This Week in Motorsport
Formula Fun
The Turkish Grand Prix was a shambles. The Red Bulls of Mark Webber & Sebastian Vettel were dominant in qualifying, with a Red Bull—in this case, as in the previous two rounds of the World Championship, Webber—capturing pole position for the start of the grand prix for the seventh time out of seven races. Vettel started the race from his season-worst position on the grid: third. With a rather nifty move at the start, Vettel was able to pass Lewis Hamilton's McLaren and slotted into second place, but a little later on the always hectic first lap Hamilton retook the position. On the pit stop rotation, Vettel was able to get the jump on Hamilton and reclaimed second spot in the running order behind Webber. McLaren's Jenson Button was running in fourth and though the two McLarens were able to keep pace with the Red Bulls more ably than in any of the previous grands prix, the stage seemed set for a Red Bull one-two finish in the Turkish Grand Prix.

And then it all went wrong, horribly so. To conserve fuel, Webber had slowed down ever so slightly. Having conserved fuel earlier in the race, Vettel had a slight edge in speed over his teammate. Even before he won his first career grand prix in '09, Webber had a reputation as the most hard to overtake man in Formula One; in the best possible sense, he's a bastard about being passed. Without so much as a word over the radio to the team about his intention, the slightly-only-slightly-faster Vettel made a very aggressive move to pass the slight-only-slightly-slower Webber. Webber refused to yield an inch. The two RB6es collided. Vettel's right side tires shredded and he spun off the track. Webber somehow managed to keep control of his car as it careened off-track and rejoined the race just after Hamilton & Button had whizzed by in their McLarens. (At Monaco, Webber would have crashed heavily into the walls, sundering his machine into so much carbon fiber debris, but the Istanbul Park circuit has far more generous runoffs. Whew!) Vettel's race was run and he climbed from his cockpit in disgust. Webber dove into the pits with a deranged front wing/nose cone and, unbelievably, no other appreciable damage from the disaster; a new front end was quickly swapped in and Webber resumed in third place behind the McLarens, the position from which he also finished the grand prix.

Red Bull was on course to claim forty-three points and a dominant position in the Constructors' Championship (twenty-five for first place, eighteen for second); instead, they garnered only fifteen for Webber's third place finish and saw McLaren pass them to assume the Constructors' lead. Going into Turkey, Webber and Vettel were tied atop the Drivers' Championship points, Webber classified as the leader with two grand prix victories to Vettel's one. After the shambles, Webber maintains his lead, though by not nearly so much as if he'd been able to drive to the sure victory that seemed his for the claiming; Vettel, scoring no points in Turkey, sunk to fifth in the standings. Red Bull have said that there are no hard feelings between Vettel & Webber, that the air's been cleared, but ahead of the Grand Prix du Canada I hardly think it matters. What does the future hold for Red Bull Racing? Doom, doom, and doom, followed by a little more doom just for good measure. Doom.

Adding insult to injury, both Lotus T127s failed to finish the race for the second consecutive grand prix. Heikki Kovalainen & Jarno Trulli retired with reliability issues (mechanical failure, actual or imminent), the Turkish Grand Prix's first two retirements. Both Williams FW32s finished the race, but both well out of the points. "Misery, misery, misery."

By Endurance We Conquer
Make ready, this weekend hosts the 24 Heures du Mans! Happy happy joy joy!

Lies, Damned Lies, & the News
Unfortunately, this kind of despicable, proudly ignorant anti-Semitism is more and more common amongst the left wing, in both North American and Europe: White House Press Corpslink. "They should go home.… Poland, Germany…." Of course, by "Poland" she means Treblinka and by "Germany" she means Buchenwald. My sincere hope is that this awful Nazi crone will be murdered in a most gruesome and painful fashion and her corpse mutilated without any heed paid to human decency.

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Sean McCann, "Sooner or Later" courtesy of The Watergirl (The Watergirl)

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