Perspective

If someone had told us immediately after this year's disappointing pre-season test that Alonso would be 10 points behind the championship leader with two races left to run, I think we'd be ecstatic.

2012 has been another year where the car's performance has been constantly downplayed, yet Alonso has managed to score good points with it more often than not.  Combined with an excellent reliability record, plus no little luck avoiding other cars (Belgium perhaps excepted) and Alonso has placed himself in position to catch Vettel as the season winds down.

Unfortunately it isn't a case of catching Vettel, per se.  It is more a case of continuing with the reliability and consistency and being in a position to capitalize on Vettel's misfortune.

Sunday in Abu Dhabi offered hints as to what might have been.  Had Vettel not profited from the safety car periods falling when they had, Alonso might have cut the points lead that much more than he did.  However you can't wish away Vettel's good luck any more than Vettel could wish away the bad luck from Saturday.  Had that not happened, I think there's little doubt that the Red Bull would have circulated comfortably ahead of the Ferrari and the points gap would be larger than it is.

Red Bull is clearly the faster car right now -- I think Webber's fumbling around with it shows that the car has elite speed.  Massa's Ferrari still lacks parts that are on Alonso's,  but even so neither Ferrari can seem to live with either Red Bull right now.

With only two races left to run, the odds of a technological breakthrough diminish.  And we are definitely into the part of the season where express effort now against the rest of the 2012 season will negatively impact the 2013 campaign.

I think barring an extraordinary run of bad luck for Vettel, the title is his for 2012.

Those of us who cheer for Ferrari will once again have to be disappointed that the team came so close -- again -- and start contemplating next year.

Charmed Life

Red Bull drivers led a charmed life on Sunday.

While no one can dispute that Vettel got his act together when it mattered and managed to be in the right place at the right time, much of his spectacular result can be placed at the feet of profiting from the Safety Car periods that happened when he did. Further, while all the chatter about him passing a car while outside the white lines on lap fourteen, I counted no fewer than four changes of direction while he vigorously defended his position.  Vettel comes away very fortunate that he was permitted to continue without a sterner penalty than just giving back the position.

Webber, on the other hand.  His first collision I can excuse as a racing incident.  The collision with Massa similarly I would be willing to write off as a racing incident.  But my view is he caused Massa to spin -- the long-lens footage is inconclusive, but the in-car camera from Massa's car clearly shows Webber charging back on-track in front of the Ferrari, causing Massa to take abrupt avoiding action.

Massa was right to be incensed that no action was taken.  I wonder how the stewards would have ruled had Massa failed to take avoiding action and clobbered the Red Bull instead?

The comentators gleefully claiming that Webber had "frightened Massa into a spin" didn't help, either.

Frankly when Webber happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time once too often and got clobbered by Grosjean's avoiding action, I thought it was merely karma.

It isn't in Webber's history to drive like this.  I hope this is merely a one-off performance, and not an indication of things to come.

Victory Laps, Compared

Right, you're on. First of us to win a race in 2012
gets the other guy to clean his pool.

Kimi Raikkonen once again shows us how it is done.  His victory in Abu Dhabi on Sunday might have been helped more than a little bit by Vettel's bad luck on Saturday and McLaren's fragility on Sunday, but he was in the right place when it mattered and kept his Lotus Renault in front of Alonso long enough to capture the win.

This I think is more in line with what Schumacher hoped for when he started his comeback tour three years ago. A car capable of being regularly competitive, consistant points-scoring finishes, and the occasional victory.  Then building towards being a championship contender in year three.

It hasn't worked out for Schumacher, who finds himself out of the top seats for 2013 and looking at a return to retirement.

Raikkonen has been the more consistent of the Lotus drivers in 2012 (although some of that is Grosjean's propensity for running into things on lap 1).  There have also been some odd strategic calls, such as in China where Raikkonen fell from 2nd or 3rd all the way out of the points over the space of a single lap.  But he never looked disinterested in the racing the way his critics accused him of being in his final year with Ferrari.  The Lotus was definitely top of the 2nd tier teams, hanging on to the bottom of the top tier -- and was usually in the right place to take advantage when the absolute top got it wrong.

This win is well deserved, and I think we all enjoy it more than we would have a Schumacher victory.  Schumacher is regularly out-shone by Rosberg, whom himself is not doing anything really special with the Mercedes.  The whole last three years make it look like Schumacher's time really has passed, and it is time for him to assume his rightful place as one of the historical elite.

Ironically, Raikkonen was hinting that he'd call it quits after 2013 before the race started.  It will be interesting to see if he finds himself in a more competitive Lotus next year and changes his mind.

Best Possible Result

Let's be honest -- third from Korea was an outstanding result.  With McLaren cursed with bad luck twice, the podium was there for the taking, and Alonso delivered.  Underscoring the lack of coherent opposition was Massa's 4th place, making this absolutely the best result possible.  Red Bull was just in another world and was never going to be caught short of bad luck in traffic or mechanical difficulties.

Ferrari is perhaps the #2 team at this point in the season, the problem is that Red Bull is the #1 and has an advantage in hand going into the end of the season.

For some reason both Mercedes and Renault have fallen away as the season ages -- the former more than the latter.  This isn't really surprising in the case of Renault, in fact one could make the case that their level of competition has remained more consistent through the end of the season than in previous years.  Mercedes' drop from the list of competitive teams is more surprising.

Short of Vettel having another DNF this year, I seriously doubt that Alonso can capture the title.  Vettel has had two mechanical failures, more than his share.  And collisions in traffic are really too much to hope for.  Alonso has suffered in traffic twice, again more than his share.  The car's reliability has been outstanding.  But all things being equal the Red Bull is faster.  So at this point, the title's is Vettel's to lose.

Ferrari can't stop at this point though because if Vettel does have some bad luck, Ferrari still has to be in a position to take advantage of it.

That's All: Schumacher Done?

So now the music has started to stop on the driver's seats for 2013.  Lewis Hamilton will move to Mercedes, Sergio Perez moves to McLaren, and Micheal Schumacher is basically left out in the cold.

When you think about it, of the top six seats, at least four of them were already locked up: Alonso, Button, Vetel and Webber were all locked up.  Hamilton looked like a forgone conclusion, and his move briefly freed his McLaren seat until Perez got tapped.  Only Massa's seat remains in doubt of the top six; and even if Massa isn't retained, it seems extremely unlike Schumacher will get the nod there.

I wonder if Schumacher either decided he was out earlier, granting Mercedes the ability to pursue a replacement.  I somehow think that had Schumacher put his mind to it, he could have re-signed at Mercedes with very little effort.  The fact that he didn't leads one to suspect that either he or the team had approached the other some time ago about 2013 to say it wasn't on; probably him, since if he'd wanted to go elsewhere I'm sure those kinds of inquiries would be impossible to keep quiet.

So I think this means the end of the road -- again -- for Schumacher.  He has been pushing hard in the car, but somehow I don't see him happy toiling away in an even lesser car.  His return hasn't been exactly plated in glory, and his best result of the last three years -- 3rd in Valencia -- came courtesy of extremely abnormal attrition ahead of him on the road.  Yes the Mercedes wasn't up to the task.  But I don't think anyone expected that this would be the limits of his second go-around in Formula 1.  I don't think it has been the embarrassment I feared when he announced his return.  But it isn't the triumphant cap on this career that was envisioned at the time.

Summer Is Over, Back To Racing

Two more races in quick succession.  Comments on Belgium:

• I called the trigger of the accident at turn 1 -- Grosjean didn't give Hamilton enough room, and they touched.  After that, Sir Issac Newton did all the work.  I didn't think that Grosjean should have been suspended for that move.  It was optimistic, yes; it was dangerous, yes; it was wrong, yes.  But if he'd done it at turn 2 instead of turn 1 and only taken Hamilton off, he'd only have received a grid penalty for Italy instead.  The fact that two championship contending cars were taken off, along with one car being tossed over Alonso's nose a couple of feet from Alonso's head I think played disproportionately highly in the minds of the stewards.
• That said, I didn't mind Button winning in Belgium.  Alonso escapes his bad luck with his championship lead intact, and one less race remaining for those behind him to catch him.
• I sure hope that the first turn collision doesn't make enclosed cockpits "inevitable".  Enclosed cockpits would be even harder to see out of, especially during wet races, and potentially would hinder drivers' abilities to get out of the car quickly.
• Maldonaldo probably should have received a one-race ban.  He's been involved in too many incidents this year and needs to calm the f--k down a bit.  That said, his jumped start made me laugh, recalling previous drivers explaining that their transgressions were not jumped starts, they were just "good anticipation".  And the comments about Ferraris in Italy who's races just happened to start a half second before everyone else's.  Good times, good times.

Quick comments on Italy:

• TSN didn't start the qualifying coverage with the commentary feed, and frankly I think that would have been an interesting experiment -- just have the noises of the cars for the qualifying session.  Reminded me of that time a few years ago where some labor dispute left CBC broadcasting hockey games with no commentary, only the noises from the rink.  Sometimes the commentary is just blather, with the hosts talking just for the sake of filling air time, not leaving the viewers the time to think about what has happened for themselves.
• And while we're on the topic of TSN, the lack of proper audio-video synchronization continues to annoy me.  The video was about two-thirds of a second ahead of the audio, you could really tell on the in-car shots where the driver would pull the down-shift lever and the engine note wouldn't immediately adjust.
• Ferrari's playing with tows down the main straight in qualifying was interesting, but ultimately futile since A) Alonso had mechanical problems on his run, and B) Massa actually managed to go faster at the end when he didn't have a tow.  Monza is probably the only circuit where such playing around might even possibly be productive.
• I though the aggressive defense that Vettel was putting up against Alonso through turn 3 was probably over the line, but only marginally.  If Alonso had lost control and speared the Red Bull then it would be open and shut... but it wasn't.  It is another data point for wondering where the FIA is going with this crack down.  So between this, Vettel-vs-Button from Germany, and Hulkenberg-vs-Maldonaldo in Hungary, we can predict that had Vettel hung onto the track in Germany and been punted by Button, the stewards would have punished Button for failing to leave sufficient room for Vettel.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.
• Seems like a strange quirk that there was so much action coming out of turn 3, that the cars would be suitably fast yet not suffer from following so close behind the car ahead.  This is probably just a quirk of the track and the current technical rules.
• Vettel's falling away with another engine problem was disappointing from a competition standpoint.  I would rather Ferrari beat Red Bull on the road, not because the Red Bull is parked at the side of the road.
• Button's retirement probably puts his title hopes to bed for this year.  While there's still some of the spin-the-wheel-of-random-results going on, Alonso's Ferrari is consistently near the top of the results sheet race in and race out.  While it is possible someone -- Button or someone else -- could put together a string of race wins and catch him, I don't see it happening unless Alonso suffers another DNF.
• The Renault powered cars are probably glad to see the back of Italy and Belgium, since they don't seem to be deal well with the requirements for straight line speed over all other considerations.  Webber especially hasn't done well since the summer break ended.
• This time I'm not as impressed with Perez's results storming through the field at the end of the race.  He showed good tire management to drag his first tires as far as he did, and then had the benefit of exponentially fresher tires over the opposition at the end.  It was a good strategic call, and while Perez had to be competent to pull it off, I don't see it as an exceptional drive.  Plus, of course, it profited from at least Button's early departure, if not Vettel's as well.

Data Point

Kinda interesting that almost immediately after I wrote about the FIA having to decide what happens when cars collide because one is trying to stay on the track that Maldonaldo gets involved in an incident.

The details: Maldonaldo was catching Hulkenburg's Force India.  Maldonaldo made a pass attempt from wa-a-a-a-y back, and had to fight the car to control it on the exit.  This required him to counter-steer to control some over-steer as he put the power down.  Unfortunately for him, Hulkenberg was still hanging on around the outside, giving Maldonaldo lots of room.  Not enough, as Maldonaldo's counter-steer thrust the Williams' front left tire into the Force India's side pod, and Hulkenburg was summarily punted off the race track.

Perhaps because it was Maldonaldo, who's shown no reluctance to bounce things off his car should it suit him, the stewards awarded him a drive-through penalty for "causing a collision".

Not "causing an avoidable collision".

I guess if you are the driver making the pass, the onus is on you to make it cleanly.

At least we have a data point to hang the stewards with in the future.