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F1 has made it to the dizzying heights of popbitch again...

>> Jensen's red face <<
Formula One cover-up in Monaco
Jensen Button is paid millions by his Formula One team, Honda, to drive a fast car around a track every fortnight or so and make sure he's not seen with anything belonging to one of their competitors. Jenson took delivery of his new speedboat last week in Monte Carlo harbour. Two huge engines were very visible on the back, complete with enormous Suzuki branding. Cue red races and flunkies rushing around with "Honda" stickers to cover them up.

Maybe it's true, maybe not, but after the reports of Lewis and the glamour girls last time, the trash press have a renewed interest in F1 all of a sudden!

So a statistician would be intrigued by the results of this weeks poll, I think. Before the race weekend there was a clear bias in favour of Kimi being a car breaker, and although that remains over the race weekend there votes for "Both" started moving the poll in a new direction. All that seemed to have happened over the weekend was a clear case (perhaps the clearest of the season) of Kimi breaking the car. And yet both was the new vote. Odd.

Personally I think that despite this weekend Kimi is generally not at fault for breaking the car. I think that he has a clear disadvantage though. One of the things that James keeps going on about is that Alonso is the more rounded driver and I think this might well be true, James also re-tells (and re-tells and re-tells) the story that when Alonso arrived at McLaren he said that he "didn't want a rocketship he wanted a car that could be thrashed around". This is actually the most telling example of Alonso's "roundedness" if true. And it's something that Lewis "I slapped the barriers four or five time" Hamilton is also reaping the rewards of. Kimi it wouldn't seem, would ever ask this of his team, he'd presume that Ferrari would make the car as fast and as reliable as it could be and he would do the rest. Alonso's genius is perhaps that he knew to ask for this. Kimi's car is less ready to take the kind of beating that the new generation of drivers are used to giving their cars. When Kimi went to McLaren it was too early for him to dictate terms to them. And after having Michael Ferrari weren't ready to hear it either. Alonso was able to tell McLaren what he needed because McLaren didn't know what to do. They knew that Alonso knew how to win more than they did.

So despite me making the poll I think it's that the car can't take it and it should be able to is the answer. Who's fault that is is perhaps the more important question.

We saw when Kimi got his car back into the pits that his pit crew were working great guns on trying to get the car back up and running, and then Luca stopped them but Kimi didn't get out of the car. Apparently all of the crew knew that there wasn't time but Kimi had come on to the radio and had shouted "we need to get that thing fixed, NOW"! He apparently never shouts at his crew, and is always calm and collected with them. They were so fearful that they kept working on it. When Luca told the crew to stop work he apparently stayed in the car for another 5 minutes with his helmet on so that he could calm down. I don't know the facts but my guess is that he knew it was his fault and he was more angry because of this. I can totally buy this argument. I can see Kimi as harsher on himself than his team.

Anyway on to the new poll. This is the change you would make to improve Formula 1.

Options:

Two races, one in qualifying order one in reverse order

No qualifying, race in reverse championship order

No Blue Flags

Longer Races

Classic separation of quali and race, eg. No race fuel.

No overtaking in pit stops

No pit stops

No fuel stops (just tires)

No tire stops (just fuel)

No change

The British Press are famously mean sons of bitches and they are so powerful that they know when somebody trys to snub them they'd rather shame them than let them get away with it. Ron Dennis has been denying the British press some access to Lewis - understandably he's so young - and the press are presumably under enormous pressure from their Editors to get the story. So it's easier to invent a story than try and explain the subtle difference between the what is allowed as strategy and what isn't in Formula 1. I have decided to write that article as it should have appeared in the press rather than the slams against Ron Dennis which have caused the FIA to investigate them. Here goes:

Basically, Ron Dennis who runs McLaren thought there would probably be a safety car so he set up his two cars in two different strategies one for if there was a safety car and one if there wasn't. He actually gave Lewis the more likely better setup which is why Lewis was so confident going in to the race. Lewis was set up better for the scenario of a safety car period occurring which round Monaco is pretty likely (it's happened the last four times). So he thought he was sitting pretty despite being on pole. In the end two things happened, there was no safety car and Alonso drove better than Lewis. By the end of the race the McLarens were almost a minute ahead of the Ferrari. They had lapped everybody except for that car. They were mega. So after the race when asked Ron said something along the lines of, "we controlled the race from after the first pit stops, our pace was so strong that we turned down the revs and took it easy". He was partly laying down a marker "we're so much better than you that we beat you by that much and we weren't even trying" and also speaking the truth they would have been mad to have their two drivers properly racing each other when they were so far ahead of the competition. They could crash and loose their advantage. This is part of the team element of Formula 1 and is totally fair.

It sounds similar to the thing that Ferrari got in trouble for a few years ago but there is a significant difference. A few seasons ago Ferrari got penalised for getting a faster Barrichello to move over to let a slower Michael pass him and win the race for points. That's banned. In this case Alonso was faster than Lewis, drove better than Lewis and the only way that Lewis would have won is if he had been given the better strategy by McLaren. Whoever qualifies better in Q2 at McLaren gets to pick the strategy so Alonso obviously picked the one that didn't include the safety car. If Lewis had wanted that strategy he should have been faster on Saturday.

He is really good Lewis and I really like him, I don't think he'll even have been disgruntled really. All that's happened is F1 is starting to be interesting to sports Editors in the UK and they want a) Lewis to win and b) It to be somebody else's fault when he doesn't. It's frustrating for us, but they just want to sell newspapers. I just hope the FIA doesn't do something stupid.

Not Hamilton, but Kubica. I only realised halfway through the race that it was the Pole's debut too. We were shown an on-board shot of Robert losing control at the hairpin and almost hitting the barriers. I thought to myself 'rookie mistake', then realised he was a rookie. Lewis, we have to admit, was soundly beaten by his teammate on his first time round the track in a car that was easily superior to everything else. Kubica, however, beat his teammate. And this isn't to mention the problem that affected him in the closing laps as he lost several seconds, the pit-crew were ready for him to come in, but somehow he gathered it all back together again and kept his place. (I have to admit my concern wasn't just for his performance, but for mine because I put him in as coming 5th!)

Well they say a win at Monaco is worth half a championship and certainly for Nick that seems to be holding true!

I was pretty happy that I picked the winner correctly and would have been happy with those four points, the fact that I got an extra point for Hamilton and another couple for Alonso on pole meant I could barely contain myself with my best points haul so far.

Nick on the other hand took it to a whole new level landing a massive 14 points, correctly getting Alonso on Pole, Alonso winning followed by Hamilton and Massa, and Kubica and Heidfeld taking 5th and 6th.

Fourstar picked Hamilton for second gaining 2 points and picking up a third point for Heidfeld.

Alex was a bit off with Heidfeld on pole although that would have been quality, but his omen in the morning was partially correct, it was all about Lewis (for him), who scored him his only 2 points.

Round 5

1 Nick 14
2 Bearded Stew 7
3 Fourstar 3
4 Alex 2

Which only just moves me up to second place in the championship, but we are all struggling to keep up with Nick at the moment!

Championship

1 Nick 34
2 Bearded Stew 20
3 Alex 19
4 Fourstar 15

Well, perhaps surprisingly most of the cars finished at Monaco this year, Liuzzi, both Spykers and Webber were the exceptions. Mark Webber again this time engine/transmission woes, maybe Coulthard swapped their gearboxes over when no one was looking! Coulthard didn't really fare that well either being disadvantaged by his 13th place grid position and trouble with his wings, but slipped back to 14th by the end of the race. Scott Speed on the other hand drove from 18th to 9th during the course of the afternoon in his Torro Rosso.

Rosberg qualified an amazing 5th just ahead of Webber, but a bad strategy left him languishing down in 12th. Wurz on the other hand did the opposite and hauled the other Williams up from 11th into the points.

Barrichello again kept his globe ahead of Button's dream although they both slipped back a place from where they started.

Heidfeld and Kubica did well again only being disrupted by Fisichella dragging his Renault round to maintain 4th.

Great weekend for Alonso with the pole, fastest lap and win, Hamilton and family understandably disappointed not to win this weekend but a great consistent result still showing he is a worthy contender and a win is bound to come soon. He is obviously very talented and should be a very successful racing driver. My only fear is what a win will do to him/his ego/his drive if it comes too soon.

It could happen at one of these next two races though…stay tuned.

Allegedly, the words of Lewis Hamilton when he went round Ste. Devote on his scooter before first practice, and before he whacked the barriers there with his McLaren. But it might also be a description of the fight set to take place today between him, Alonso and Massa. Elsewhere in the article from which this quote came, in The Sunday Times, were other quotes from Lewis - some seemed similarly youthful and enthusiastic, but some were much more mature and considered. I couldn't help feeling that's he's been infected by Ronspeak, or Ronnian as I like to call it. I hope he maintains the right balance. On the opposite page Martin Brundle gave his views on the weekend so far. If it rains, he said, which it seems like it might, all bets are off.

Guess what I saw this morning?



Perhaps it's a sign?

Are you? No, not that Hamilton is good - although I am - but that Jackie Stewart would make a good replacement for James Allen. His description of Alonso's lap of Monaco was one of the best single lap commentaries I've ever heard. I can't believe the amount of interesting information he fitted in to 1 minute and 20 seconds. Immediately I wanted to watch it again. I think he'd make a great commentator. Perhaps itv could let him do one or two just to see?

Two things occur to me.

One that when they were suggesting that it made no sense for Hamilton to go out again in Q1 because he was definitely safe I remembered that I had thought we had heard Ted saying a few races ago that in McLaren whoever got the better position in Q1 got the pick of the strategy.

Two that they are likely to be two laps different on fuel (between the McLarens) which would mean that there is quite a difference in pace between them especially at the beginning. Unlike Mark I think Lewis might have been light but compromised so he will be aiming to get past Alonso at the front.

I wouldn't be at all surprised to see them coming together at the start.

Monaco has lots of things that are funny about it. One is the way that the residents don't pay income tax. Another is that there is a street market every Friday. That doesn't seem odd you might be saying, lots of places have street markets. Well yes they do, but Formula One only has one street circuit and that's in Monaco too. You might think that the market would handily move to a wednesday or something at times of the grand prix, but no. The market came first so it keeps it's Friday slot and that means that the Friday practice sessions happen on a Thursday. They actually dismantle and rebuild bits of the circuit overnight.

Talking of rebuilding lets take a quick look at the practice sessions. Hamilton have his car an almighty whack yesterday in practice two and the mechanics are furiously rebuilding it. Given the extra day I'm sure they'll be fine. In practice one and two Alonso headed up the time sheets. This flatters Alonso slightly because he was the only major runner to use the super softs in practice one and hamilton obviously didn't finish practice two. The Ferraris haven't looked so fast. Certainly not in practice one on those harder tires. In practice two though Kimi was second, several places ahead of Massa. Some have suggested that Monaco is a bit of a bogey circuit for Massa. He certainly hasn't gone well here.

All important in this race is the qualifying and the strategy. Massa has been on pole a lot recently. Is he hiding his light under a sandbag?

Ferrari had a long run of success here in the first half of Michael's time with them but not for the last five years. In fact a different driver has won monaco in the last six times we've raced here. But the big disadvantage was always seen to be due to Michelan. Now that they are out of the picture anything could happen.

But as always it's your job to guess. At this race there's always a chance we won't get eight people finishing. What would happen then? Although as it's unlikely I think we should have all eight guesses (plus that all important poll). Good luck!


Click on the picture to be taken to a zoomable map (this has always been a feature but I forgot to tell anyone)

So at the Monaco grand prix you want to have your tires really soft. And you don't really want to have to use your hard tires very much at all. But the rules say you have to use them at some point in the race.

The one thing that we know about Monaco is that there is often a safety car. And that it's often at the begining. So it seems likely that at least some of the teams will start on the hard tires and hope for a safety car period in the first couple of laps. That way they will have used their hard tires and complied with the regulations and then they'll be able to spend most of the race on the ideal tires.

But Alex isn't there something weird about the way that the safety car period works this year you seem to be saying? Well as it's almost certain to be crucial I thought I'd better repeat the new rules here.

The pit lane is closed when the safety car is deployed. When the safety car crosses the pit entrance with an F1 car directly behind him the pit lane is open.

Then one-half to one lap before the restart the safety car will signal that all lapped cars go past the safety car and rejoin at the back. This is to stop a backmarker being in the middle of the pack.

So those are the new safety car rules. We'll probably need them just because Monaco is Monaco, but there's also a chance it might rain...

Well with all of this going on and the usual Monaco madness it's going to be a great race whoever wins.

Formula 1 cars are so aerodynamically tuned that they could drive upside down. Being this aerodynamically advanced has made the cars faster but the problem is that it is almost impossible to overtake one.

Several people have suggested a ban on wind tunnels. They have been the cause of the aerodynamic advances, and they are terrible for the environment. It's actually not the races or even the flying to the races that are the least environmentally friendly part of F1. It's the keeping dozens of wind tunnel centres running engines 24 hours a day blowing wind and measuring what it does when it blows over the cars.

The problem with banning wind tunnels is that the cars are currently difficult to overtake and would simply stay that way. There has to be an incentive to make cars easy to overtake. The only way to do this must be to make it imperative that you overtake in the race. If you must overtake you must create a car which can be overtaken. I think this is true. I know that in theory it must be possible to make a car which deals with turbulence from a car in front but still deposits incredibly disturbed air behind it. But I think if this vision was possible we would have seen it already. I think that if we made it imperative to overtake we would see cars being built which were less aerodynamically sensitive. They would have to be able to deal with anything thrown at them and still go quickly. And not be perfect machines.

So how do we make overtaking imperative? Surely in the pinnacle of motorsport it would already be vitally important? But no. As has been said before on this blog, "if you put all of the cars in order of fastest to slowest why would you expect any overtaking"? Overtaking happens almost by accident in Formula 1. When it happens it is all the more spectacular because of its rarity - a factor I worry about destroying with these proposals. And yet I will propose away because I think Formula 1 is nothing if not the fastest evolving sport in the world. It keeps changing and that's part of its charm to the seasoned observers.

So how do we ensure overtaking?

Well the first thought is always to reverse the grid at the start of the race, but that seems complicated. How would you get people to drive quickly in qualifying if they knew that the faster they drove the further from the front they would be qualifying.

The GP2 solution to this is to have two races, the first in qualifying order so fastest first and the second in the reverse order (only the top eight). This is something that Formula 1 could easily do but I think it is a bit tricky because it means two races and a qualifying. The two races might devalue each of the races. It might be too difficult to attract people to watch both of the events. In GP2 you get points for both which is how you make it worth it for everyone to do well in the first one. This system does work in the feeder series, so perhaps there is some merit, even though we seem to have rejected it in a previous SofaF1 Poll.

The next solution is requires very little modifying with the current Formula 1 race system. To get more overtaking almost everything could stay the same. All you would have to do is to get rid of the blue flag system. The blue flag system means that if you are lapping another car that car has to immediately spring out of the way (well within three blue flags being waved). This system means that races aren't compromised by weird situations where some cars are incredibly difficult to overtake and back drivers into the clutches of weaker cars. And yet that seems to me exactly the kind of thing that we want to see. If a driver can take advantage of a situation like this then it really means they are a great driver - it's almost nothing to do with cars at that point it is simply taking advantage of another drivers mistake.

My last offering is perhaps the most controversial and yet it would be easier to explain than the way that GP2 works. I think that perhaps this is my favoured solution. I think that we should get rid of qualifying, and re-instate the 115% rule. Eh? In this scheme during free practice every car would have to be within 115% of the fastest time in free practice. To make things less dangerous we could use the fastest time from practice 1, and say that you must get within that time in any of the sessions. This would stop the last practice effectively being qualifying. So if there is no qualifying how do we decide the grid? Well that's simple, we use the reverse of the drivers championship. The championship leader starts at the back, the person in dead last starts the race. One extra rule is that the constructor team scores no points for the first race with a new driver unless it is the first race of a season. This would stop teams from simply fielding new drivers every race to try and get them to the front of the championship. There is bound to be overtaking in this situation. Some might claim that the grid will be dangerous but already we have situations naturally where fast cars are at the back of the grid and what happens? They overtake the other cars, they tend not to crash into them.

So on Tuesday next week I'm going to put these three and "keep Formula 1 as it is now" into the SofaF1 poll, but if you'd like to add your own pet theory then I'd love to hear it and include it in the poll too.

I felt this morning that something was missing. Then I remembered: Imola. It had familiarly begun the European season in recent years, and I had forgotten that it had now been erased from the calendar. It's no coincidence that since Schumacher has retired there is only one German and one Italian race, and the prospect of two Spanish ones next year. Fans, and Bernie, are fickle. Should we really pamper to the whims of people who will stop watching the sport as soon as their driver leaves? Are they really watching the sport, anyway, or just following a celebrity-cult? The pictures of the bemused fans in the Spanish grandstand two weeks ago were interesting. Alonso wasn't winning. They had no idea what was happening. Yes, some of them, spurred on by the achievements of Alonso, have become genuinely interested in the sport. But most of them are just there for the ride. I, personally, am missing what was one of my favourite circuits, with a great corner, and its great name: Acqua Minerale.

So, Christijan Albers has finally said what we're all thinking: the switch to Michelins has hurt a lot of drivers, but advantaged rookies. Read the story here. Drivers like Lewis Hamilton have just arrived and driven what they've been given, but the old boys were used to either the Michelins or last year's Bridgestones, and are finding it hard to adapt. Renault virtually built their car around the Michelins and Alonso's driving style, thus making his switch to McLaren hard to handle. He had always been praised as a driver capable of adapting. By the end of the season we'll know if this is true. At Ferrari, the car was built mainly with Massa's input, who had always driven on Bridgestones, leaving Raikkonen out in the cold. Of course, such an explanation sounds too neat. It's probably a lot more complicated that this. Or it might just be Felipe and Lewis are faster drivers...

So we're not keen on a change to the F1 race weekend, SofaF1 wants to stick with one race per weekend:



It seems that on raw pace and when everything is going well for all of the drivers and if all of the drivers were in the same car people think that Kimi is the fastest driver that there is out there. So why hasn't he won a world championship yet?

This is a very dangerous position to be in as a driver because as I remember it that's what everyone said about Fisi a few years ago. The danger of becoming known as fast but unreliable is one that hangs sound Fisi's neck. And I'm afraid to say it will probably stay there because in his case it's probably true.

But in Kimi's case something different is going on. He is so intractable that we rarely if ever know what exactly is going on. All we know is that some days he's really fast and some days the car breaks. Kimi says nothing different regardless which invites speculation. None of which is probably right.

So last year the McLaren was unreliable and Ferrari were reliable. Now Kimi goes to Ferrari and Ferrari becomes unreliable. So my prediction is that we will start to hear all of those "car breaker" stories coming to the surface again soon. Why not blame Kimi Ferrari? It's easier than fixing the problem and Kimi won't even bother to explain why it's not true.

Because Massa doesn't seem to be having so many problems in the last few races people are bound to use that as a comparison. But Massa didn't finish the first race due to a lack of reliability. So this weeks poll is this: Is the Ferrari unreliable, or is Kimi a car breaker, or both?

There was only one question for Michael Schumacher during the Spanish Grand Prix and that was, "What are you going to do next"? He was asked it hundreds of times and usually gave wishywashy answers. But one time he gave this fantastic response:

"What could be in the future, who knows? If I knew that, I would be doing it."

I think we have to credit Mark Hughes as the man who first came up with the Hamilton-Monaco myth. I believe it was just after the podium ceremony that James said something like 'Now we go to Monte Carlo where Lewis Hamilton has never lost'. It's possible that he came up with this statistic on the fly, but I think it far more likely that our man behind the mask, the power behind the throne, Mark Hughes, looked it up as the race was ending. As soon as he said it Alex and I were hooked, and so, it seems, was everyone else. In Tuesday's theguardian Alan "Thierry" Henry* said he thinks Lewis Hamilton might win his first race in Monaco, and quoted a clutch of former-champions who think the same. And now autosport.com and itv-f1.com think so too. So, as much as I want Hamilton to win, I'm going to go against the grain with my fiver and say we'll see the first serious mistake from Lewis at Monaco. He might dump it into a barrier in the race, maybe the first lap, but perhaps more likely is that he'll overcook it in qualifying and make an error at Ste Devote, Massenet, or the Swimming Pool chicane. He'll be too confident and complacent, believing all the hype, and then suddenly realise that he's going too fast, and the barriers are getting too close.

Incidentally, Massa is no Fisichella - we're all expecting, including Fernando it seems, that he'll eventually start making mistakes and going slower than Kimi, get dispirited and fall out of the title race. But maybe he won't?

*I think we should give all F1 people footballing nicknames in order to help our football-intoxicated readers, e.g. Fernando "Alonso" Alonso.

I was reading this post on F1Fanatic about Ross Brawn's dislike of the Formula 1 coverage when I was motivated to write the following comment. As it was quite long I thought I'd repeat it here:

The problem is that there are two roles in the commentry box. They should be divided up like a newspaper between News and Comment. And Murray used to do News and Martin did Comment. But James, desperately desperately wants to show off how much he knows about F1. It means that both of them end up doing Comment and we don't have a clue what's going on! It means that Martin sometimes, feeling embarresed no doubt ends up describing what's going on. All of their descriptions are far too slow because James has been taking his lead from Martin.

It should be like this:

James: Somethings happening on the track, somethings happening on the track. Something very exciting is happening on the track. Why is it happening on the track?
Martin: Because of x and then y and this is because of...
James: Sorry to cut you off Martin something is happening on the track. Something is happening on the track. Something is happening on the track.

When it is usually like this:

James: This week I had dinner with somebody who told me something that was relevant before this race started.
Martin: Really? That might mean the fuel in the race is going to be x.
James: Well I thought the complete opposite because I'm completely stupid.
Martin: That would be a stupid thing to think.
James: Yeah I know. I'm stupid. I'm stupid. I'm stupid.
Martin: Well while we've been speaking about that this is what's been happening on the track.
James: Let me re-cap everything that's been happening since the start of the race again, I haven't done that for 2 minutes and it's not as if you've been watching the whole race or anything and as far as I can tell nothing could possibly be happening now and if it is then it can probably wait a minute or two and I'll include it in my next recap of everything that's happened in the race.
Martin: You are stupid.
James: Yes I'm stupid.

Or something like that.

So Lewis Hamilton is leading the world championship after his fourth race in Formula One. You don't even need to know any statistics to know that this is the greatest Rookie debut of all time. I bet my bold claim after the first race that Hamilton is the next Schumacher isn't looking so crazy now?

Over at Ferrari a similar story seems to be playing out. Massa is leading Kimi. The key question perhaps is not, "why are the young guys so good", but instead, "what happened to the old guys"?

I think in the end the answer is going to be be all about tires and expectations. Massa already was on Bridgestones and people were so worried about if Lewis would be able to compete at the front end that they gave him so much training and testing it must have hurt. The two teams probably expected too much of Alonso and Kimi because the adjustment involved such a steep learning curve.

Alonso hinted at it at the beginning of the season saying that perhaps the rookies had an advantage because they were coming to the new compound fresh. At first this seems strange because surely the rookies are trying to learn both. But on the other side the experienced guys know what works for them and so try and get the cars set up in the same way each track. The problem is that they no longer can tell what parts are due to the car and what parts are due to the tires. This means that they are both trying to unlearn some of the instinct they've been training themselves to have over the last few years. And that kind of thing can be really unsettling.

Will it change? Well I think so. I think that Kimi has more chance that Alonso to make a difference. Why? Because he's acknowledging the problem. Just before the Spanish grand prix Kimi was asked, "Fernando Alonso has said that it is not a championship for four people, it is a championship for two - himself and you. What do you think about that?" To which he replied, "It doesn't look like it exactly. I think you never know. It is going to be a long season and for sure I don't think it is going to last like this all year. For sure something is going to happen to some drivers and then probably they will lose too many points to get back in the game any more. For sure now it looks very close and I cannot really say what is going to happen in the future. But hopefully we can come out on top."

At least he's willing to acknowledge the issue. That's good point number one. But it's also the way that he acknowledges it that's important. We may soon get an outburst from Alonso along the lines of his, "I don't think the team is fully behind me". At least that time he had the right to complain he was the leading driver in the team. This time he isn't and that might make things very hard.

Alonso is a class act so don't write him off too quickly just expect him to have a tough couple of weeks. Here's some facts to bear in mind:

McLaren have always been fast at Monaco

Alonso has never been fast at Monaco (he has won but only once. In the all dominant year)

Lewis has raced at Monaco 6 times and he's never lost.

I think it's worth a fiver.

Well, another average points tally for us here at SofaF1.

Hamilton was the key for all of us this week, netting myself and Alex a point each and Nick and Fourstar two. Alonso helped everyone out except me with a point for his front row qualifying. Nick and myself grabbed a point each for Alonso in the race and I managed a couple more by keeping Rosberg and Kovalainen in at the tail end of the points, I almost had Schumacher in 8th but fortunately changed my mind! Heidfeld and Raikkonen retiring hurt us all I think!


So after Round 4

Round 4

1 Bearded Stew 4
2 Nick 4
3 Fourstar 3
4 Alex 2


Which means the championship now looks like this, Nick leads but after 4 races even he has only scored 25%!

Championship

1 Nick 20
2 Alex 17
3 Bearded Stew 13
4 Fourstar 12


Well, a bit of an odd race in many way, the highest attrition rate of the year so far, wheelnuts flying off, loose wheels staying on, tyres shredding themselves, mirrors falling out, Massa on fire taking another pole, win and fastest lap!

Coulthard scored well with his Red Bull even though he was having a few problems with his jukebox. Webber's fuel flap worked this week, but unfortunately not a lot else. Barrichello again beat Button in both qualifying and the race, both of them though were hammered by Sato in the Honda that looks like a Honda, what a result for Super Aguri! I notice Fourstar in particular seemed to be lovin it!

Rosberg too did well to hauling his Williams up into sixth and Kubica replaced Heidfeld in fourth for another good position for BMW. Hamilton again looked pretty together and consistent scoring moves him into the lead of the championship, although there wasn't much of a fight among the top three after the first corner!


Roll on Monaco, could this be Hamilton's first win?

There were two things that annoyed me about today's coverage of qualifying. The first was that Steve Ryder said Hamilton had the 'moral advantage' after being faster than Alonso qualifying 2. I'm not exactly sure what he meant. I guess 'morale', but probably 'psychological'. Certainly Hamilton was not morally superior for going faster. The second thing that annoyed me was James Allen saying Massa had pole position, before Alonso had finished his lap. Everyone at the circuit, certainly, and at least me watching, was following Fernando to see what he would do. When James said Massa was on pole I was confused for a second. He was too, it seemed, as he then realised Alonso was doing about to finish his lap - and had been, up to that point, faster than anyone. As it turned out, however, James was right, but for that second I was disorientated. Very annoying.

The beginning of the European season has always been a bit like the season properly getting underway but with this years four week gap it's almost like the seasons beginning again, this is especially true because it's almost as though the main protagonists are starting from zero as well. We have a three way tie for the lead of the championship between Alonso, Kimi and Lewis and in fact Massa is only just behind.

So where did we leave the teams in terms of their pecking order? Well the Ferrari's are slightly faster than the McLarens but passing either car on the track is no easy business. (unless you're in a BMW - Ed). The teams seem to have had a strategy of filling their senior drivers with more fuel leaving them behind on the grid but hoping to make it work in the race with the slightly better strategy. This worked for the first two races but on the third the senior drivers found it hard to keep up with their heavier cars. The question those who are predicting is: will they continue to fuel them that way around or will they try and put the junior drivers behind to create a buffer zone?

Behind the first four are BMW who are sort of sitting out there in no mans land by themselves. Some have suggested that they made the largest strides during the four week break so they are likely to be sitting here or even pick off some of the weaker drivers from the top two.

Behind them is a clump of teams with only about a tenth between them all. This more than anything else has made our predicting life very difficult. Expect Toyota to do better than Renault in quali but worse than Renault in the race. Honda is anyone's guess. Super Aguri don't really have the budget to keep developing the car and it's an already developed car (end of season Honda from last year) so they are likely to tail off during the season but they are also improving their organisational skills so that might balance it out for now. Red Bull have doubtless improved over the four week break but they are introducing seamless shift gearbox this weekend, something that really plagued the far more organised BMW. They have claimed they have solved the reliability problems but saying you've done it is much easier than actually doing it. And finally Williams, after two big crashes they basically abandoned their testing at the Spanish track last week which would have hurt them except for the fact, possibly, that they were the only team from this pack to test here in the winter.

So where does that leave us? It's anybodys guess! No actually in this case it's our guess. Carry on.

Last weekend we were confronted by a friend who declared that F1 was not a sport. What do you think? His main problem was a common one: the machine. If the best driver had the best car he would win. That, for him, didn't make it a sport. The problem is that there are so many variables in the driver and the car that to call one the best, over the course of a whole season, is very hard. Frequently the best will change from track to track.

An even more significant rebuttal, however, is to argue that men are no different from machines. The human body is a piece of technology, only slightly more complicated, and moister, than an F1 car. It can be manipulated by its manager, its fitness coach, and its other players in a team the same way a car can. If you had the best players all in one team, wouldn't you win? I think the chances are the same as if you had the best driver and the best car. What if you had the best player in the worst team? Isn't that the same as putting Schumacher in a Spyker?

The 'human' element of a sport is a myth, I believe. A group of men might as well be a machine, or men building a machine. In the end, I think the closer you look the fewer boundaries you find between F1 and football, and the less capable you are of distinguishing one from the other, saying that one is categorically better, or purer, as a sport.

#38, has commented back on Three times a driver about how he feels De La Rosa would have been as good as Hamilton. I thought I'd drag my reply up to the top.

I think that Hamilton is very good, but I'm pretty sure he isn't as good as Alonso. He might have the potential to be, but as they say one swallow does not make a summer. The last race might have made it out that way but it was a clearly a matter of the drive suiting one driver more than the other.

I don't however think that De La Rosa would have done as well. He was pretty good but I have never seen him do anything like the first corner heroics that Hamilton has done. That's what's impressed everyone. He has innate racing nous. Some people can drive cars quickly and reliably (and almost every F1 driver counts in that category they have to) but some of them are born racers and I think that's what gives them the edge (Kimi, Alonso and Hamilton seem to have this).

Well the new tires seem to have the resounding backing of the SofaF1 readers. Clearly we think that there are still ways that Formula 1 can be improved. And it is on that topic that we focus for this week's poll.

This week Flav has been sounding off about how Formula 1 has become boring. And that he thinks F1 should look to the popularity of GP2. He wants two shorter races in a weekend, the second of which should have a reversed grid to encourage overtaking just like GP2. What do we think? Should F1 copy GP2s race weekend of 2 shorter races and a reversed grid?

Our Brazilian correspondent has recently returned from Rio de Janeiro with the news that the country is really getting behind Massa. He is obviously not as popular (yet) as Senna or Piquet, but people believe in him a lot more than they ever did Barrichello - who has almost been forgotten. They're encouraged by his ability to challenge Raikkonen, to not be willing to settle for second, and are backing him for the title (against the advice of us here at SofaF1). He certainly does seem a lot more comfortable at Ferrari than Kimi at the moment. The whole Michael phoning after every race is a bit weird, and as Ted Kravitz says, it probably helps Massa and makes Kimi uncomfortable. Can Kimi begin to turn it around as this week we head into the European races?

Were you surprised to read Ross Brawn's comments that the British TV coverage of F1 is not good enough? On one level, seeing as I had understood him to be friendly with the presenters, yes. But on another, of course not. He was the technical director of a multi-championship winning team. I don't think there was anyone on that grid who had more information available to them at any one time. As Alex and I have long since known, though, the TV coverage is simply not enough to follow a race. At the very least, you need to be viewing the live-timing from F1.com. But there is more out there, much more, that could help: the telemetry, for instance, and accurate pit-timings would ease a lot of confusion. When watching it on TV, I often feel the commentators are as lost as me - when really they should be guiding us through what is happening.

The question is, though, are Ross Brawn's comments aimed at British TV in particular, or TV in general? It could be possible that, working for Ferrari, he has seen a lot of Italian TV coverage, and generally approved - I believe they normally show every session of a weekend live, for instance. Anyway, what all of this points toward is a very strange picture we couldn't have imagined 5 years ago: Michael and Ross sitting on a couch watching F1. Surely we should ask them to join sofaF1?

Nurture has just edged out Nature in our poll (which I must admit ran for a bit longer than I was expecting - sorry about that). I, personally think that it really takes both but. It's difficult to seperate because without natural talent you won't get anywhere at all, but the same could be said for a lack of hard work.

Moving on to this weeks poll, This year we have a single tyre supplier and multiple tyres per race. Has this made racing Better, Worse or has there been no change?

Well in this period of enforced boredom I may as well do the only sensible thing left and kick off the silly season. The magic roundabout of who goes where is starting to get in full swing (behind closed doors) so why not make up some stuff about it and see what sticks?

Quite seriously I think the end of this season could herald another massive change in driver line ups. So much will depend on how everyone's season goes that it's probably a bit early to start guessing - but here goes.

Prodrive, the introduction of a new team means guaranteed new drivers in the field but will the new drivers be here or in another team? Don't be suprised to see 2MB driver (and current McLaren test driver) Gary Paffett at the team. That McLaren chasis doesn't come cheap. And it might even mean Pedro de la Rosa as well but I think that's less likely. Old Dave Richards will want to pick at least one of his own but will want to play it reasonably safe. He probably wants somebody he's worked with before. Somebody who is currently under valued (or at least think they are). How about Jenson Button. He hired him before after all. And Jenson must be desperate for a chance to prove he can be as good as Hamilton given the same machinery.

Jenson must be seriously looking around but who would take him. I've seen Red Bull suggested but I think Coulthard will get another year. It would be really mean for him to get a Newey transition car put all the work in and never get to drive the finished product. But this is Formula One I guess.

But still David doesn't look the oldest. Toyota look the oldest. I think both might make a graceful exit from Formula One to allow new talent in. But who to replace them?

How about Rubens. He also sounds like he's really stopped enjoying it. I thought he would do a Coulthard and mellow a bit but if anything he's got more frustrated. So I think he'll probably go.

What about Speed and Liuzzi they have both under delivered so far and we haven't yet seen the dramatic improvement, that we were promised.

And what of Fisi? He seems to be doing better that Heikki so far but can that last? Renault may want to pay big bucks to secure somebody decent but who would they hire. But certainly Fisi looks like the past rather than the future.

So that might mean seven new drivers in Formula One next year. Nine if you think David and Fisi are going. And the thing is that in itself probably means that at least some of this won't happen. Some of these drivers will cut their pay to stay in Formula One and find themselves at a lesser team. But the more old grandees at the back the less decent places there are. They can't all drive for the two Red Bull teams.

But I think the uncertainty will at the very least create a large game of musical chairs. The main pressure points are Jenson at Honda and three drivers into two spaces at BMW. We should not be suprised to find, when the music stops, some big names missing from next year.

But who do you think will be shoved asside, and for those of you who follow GP2, who do you think might take their place?