Great Scott! An exciting day in Spain – Valencia and Barcelona rarely deliver great races, but today we were served up a real treat.
By the last ten laps the edge of our sofa was a distant memory – we were on the floor, glued to our televisual box. Was it to be Pastor, Fernando or the Sett’s favourite Ice Lolly eater, Kimi Raikkonen? The wily Spaniard attacked, dropped back to manage tyres and attacked again. We waited and waited for the cliff, intermittently entertained by the bravery of Kobayashi and Vettel, who together defied the laws of Catalunya to pass at corners other than turn one.
But Maldonado hung on. It was incredible. Well done Pastor, we doff our caps. The organisational changes at Williams seem to have done the trick.
Michael Schumacher decided to continue with his worst start to an F1 season, running up the back of Bruno Senna into turn 1, spectacularly ending each driver’s race. We’re not quite sure whether we feel sorry for Michael yet, although we would side with the amiable Senna over the unscrupulous Red Baron.
It was a below par day for Red Bull with both cars having front wing changes (or a bizarre tactic?). On top of this, Vettel was given a drive through penalty for not slowing for the yellow flags. This makes us wonder what the wunderkid would have been able to do without this bad luck – after last season, however, we think he was due some.
In other news, Lewis Hamilton drove a mature race from the very back of the grid – avoiding many a collision in the process – to finish 8th. Button’s weekend went from poor to poor. We think he was suffering from over-steer, or was it under-steer? No matter. He ho hummed around to an 9th place finish.
If Lewis had have started from pole it all would have been so different. Still no win for the young Briton in 2012.
Five winners in five races, two double world champions tied at the head of the standings and little to choose between the men behind them. We say it a lot but today it’s impossible not to repeat our mantra yet again – F1 isn’t boring!
