each race weekend, “If you want to get ahead, get a Hamilton.”

Qualifying starts with 20 drivers and, via a process of lap time based elimination, ends with 10 setting the top grid times using the fuel they intend to start the race with.  The 10 slowest men declare their level of race fuel after qualifying, we review the weights to see how well the top 10 did and what the rest will do in the race, and the end result is one of these posts.  All cars weigh 605kg without fuel, and the good folk at the FIA tell us what they weigh once they’re race-ready:

1.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes         660.5            
2.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault         651.0            
3.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota          657.5            
4.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault         654.5            
5.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes           655.5            
6.  Alonso       Renault                  658.0            
7.  Glock        Toyota                   660.5            
8.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber               650.0            
9.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber               664.0            
10.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes         664.5            
11.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota          680.7            
12.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes           683.0            
13.  Raikkonen    Ferrari                  680.5            
14.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari       678.0            
15.  Trulli       Toyota                   690.9            
16.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes     693.0            
17.  Alguersuari  Toro Rosso-Ferrari       683.5            
18.  Fisichella   Ferrari                  678.5            
19.  Grosjean     Renault                  683.0            
20.  Liuzzi       Force India-Mercedes     656.0

The top 10 runners all had the same idea when Q3 began.  It is rare to see everyone on the same strategy, with nobody choosing to foresake grid position for extra race fuel.  The reason in this case is that they can’t afford to do it – the circuit layout means that any kind of accident could bring out a safety car, and an accident occurring while you’re out of pit sequence with the cars around you at the front would go a long way to spoiling Sunday night.  More than at any time this season, what we saw in Q3 was a representation of genuine race pace from similarly-fuelled cars, and at the end of it there was a clear favourite for victory.

Brawn, fresh from being untouchable at Monza, looked good at Marina Bay too until Q2.  Apparently confident of progressing, the team sent both Barrichello and Button out on worn tyres to set what proved to be underwhelming lap times.  New tyres were necessary, but the car looked awful once they were fitted.  Battling understeer on turn-in and oversteer on corner exit, Button could have a long afternoon ahead of him.  Key passes early in the race have become his trademark, and he might need to pull off a couple tomorrow; he is fundamentally faster than Nakajima dead ahead and KERS poster boy Raikkonen immediately behind, and the success of his one-stop strategy depends on his being ahead of them in the early running.

Barrichello’s session was more successful but some distance short of a triumph.  Condemned to starting 10th by a grid penalty for an early gearbox change, Rubens did at least drag his Brawn through to Q3 before then dragging it into the turn 5 barriers.  The top 10 runners are all doing broadly the same thing, two stops with a first pit visit between laps 15 and 20, and being one of the earlier stoppers in that group, Rubinho cannot rely on strategy to bag a few points – he has to make moves on the track.

A man relying heavily on strategy is Tonio Liuzzi, starting last for Force India with only enough fuel to reach around lap 17.  Liuzzi’s hope is that he can make a pitstop just before a safety car comes out to ruin a few races ahead of him, which seems like an odd choice.  It worked last year, yes, but we know now that it worked because Renault cheated to make it so.  Unless the plan is to have this week’s No Stops Til Christmas award winner Adrian Sutil mysteriously crash just after Tonio pits, it seems like an unnecessarily desperate punt.

Red Bull looked good on long runs in practice, particularly with Vettel, but their qualifying performance is underwhelming considering their fuel load.  Vettel was on a better lap before Barrichello’s crash brought qualifying to a premature end and confirmed Seb’s P2, but he’s 3 laps shorter than the car ahead and 2 laps lighter than the one behind, with Webber starting 4th and only a lap better off.  If both cars can finish where they’re starting, it’ll be a good result, but not good enough to reignite their title push.

Williams didn’t expect to feature at the front this weekend, and indeed one of their cars isn’t, with Kazuki Nakajima adopting his standard position almost but not quite inside the top half of the field.  Nico Rosberg, though, lost more than anyone when the session ended early, waving goodbye to a lap that had been sensational to that point.  Fuelled sensibly, only a lap lighter than the man on pole, Rosberg’s performance did plenty to showcase the effectiveness of the FW31’s last major upgrade of 2009 and, on a track he excelled at in 2008, gave him a legitimate claim to be regarded as a potential victor tomorrow.  Also improved since their last high-downforce outing in Valencia, though not to race-winning levels, are BMW, Heidfeld and Kubica both making an appearance in Q3.

What of the man on pole, then?  Lewis Hamilton, with no aero-dependent quick corners waiting to stamp on his natural gift for throwing racing cars around, was supreme all day.  Mechanical grip is what matters in Singapore, and MP4-24 has enough of that to be quick wherever aerodynamics aren’t king.  That being so, the eternally mystifying Heikki Kovalainen will spend his Sunday morning attempting to figure out exactly why he was slowest of the Q3 runners while carrying only 2 laps more fuel than his team leader.  Still more baffling is that through the rest of the weekend, Kovy had been right at the sharp end of the field; his pace only disappeared when the grid positions were being decided.

With a fair wind, the Red Bulls could snatch a victory tomorrow, though they’d need a good amount of luck.  Nico Rosberg, hustling the Williams to great effect, is well placed too.  His problem, one shared by the rest of the grid, is that Lewis Hamilton simply looks faster.  The Singapore Grand Prix is his to lose.

After the Chinese meal, the drinks that followed, the tour of Hartlepool’s clubs and the eventual horrible singing, it was the second chorus of Delilah that decisively saw off my already-fragile voice.  I should really go and rest that, so we’ll not be long this week.

You know how these things [...]]]> This week, “Brevity will get you everywhere.”

After the Chinese meal, the drinks that followed, the tour of Hartlepool’s clubs and the eventual horrible singing, it was the second chorus of Delilah that decisively saw off my already-fragile voice.  I should really go and rest that, so we’ll not be long this week.

You know how these things work.  Top 10 qualified with race fuel, everyone else fuelled up later, we find out the weights and analyse the relative performances.  Car, driver, weight in kilos:

1.  Hamilton     McLaren-Mercedes         653.5
2.  Sutil        Force India-Mercedes     655.0
3.  Raikkonen    Ferrari                  662.0
4.  Kovalainen   McLaren-Mercedes         683.0
5.  Barrichello  Brawn-Mercedes           688.5
6.  Button       Brawn-Mercedes           687.0
7.  Liuzzi       Force India-Mercedes     679.5
8.  Alonso       Renault                  677.5
9.  Vettel       Red Bull-Renault         682.0
10.  Webber       Red Bull-Renault         683.0
11.  Trulli       Toyota                   703.0
12.  Grosjean     Renault                  699.8
13.  Kubica       BMW-Sauber               697.5
14.  Fisichella   Ferrari                  690.0
15.  Heidfeld     BMW-Sauber               697.5
16.  Glock        Toyota                   709.8
17.  Nakajima     Williams-Toyota          706.2
18.  Rosberg      Williams-Toyota          708.6
19.  Buemi        Toro Rosso-Ferrari       706.0
20.  Alguersuari  Toro Rosso-Ferrari       706.0

Lewis Hamilton has pole position thanks partly to pace and partly to McLaren leaving the fuel hose attached for less time than anyone else.  He can also be thankful that Adrian Sutil, wringing the neck of the Force India to great effect, got sideways in the first of the Lesmo curves on his best lap; without that, pole could have fallen to the German.

The first 3 cars are running a two-stop strategy.  Everybody else will stop just the once.  The one-stoppers should hold the whiphand tomorrow, with today suggesting that the lighter two-stoppers don’t have enough of a speed advantage to make the strategy work.  Raikkonen, the heaviest two-stopper, could find himself parked behind the heavy Kovalainen if Heikki gets brave on the brakes into the first corner, and doesn’t seem to have quite the long-run speed he had at Spa.  Sutil, for all his qualifying brilliance, is the sitting duck, surrounded by KERS cars and certain to get caught behind the two Finns occupying the second row.  Even if his pace is good enough, the Force India would need to be incredibly good in a straight line to give him a shot at passing the KERS brigade, and we saw at Spa that even with the longest full-throttle stretch in F1, the Force India couldn’t overcome the special button effect.

Hamilton has the best chance of the two-stoppers.  He’s on pole, with KERS, and his weight-corrected pace is on a par with that of Kovalainen and Barrichello behind him.  The pace has to be sustained throughout for him to have a chance of winning – one mistake would be enough to scupper his hopes.  Hamilton’s McLaren partner Kovalainen has the best chance of anyone, running what should be the optimum strategy, being the furthest forward of the men doing so and having the power boost at his disposal.  Whether or not you make him favourite to win depends entirely on whether you trust him to be quick and consistent across a race distance.

If you don’t, then you mustn’t discount the Brawns, both full of fuel and both occupying row 3.  Barrichello outperformed Button again, but the smile is back on Jenson’s face and his driving is that of a more relaxed man than the one who contested the last few events.  Their pace is good, their long runs consistent, and the only pity is that Barrichello might need a gearbox change, which carries a grid penalty, which would ruin the whole thing.

Elsewhere, Tonio Liuzzi marked his F1 return with his first ever Q3 appearance, a praiseworthy effort indeed, and looks a good bet for solid points tomorrow.  Red Bull are fuelled shorter than Brawn and running slower, their worst nightmare come true.  Fisico crashed in morning practice and felt the lost running time was a contributary factor to his early exit from qualifying – with one-stop the way to go at Monza, Ferrari have little scope to bring him into contention with a long first stint and have to rely on Giancarlo getting racy instead.  Points are possible but not at all likely.

Tomorrow’s winner?  Any one from four.  Past performance says Heikki Kovalainen won’t win, qualifying performance suggests he probably should, and he’s driving for his career at the moment.  He’s my pick.