The Driver Must Drive The Car Alone And Unaided

So as I write this there is no word on whether or not Nico Rosberg will be penalised for the pit-wall radio transmissions sent to him during the race. But Martin Brundle was frothing at the mouth over the prospect of penalties over something which he thought was stupid, "so because some driver hasn't memorised a manual the car is going to break" is about what he said.

I have no sympathy for that.

Firstly, you can't argue that knowing this stuff isn't part of a Formula One driver's job -- the regulations as they are today clearly make it part of the job.

Secondly, these drivers already have to know a ton of stuff -- tyre management, sporting regulations and procedures, all the car management procedures, how to talk to the media and sponsors -- a whole ton of stuff. These guys are paid a lot of money for what they do, expecting them to know how to drive the diagnostics system isn't exactly unreasonable.

Thirdly, you would think that with all the simulator work that the teams do they could run some scenarios to practice this kind of thing so that the drivers get used to dealing with the menu system while in the car and under pressure.

Finally, there's a lot of money in Formula One, surely if the menuing system is too complicated they could have someone make it simpler?

(There's also the issue that most of the rules are geared towards making failures more likely rather than less -- increasing attrition and "interest" in the proceedings. But that's a separate concern.)

I think that Mercedes will be penalised somehow. And there will be a lot of complaint.

Conspiracy Theory

So usually I'm not one for a conspiracy theory, but, the fact that immediately after Pirelli's proposed tire changes got blocked by some teams we had a cluster of potentially dangerous tire failures, leading to a clamor to change the tires.... is awfully interesting.

I wonder who is playing the opportunist now?

Personally I buy the theory that the combination of inappropriate low pressures and inappropriate use of the kerbing areas led some drivers to experience failures.  Not tire construction issues.

A Championship-Affirming Result

Quick thoughts from Britain:

• Alonso was right after the race -- it is disappointing to run at the front all afternoon only to be passed shortly before the end by a car that's doing better on its tires.  But had things gone the other way -- had Alonso been digging around in third and managed to bag second only laps from the end, we would all be ecstatic.  At the end of the day, Alonso extends his Championship lead over everyone except Webber.  So while a win would have been nice, this result is the sort that can lead to championships.
• Nice to see Massa have a decent day and end up with fourth.  That makes this weekend the most successful for Ferrari yet this year.
• Not cool: TSN pre-empted live coverage of F1 for Wimbeldon tennis.
• Also not cool: the TSN-main channel broadcast the F1 race at 11PM Eastern on Sunday night.
• So I ended up taping, and watching, the french RDS coverage of both qualifying and the race itself.  Since I'm not french-speaking, it was harder to follow -- although the only thing I was totally lost on was the translations of the itallian Ferrari transmissions.

Victory!

So I suppose it would be inappropriate to let the first victory of 2011 pass unremarked. Alonso clearly had the car and the talent to get the job done on Sunday at Silverstone, romping away from the Red Bulls and the obviously disadvantaged McLaren in a manner that only Vettel had demonstrated thus far this year.

At this point I do not think this marks a revival of Ferrari fortunes for the year. I think that Ferrari benefited from the changing conditions through the weekend by managing to find the correct solution for their car at the right times. I also think that the radically changing exhaust rules through the weekend worked to their advantage, as the more-effective systems on the Red Bulls and McLarens were being affected by the rules changes that were happening between the sessions.

So this may very well be a one-off for the year; "normal" service may well resume at the next event.

The biggest effect on the track activity was the behavior of those mangling the technical rules during the event. When the rules are being adjusted between the sessions, one cannot plan effectively to put in a program to dial the car in to the track conditions. McLaren was the most visibly affected by this, although I personally put Red Bull's vulnerability down to the effects of the uncertainty.

To announce now that the rules changes will be changed again, throwing out the new interpretations of the rules in favor of bringing in more specific regulations for 2012 -- well frankly this should have been the strategy from the start. The FIA's technical regulators really dropped the ball on this one.

So we'll enjoy the result --even if we would have preferred Massa to put a proper pass on Hamilton on the last lap -- but be fully prepared for more frustration as the rest of the season progresses.

Well Played, Sir.

Seems like bad luck is following Alonso around this year the way good luck is following Hamilton.

Yesterday's result, however, can be laid at Alonso's feet almost entirely. He claims he had an issue with the clutch at launch; whatever actually happened, Alonso fell backwards through the grid in the run up to the first corner. He found his feet ahead of his team mate, however in my view he defended his line rather aggressively against Massa, triggering a collision with the result that Massa had a tire go down and was forced to pit at the end of lap one. Thus ended Massa's day.

Later on Alonso got tangled up with Kubica, engineering a situation where he allowed himself to be forced wide, cutting the corner -- after which he went charging off into the distance.

At that moment I said Alonso had cut the corner and should hand the place back. To do so now would mean a loss of 5 seconds; if Alonso stalled long enough, the FIA would force him to make a drive-through which would cost him 20 seconds.

And isn't that more or less exactly what happened?

The fact that Alonso's penalty was assigned just before a Safety Car period was just bad luck, but with all the bad-mouthing of the FIA and stewards that has been coming from Ferrari over the last two weeks I don't think anyone in the stewards' room felt terribly bad for Alonso.

The net result was Ferrari's worst event since something like 1988. Well done, sir.

(Update: I stand corrected, it was the worst finish since 1978:

But Ferrari suffered their worst two-car finish since the 1978 French Grand Prix, when Gilles Villeneuve and Carlos Reutemann finished 12th and 18th respectively.

Worst result in 32 years. Outstanding.)

The whole weekend makes me think about going back and looking through the other incidents of Alonso having bad luck to see how many of them he actually engineered for himself.

Somehow I don't think this is the kind of result envisioned by the Ferrari team directors when they ousted Raikkonen and had Alonso join early.