This Week in Motorsport
Formula Fun!
Formula One World Championship
Round 1
Australian Grand Prix
Sunday, 17 March 2013

The beginning of the F1 season is like the beginning of any sports season, full of uncertainty & questions. No one is sure what their car can really do, nor what their competitors' cars can do; winter testing is invaluable, but every athlete knows that practicing is not the same as playing, & that only the heat of competition will reveal what each competitor has on hand. The Australian Grand Prix provided fewer answers than it might have, no the weekend in Melbourne was marred by consistent rain. Reigning triple World Champion Sebastian Vettel ('10, '11, & '12) of Red Bull (Renault) started from the pole, as usual, but in the race his car chewed through its tires at an alarming rate, & he just did not have the speed to keep up with the race winner, '07 World Champion Kimi Räikkönen of Lotus (Renault); Vettel finished third, behind double World Champion Fernando Alonso ('05 & '06) of Ferrari.

The grand prix's big losers were McLaren (Mercedes), with '09 World Champion Jenson Button finishing ninth & new McLaren pilot Sergio Pérez finishing eleventh—out of the points—on debut. The McLarens of Button & his then-teammate '08 World Champion Lewis Hamilton finished first & third at the '12 Australian Grand Prix. Hamilton's new team, the Mercedes-Benz factory effort, bettered last year's Australian result, with Hamilton finishing fifth & teammate Nico Rosberg retiring with mechanical troubles. (In '12, for Mercedes, Rosberg finished twelfth with seven-time World Champion Michael Schumacher ['94, '95, '00, '01, '02, '03, & '04] retiring.) No major upgrades will be made to the cars 'til they return to Europe in May, but incremental progress happens from race to race. F1 is a season-long arms race, & if you aren't constantly moving ahead then you're falling behind your rivals.

Round 2
Malaysian Grand Prix
Sunday, 24 March 2013

The late stages of the second grand prix of the year saw a curious incident. The race had begun shortly after a downpour, so even though it was no longer actively raining the cars still rolled off the starting line in intermediate rain tires. With the first pit stop to get off of the rain tires on an ever-drying track, most teams opted to make four stops. (There is no in-race refueling in Formula One, so the cars stop only for fresh tires & minor repairs.) Mark Webber of Red Bull was leading Vettel & the team's engineers on the pit wall had apparently ordered both drivers to switch to a leaner fuel mix to reduce the stress on their engines; running one-two, the Red Bull duo were to maintain their positions & circulate not as swiftly as their cars could go, but only swiftly enough not to wear out their tires prematurely & to stay ahead of the Mercedes factory duo, Hamilton & Rosberg. This apparently did not suit Vettel, who proceeded to engage in some pretty aggressive maneuvers to get around Webber. Webber defended—I've written in the past that Webber is a bastard to pass, in the best sense of the word—but Betel got 'round him, took the lead, & ultimately too the grand prix. (Over the radio, Rosberg repeatedly requested permission to pass the slower Hamilton, but each time the Mercedes engineers radioed back that Hamilton was maintaining an instructed pace, that Hamilton had speed in hand that he was not showing, & that Rosberg should hold station, which Rosberg duly did.) Vettel has come in for criticism since, but I fail to understand why. Had the two red Bulls finished Webber-Vettel thenRed Bull would have netted forty-three points in the Constructors' standings; by finishing Vettel-Webber, Red Bull still netted the maximum forty-three points (twenty-five for first, eighteen for second), but Vettel jumped out to a nine-point lead over Räikkönen in the Drivers' standings; whereas a Webber-Vettel finish would have left Webber & Vettel tied atop the Drivers' standings, only tow points ahead of Räikkönen. Is not the point of the exercise for each driver to attempt to win every grand prix? Is not every championship point worth its wait in gold? Last year, Sebastian Vettel won the Drivers' Cahmpionship over Ferrari's Alonso by a grand total of three points. By finishing first instead of second, Vettel picked up seven extra points, which by season's end could very well be the difference between winning his fourth consecutive Drivers' title & finishing second to someone else. Yes, there is a possibility that Vettel & Webber could have crashed, but they didn't, & where there is no risk there is no reward. Vettel is twenty-five & a three-time World Champion; Webber is thirty-five &, while a brilliant driver & a multiple grands prix winner, has never been the F1 World Champion. Is it not Vettel's duty to himself & the audience do everything in his power & within the rules to win races? And does he not better serve the team by maximizing his chances of winning the Drivers' Championship, since his odds of doing so are, to be frank, better than Webber's?

Will Buxton, first Speed's & now N.B.C. Sports' pit lane reporter, wrote the following on his blog:

Why? Because winning is his nature. It is what he lives for. It is all he knows. All he can accept. Because on a day when Fernando Alonso was not scoring, he’d be damned if he was going to play the backup man and lose seven potentially crucial world championship points.

But most of all, because he sniffed blood. And like the brutal, brilliant, beautiful racing animal he is, he pounced and struck a killer blow…

The Red Bull junior programme was established to create such a perfect monster: an unflinching, focused, machine. And in Vettel it has its perfect product.

(Alonso, Vettel's greatest rival, crashed out on the second lap after first ruining his own front wing by running into Vettel's car at the start & then arrogantly passing up the opportunity to pit for repairs. What a jackass! His comeuppance was thoroughly deserved.)

G.P.2 Series
Round 1
Sepang International Circuit
Saturday & Sunday, 23-24 March

So far, the move of American television coverage of Formula One from Speed/Fox to the N.B.C. Sports Network/N.B.C. has gone off mostly without a hitch. I credit this principally to two factors: one, both Speed's broadcast as N.B.C. Sports' use the F1 world feed, meaning that the photography has not changed even if the cable host has; two, N.B.C. Sports hired all its F1 personnel from the old Speed team: play-by-play announcer Leigh Diffy (reserve at Speed, primary at N.B.C. Sports), color commentator David Hobbs, color commentator Steve Matchett, pit lane reporter Will Buxton, & play-by-play announcer Bob Varsha (primary at Speed, reserve at N.B.C. Sports). Even "poet laureate" Sam Posey has come over, providing one of this lovely verbal essays before the season-opener in Melbourne. Plus, N.B.C. Sports is making a publicity push, including adverts across the family or networks & in automotive magazines like Road & Track. Hopeful signs abound, though a healthy skepticism remains.

What was lost in the shuffle, though, was the G.P.2 Series, the official feeder series for F1. (Four of the drivers on the '13 F1 grid spend '12 competing in G.P.2; curiously, the '12 G.P.2 champion is not among them, though he is an F1 reserve driver.) N.B.C. Sports covers Indy Lights, the feeder series into IndyCar, so why not G.P.2? The loss of G.P.2 coverage is not a tragedy, but it is unfortunate.

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