Nice fun race. Rosbergs first of many wins. An utterly dominant display on what was a perfect weekend for him. He made mistakes in qualifying for the first two races, here he extracted everything from the car and if he has anything to be disappointed about, it would be Schumachers retirement from the race. Martin Brundle made a funny comment as Schumacher pulled over 'oohh no, i have not been so disappointed since Shrek 2'
For Schumacher, the dream is over. Mercedes would have loved for him to take their first pole in so many years and score their first win. It would have made bigger headlines around the world and Mercedes would have sold even more cars. As it turned out, it's the man who is their future who got their first win since Fangio all those years ago.
Mercedes got lucky with conditions. Next weekend it will be back to where they were. Brawn said after the race that they made changes to the set up overnight from Friday to Saturday which made the difference. I for one think it was more to do with the cooler track temperature which allowed them to look after their tires. They have a quick car but not one that can dominate in the fashion they did today. The other teams got it wrong by three stopping. to quote Brawn again ' we knew the 3 stoppers would get caught out at the end ' Two stops turned out to be the way to go and all the three stoppers suffered with traffic. Of course teams had to get it spot on with a two stop strategy or they risked ending like Raikkonen.
Vettel showed Red Bulls race pace which is almost equal or probably superior to Mclaren. Red Bull only need a couple of tenths to be on par with Mclaren even if they can't match them in qualifying. Mclaren certainly didn't have the race pace to keep up with Mercedes. Even without Button's pitstop problem, he was not going to beat Rosberg, who had plenty in hand even when Button started taking huge chunks out of his lead.
The way this season is going, and i don't have anything to back it up with except a hunch, it's all playing into the hands of Vettel and Alonso. The fact that no one driver has won the first three races and built a big gap may well play into the hands of those two eventually. Vettel and Red Bull have a small performance deficit to overcome, Ferrari and Alonso, a much bigger one and a lot will ride on their updates for Barcelona and the in-season test but not having one driver win the opening races and being able to keep in touch with the leader will help both Vettel and Alonso in the second half of the season when they in all likelihood would have cars capable of fighting at the front. After all the talk, the promise, it's still the grande teams that are first second and third in the constructors championship and drivers title race and in the case of one team who shall not be named:-# only one of it's driver has scored all the points. In time these teams will move ahead of the likes of Sauber, Williams and Lotus/no name team.
Felt bad for Raikkonen. The sudden drop off was expected to be around lap 22 and it happened pretty much spot on. Vettel managed 21 laps and he had started to struggle. Another lap or two and he too would have gone backwards like Raikkonen but at least Red Bull managed it and Lotus/ no name team did not.
Solid race by Williams. Collecting valuable points when they can. Ferrari in the case of Alonso got shafted by their three stop strategy much like everyone else who stopped three times.
What a difference a couple of weeks make. Perez brought down to earth after a difficult weekend. And with videos of Kubica starting to circulate on the net, rumored to have done a few kms in a rally car, not the footage in the video but he is said to have done a few kms in the same car later, Perez might have to spend more time at Sauber, contracted to Ferrari while they try out Kubica and partner him with Alonso if he is up to speed. Welcome to the fickle world of formula 1(H)
Martin Whitmarsh feels the need to stir the pot after every race. Maybe this is his way of trying to play mind games with other teams. After Malaysia while being interviewed he said the phone must already be ringing for Perez to join Ferrari and it would probably happen by the next GP (China) or the race after that. Yesterday, he said something along the lines ' it was nice to see the two Red Bull drivers actually fighting on track. I am not sure if Webber would have been allowed to do that in the last two seasons'
One last thing. I have trouble logging into Pakwheels. When i manage to log in, it takes forever to go to the last post on a page, pictures take for ever to load and it's hard to post a reply. I get the ' operation timed out ' message. Is Pakwheels slow or something at my end, anyone?
