Such a madness! - 2019 Brazilian GP

What a crazy race ending resulting in two Honda-powered cars and a McLaren on the podium.

To be fair, as I live in Japan, the race start was at 2:10 AM and I stayed awake to watch the race. Around one hour later I could figure that the race had its interesting moments already, but I noticed my eyes really wanted to close. I said to myself "I will stay awake until the chequered flag". However, from the moment when Bottas' engine gave up and the Safety Car was deployed my eyes were suddenly so awake! Everyone was close again!

For some reason I saw the contact between the Ferrari coming. After Leclerc went passed into Turn 1, Vettel repassed again on the backstraight, however both cars were close on the right side of the track. Vettel moved early to the left and slightly hit Leclerc. The sad thing is that it was just a minor contact and had huge consequences. You can argue that Vettel tends move to early when his car is only half way through. As Webber once said something like: "the end of his helmet his not the end of his car". The whole situation also a bit reminiscent to Turkey 2010.

Nevertheless, the situation caused another Safety Car with having 3 of the 6 top cars out of the race. A situation where the midfield teams smell points. And then Hamilton goes to the pits and gets fresh tyres temporarily creating a Honda 1-2-3 during the final SC.

As Verstappen moved away Hamilton who got past Gasly collided with Albon. Another unfortunate collision, the rookie driver in the Red Bull maybe left the door a bit wide open giving Lewis the chance for an attempt on the inside but there was no room.

This put Gasly in P2 and Hamilton got a slightly damaged front wing and bit more than one lap to go to get P2 back. From the last corner to the finish straight we got an epic side-by-side battle with Gasly keeping his Honda-powered car in front of the Mercedes in a close finish.

After all what Gasly has been through this year: His bad performance and pressure at Red Bull Racing with the subsequent demotion in the summer break and the loss of his childhood friend Hubert during the weekend in Spa-Francorchamps... He achieved for what is it fighting for, he made it to the podium.

And Sainz even had to wait longer: F1 debut in 2015, three years in Toro Rosso, switch to Renault, now found his home at McLaren. So many strong and consistent results this season but it was never enough, until today:

Starting from the back on the grid, finishing 4th on the line, waiting for the Hamilton penalty and finally getting a podium finish! Even though he had to celebrate it after the official ceremony but all the team went up the later as it was the first for McLaren since Australia 2014! 

All in all, fantastic race ending, a lot of drama and nice to see midfield teams getting lots of points when not everything goes well for the top 3 teams. Even Alfa Romeo got 4th and 5th position.

Crazy to watch, so unexpected, but that's why F1 fans wake up in the night! 

「２０１９後半」フェラーリの復活

今年の前半はほとんどメルセデスの時間だった。フェルスタッペンのオーストリアとドイツの勝ち以外。あと、カナダもベッテルの勝ちはずだった。
でもベルギーのレースからフェラーリは本当に強くなった。。特にシンガポールに！高速サーキットはフェラーリの一番似合っているですから、シンガポールは違う！でもフェラーリ買った。
ロシアにはフェラーリの勝ちはずだった。でもエンジンの問題のせいでVSCが来た。メルセデスの１-２になりした。

来週末は鈴鹿サーキットのれーだ。ベッテルの大好きなサーキット。私も見に行く！たのしみ！

「私について」
私は日本語を勉強しているドイツ人に大F1ファン。だからもっと上達したい。好きなことを書くはいいアイデアとおもう。だから失敗あれば、お知らせてお願いします。

Astonishing drive by Max Verstappen

I wouldn't say I called it but after I heard that it would be raining all day I expected a great race from Max Verstappen. On a little betting game at a small motorsport forum I even bet Verstappen for the victory. And I wasn't too far of!

In fact if they hadn't make the call to change for Intermediate tyres only to change back to Full Wets it's fair to assume that the young Dutchman would have had a chance to fight Hamilton for the victory.

After that pit stop he fell back to around 14th position and made that stunning drive back. He passed guys like Vettel, Hulkenberg, Sainz and finally Perez to finish third just after the two Mercedes. At that moment many thought what could have been. 

But the Red Bull driver wasn't fussing around - for him the result felt like a victory. He would even compare it with his first race win in Barcelona at the beginning of the year.

And even at earlier stages of the race he showed his ambitions for that race: Passing Raikkönen as soon as the Safety Car was in. Later another pass on Rosberg on an alternate line after the Senna-S.

He was criticised on many occasion during that season - mostly I couldn't agree. In fact I don't like this whole new 'moving-under-braking' debate and the new rule which was introduced for the US Grand Prix. That's something where I hope it's going to be banned. Hearing opinions from Marko and Lauda today they have a similar opinion.

Anyway: Max was able to show his skills in a proper wet race today and got lots of Brazilian fans. And the way he was avoided a crash into the final corner where Ericsson and Massa weren't lucky to escape was perfect car control.

So Max, keep doing what you're doing and hopefully the next years championship is yours!

About the new failed Qualifying in Melbourne

The first race wasn't even started and we already experienced an embarassing situation by a failed introduction of a new Qualifying mode.

I don't know why it was even changed, but my first thought was: 'Ok, let's see how it goes.' Especially during the last week were lots of discussions about the necessity for that system.

And today was the day many were exciting how the whole system would work in real. It started with Q1 and you couldn't see a counter on the screen which should show by what time a driver is eliminated. So Pascal Wehrlein was already out and many didn't notice. It took almost to the end of the session get a specific timer on the screen.

By then it gave me the impression many driver or teams didn't notice that they were too late. In case of Haas and Manor we know they misjudged the whole situation.

At the end of Q2 both Force India waited to save P9 and P10. And in Q3 it got boring: As soon as Verstappen sensationally secured P5, only the Mercedes tried a little battle for Pole Position, but the result was clear four minutes before the time was over.

But the end of the Qualifying there should be a showdown. The best drivers fighting for the best position. In the current scenario this scenario would work with only two drivers. And these two drivers should have some tyres left. But if not, nobody goes for a run.

Almost nobody - except Kimi who doesn't care - was not complaining about the new system. While discussions are already going on to change it back for Bahrain, many people in Social Media have their own ideas like:

• a usual Qualifying - than reverse grid - and then one chance for a hot lap to change that
• getting back the system which was used until 2002
• only change Q3 back to the old system
• extra tyres only for Qualifying
• and so on...

Let's see what happens. It's clear that things will change and probably back to the last year's system. Anyway, this whole scenario was embarrasing: First saying we introduce the elimination Qualifying (and this was by the end of February/begin March), then no - software won't be ready until Australia, will start in May for the Spanish GP, then no, will start in Australia, no problem with the software.

And now the whole thing is going to change again. They can do better. Such ideas should be thought through and should have acceptance by the mayority. Many drivers disagreed before, many fans complained even before... All this at short notice forced through.

Ok, enough complained. They'll fix it. Hopefully.

A tribute to Pastor Maldonado

Maldonado after his Friday practice crash in Spa 2015

Pastor Maldonado is not going to be on the grid in the upcoming Australian GP. Time to look back at his five year F1 journey with his highlights and bad moments.

I didn't follow GP2 that much so I didn't know too much about him when he arrived at Williams in 2011 after being GP2 champion.

At first, he was the one who forced Nico Hülkenberg out of his Williams cockpit. The main reason: His big sponsorship from Venezuela.

But then came the race in Monaco 2011: There was a crash between Hamilton, Petrov and Buemi which caused a red flag just a few laps before the end of the race. And Maldonado made it up to P6 in an inferior Williams. That was the first time I really noticed him. I also felt bad for him after the race was restarted and Hamilton pushed him out in the first corner. There were lots of points possible for him and when you look at the standings of that season: He only scored one point in the whole season!

In the next season it looked a lot better for Williams. The car was much faster and also very competitive on some occasions due to the Pirelli tyres which caused lots of different scenarios in 2012. But Maldonado also threw away many points in that season - starting with the first race where he crashed into a wall while following Alonso.

But his highlight was clearly the Grand Prix of Spain in Barcelona. He inherited the Pole Position from Hamilton and won the race there ahead a certain Fernando Alonso. But the thing is we never saw such moments of glory again. In the following race in Monaco he faced reality: He caused a crash with Perez in Qualifying and didn't even make the first lap because he ran into a HRT, damaged his front wing and stopped on track.

In the following eight races he also wouldn't score any more points at all. Maybe worth to mention: In Spa Maldonado was qualified at sixth position, but after a jump start he got innocently involved in the big crash caused by Romain Grosjean.

Later in the season he scored a few further points, but there was a lot more possible throughout 2012. And by that time he became the victim of many jokes especially with pictures in social media. Things like 'Maldonado arrived in Monaco' with a crashed boat or even websites like hasmaldonadocrashedtoday.com.

In 2013 he only scored one point with another inferior Williams. I remember being at the race in Spa where he managed to crash into both Force Indias in the final chicane. And then he made a bad choice in terms of competitiveness for the 2014 season.

He switched to Lotus which were strong by the end of 2013, but they fell far behind. And Williams became really strong with their new Mercedes engines. Maldonado only scored two points and seemed to be obligated to entertain the audience with incidents. The heaviest one was clearly the crash with Esteban Gutierrez in Bahrain which caused a somersault of the Sauber.

In 2015 Lotus switched to Mercedes engines which made them stronger than in the previous year. But Maldonado was especially in the first half of the season involved in many incidents, but in the end of the season he even showed some consistency. He managed to score points in four out of five races - something he never did in Formula One before.

At the free practice session on Friday in Belgium I was pretty close where he crashed into the wall. I saw people running and I followed them. There was a crashed Lotus and it seemed that it could only be him...

His last race was in Abu Dhabi where Alonso crashed into him. That time he had no fault, but that was it. It was planned to continue in 2016 to race for the renamed Renault team, but financial problems of his sponsor forced him out of the cockpit. He plans to return in 2017.

Conclusion

Many people say he shouldn't be in Formula One and that he is just a paydriver. But from the fan point of view he is a great entertainer. In races where a Mercedes or Red Bull were superior in the lead we knew that Maldonado is still in the race and anything can happen.

And of course he's fast, he showed it with his only win in 2012. He managed something others will take years without achieving that.

But there's this lack of consistency, he got involved in many incidents and received lots of penalties. That's what made him a great character in Formula One - and not only by having this reputation.

Let's hope we see him return next or even within this season.

Korea 2010 - Red Bulls low point

Do you remember the first F1 race in Korea? It was surely the toughest one there at all.
After heavy rain the race was suspended only after three laps behind the Safety Car. The visibility was simply too bad.
Fernando Alonso told in team radio: "That was the worst condition I ever drove a car."
After a break of an hour the race was started again - but still behind the Safety Car.
While many drivers were still complaining about the visibility, Lewis Hamilton told via team  many times that wanted to race. Then, after a few laps the Safety Car finally came in after 17 laps of deployment.
But only after two corners Hamilton was overtaken by Nico Rosberg who started to close the gap to Alonso.
Unfortunately only one lap later the championship leader Mark Webber at second place lost the control of his car and crashed into the wall and Nico Rosberg couldn't avoid the collision with the Red Bull.
Both drivers had to retire and the Safety Car was deployed.
Rosberg later claimed that he would have been able to win that race - but we will never know.
So Vettel kept his lead for many laps. After another Safety Car deployment because of a crash with two backmarkers Vitali Petrow crashed out of the final corner.
The crash of Russian driver didn't cause a Safety Car, but at least a yellow flag in that corner.
At that time it became gradually darker because of the sunset.
Vettel started to complain that he could not see the braking point anymore while Hamilton told the team that the "visibility is fine". Red Bull obviously tried to force a red flag to save the victory.
But that didn't work and shortly after that Vettel got passed by Alonso and then the German had to retire with an engine failure at the long straight.
Fernando Alonso inherited the victory and took the lead of the championship.
Red Bull Racing were at their low point,but - as we now know - that couldn't stop them...

Will Barrichello return to Formula One?

Many rumours about a return of the Brazilian racing driver Rubens Barrichello occured in the last few days. Obviously the ex-Ferrari driver is interested to race for Sauber next season which would make him a big contender for his compatriot Felipe Massa.
Massa is also seeking seeking a cockpit after it was announced that his former team-mate Kimi Raikkönen will replace him to join Fernando Alonso next season. The vacant place at Lotus could be an option, but Nico Hülkenberg seems to have a better chance of getting the seat.

So Sauber would be the second choice for the current Ferrari driver.
Brazilian media reports that Barrichello would bring a two-digit-million dollar amount to Sauber.
Another rumour is that he could even drive at the Brazilian Grand Prix this season for the Swiss team.

He sometimes mentioned that he wants to have "a last race" where he will know if it's the last one.
Williams didn't give him that chance in 2011...