sofaF1

Red Bull dominate as Brawn fade in the coolness of an English summer. Great result for Red Bull with another one-two, at Silverstone in the dry this time, showing that they really do have a pretty good car and are in the hunt for the title. Button struggled to beat his qualifying position of sixth, but still holds the championship lead nicely. The race is on, can Red Bull overhaul Brawn over the second half of the season?

But what about SofaF1? Fourstar lumbers into action with more than a third of his points this year in one race alone! Igor and Nick still at the top of the table but the midfield is getting pretty busy.


Round 8

Aitch 11
Fourstar 10
Nick 7
Rod 7
Alex 6
Mr C 5
Bearded Stew 5
Igor 5
PatW 5
RG 3
Christine 3
Sean 3
GrifF1 2
Takuya 2
Jackie 1
Pete 1
Lou 1
Piqued 0
Jeremy 0

Championship

Igor 51
Nick 48
Mr C 39
Rod 37
Bearded Stew 37
Aitch 35
Christine 34
Lou 34
Alex 33
PatW 31
Pete 30
Sean 29
Fourstar 28
Jackie 25
GrifF1 25
RG 18
Jeremy 14
Takuya 10
Piqued 9

So will some of our competitors be breaking away this weekend or will everyone remember to put in their entries for the SofaF1 British Pole Poll.

What do we want? The pole sitter and the top eight point scorers for the race

When do we want it? Before qualifying starts.

Good luck!

Another race, another win for Brawn and Button. Red Bulls are getting closer with Vettel taking pole, but gave the lead to Button on lap one and couldn't regain it again. Webber's superior strategy leapfrogged him ahead of Vettel too, while Barrichello retired the Brawn for the first time. Every one else was pretty much playing catch up, Ferrari improving a bit but still not anywhere close. Rosberg finally has a good finish result in fifth after all his speedy practices.

Round 7

Mr C 12
Sean 9
Aitch 8
Bearded Stew 7
PatW 7
Nick 6
Alex 6
Pete 6
Fourstar 5
Igor 5
RG 4
Christine 4
Jackie 4
Rod 2
GrifF1 2
Lou 2
Piqued 0
Jeremy 0
Takuya 0

Championship

Igor 46
Nick 41
Mr C 34
Lou 33
Bearded Stew 32
Christine 31
Rod 30
Pete 29
Alex 27
PatW 26
Sean 26
Jackie 24
Aitch 24
GrifF1 23
Fourstar 18
RG 15
Jeremy 14
Piqued 9
Takuya 8

So Ferrari believe that Turkey might well be their turning point for the season, but what do you think that's what we're here to find out.

Other possible excitements for this race weekend include the possibility of somebody other than Jenson winning a race - hey it could happen.

We were told earlier in the season that Turkey will be the race which decides Piquet's fate. But in many ways Bourdais looks closer to the brink. Not for points but it might be fun to see who you guys think wil be the first driver tone shown the door.

ShortList.com: Brit Grand Prix competition

[I wrote this originally as a comment on Sidepodcast. This was in response to a number of people saying that it was already becoming boring that Brawn were winning all of the time. Here is a link to the context: http://www.sidepodcast.com/2009/05/26/daily-26th-may-2009/]

I like Jenson but I don’t think he’s as good a driver as some of the others on the field. However, some are saying that Jenson doesn’t deserve to win. It’s difficult for me to understand what “deserve” means when this season shows so strongly how important the car is to a driver.

It’s fair to say that Lewis beat / is beating Hekki pretty easily. And depending on your opinion he beat Alonso in his rookie season (if you don’t believe that bit then read the sentence as “he got very close to Alonso in his rookie season”). Jenson hasn’t really been able to dominate his team-mates. That has always worried me about him.

Jenson deserved a win (or several) to make up for all the years of terrible cars that he had. But then people started asking the uncomfortable question… Does he deserve to win the world championship. Like they did with Massa last year.

It’s the same question people have been asking about Brawn earlier. Do they deserve to win when they just arrived in the sport?

The answer to all of these questions is very simple for me. Formula 1 is not a driver sport, it’s a team sport. The team works together. The team are hugely influential on the drivers performance.

Jenson had faith in Ross Brawn. Brawn knew that if he built Jenson a good car he could win the championship. They, as a unit, have pulled off possibly the largest upset in F1 history. And people are asking if he or they deserve the championship?

Regardless of the jokes that people make, your granny could not drive an F1 car. It is hard to do. But a large part of the sport is working as a leader in your team. It’s what Schumacher did before and in many ways it’s what Jenson is doing over at Brawn. He is the lead driver at Brawn.

Lewis works for McLaren, the mechanics don’t seem to look up to him. Who do the mechanics look up to at Ferrari? Nobody. The mechanics are unled. They don’t want to do it for their driver. But I bet everyone in that Brawn team over the off season knows how much Jenson committed himself to that team. They know that he cut his salary to keep the team going. They were working for their driver.

That doesn’t make Jenson a faster driver, no. But it might well make him a better driver. And Brawn definitely deserve it.

As Bernie said when Ferrari won all those times, “it’s not Ferrari’s fault they are so fast, it’s everyone else’s fault that they are all too slow”.

But yes the racing isn’t very close, moment to moment, the racing isn’t as exciting as it could be. But what Brawn are doing as a whole really is very exciting. At least it is to me.