sofaF1

A bit of a return to normality this week, with no extreme weather conditions, but still a bit of a shock Toyota front row to start the race. The pace faded though as we have so often seen with Button coming through to take his third win of the season, Vettel with a second keeps his points tally racking up, it will be interesting to see which of these teams has the edge when we get to Europe in a couple of weeks.

But what about here, well, some good predictions this week, not from me though I hasten to add!

Round 4

Igor 9
Lou 8
Nick 7
Alex 7
Jackie 6
Rod 6
Sean 6
Christine 5
PatW 5
Piqued 4
Mr T/C/S 4
Aitch 4
GrifF1 3
Fourstar 2
Pete 2
RG 1
Jeremy 1
Bearded Stew 1
Takuya 1

SofaF1 Championship

Igor 23
Nick 22
Jackie 16
Mr T/C/S 15
Alex 14
Rod 14
Christine 12
Lou 12
GrifF1 10
Bearded Stew 8
Aitch 8
Piqued 7
RG 7
Jeremy 7
Fourstar 6
Sean 6
Pete 5
PatW 5
Takuya 3

Will we ever get a standard race without rain? Well if you thought Bahrain was the answer then James Allen may have some disappointing news for you: "The weather forecast isn't good for the weekend, sandstorms, like the ones which blighted the test here...could spoil (or stop) the show.."

I for one am hoping for something approaching normality. So for now all we'd like from you is your predictions.

Who will be on pole on Saturday? And who will be the points scorers on Sunday (the top eight). We need your answers by Qualifying tomorrow! Good luck!

The excitement continues into the third round.

Beautiful race for Red Bull, not just to take the pole but their maiden win and 1-2 to cap it all off. Great racing from Vettel and Webber as they fought with the Brawns through the rain. I bet they are all glad to be in Bahrain for a bit of warmer weather. Where were BMW though? Their progress seems a bit up in the air at the moment and Ferrari? What is going on? I bet Alonso is glad he didn't sign up there this year.

Anyway a good round for most here at SofaF1 despite the rain.

Round 3

Rod 5
Igor 5
Christine 4
Nick 4
Jackie 4
Aitch 4
Lou 4
Fourstar 2
Piqued 2
Jeremy 2
Bearded Stew 2
Mr T/C/S 1
RG 1
Alex 1
GrifF1 1
Pete 1
Takuya 0
PatW 0


SofaF1 Championship

Nick 15
Igor 14
Mr T/C/S 11
Jackie 10
Rod 8
Christine 7
Alex 7
GrifF1 7
Bearded Stew 7
RG 6
Jeremy 6
Fourstar 4
Aitch 4
Lou 4
Piqued 3
Pete 3
Takuya 2
PatW 0

Sorry for the short post but another wedding beckons!

What do we want? Your predictions for pole sitter and the top eight for the race.

When do we want it? Before qualifying!

Thanks

Ferrari's lawyer made two very strange arguments on Tuesday, and this may in some way account for why they lost the case. First of all, he attacked Ross Brawn personally. A bizarre strategy, seeing that it was Brawn who had helped Ferrari to their recent dominance. Secondly, the lawyer argued that if the diffuser was made legal, it would make Formula 1 a two-tier sport, with a few teams at the front and everyone else trying to catch them up. Isn't this exactly what Formula 1 is? Ferrari and McLaren at the front and everyone hoping one of them breaks down. The only difference this year is that it's not Ferrari and McLaren, and that the teams dominating this year do so perhaps not by financial backing, but engineering innovation. Surely this is a better formula?

We now know that McLaren misled the Stewards and we know why. During the race McLaren made a simple mistake and they wanted to correct it. After Trulli went off of the track and Lewis passed him everything was fine. Nothing more should have happened and Lewis should have finished in third, Trulli in fourth.

But somebody at McLaren told Lewis to let Trulli past. This was a mistake. A mistake compounded by not undoing it when they had the chance.

When the Stewards called Toyota, Trulli, McLaren and Hamilton to their offices, McLaren felt guilty for losing Lewis his third place. And Dave Ryan, McLaren's man in the room, decided to get the place back for him. There had been confusion on the pit wall. The team thought they were saying something else. Wasn't the last instruction "don't let him past"? Even though it was after it had already happened couldn't they use that?

Whatever the arguments that went through Dave Ryan's head he thought he had it in the bag. David Coulthard has said that unless you were preparing data to take to the Stewards you wouldn’t normally meet to discuss what you were going to say. I wouldn't be surprised to find that Dave Ryan answered the question live in the Stewards room to put pressure on Lewis not to contradict him in public.

The worst mistake was that the Stewards hadn't listened to the, new for this year, unencrypted team radio. Most teams have released their team radio for years, but until this year McLaren or Ferrari hadn’t. Is it possible that in the confusion of the post race whirlwind Dave Ryan forgot that the transcripts would now be released? I do believe the Stewards made a mistake not listening to the team radio before calling the participants after the race.

It is not as if they really expect people to be telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth in these sessions. In these sessions there are almost always two or more parties with differing stories about what happened. Is the one who gets the penalty lying? No they are presenting their impression of events. And Formula 1 races are confusing at the best of times.

So is it a terrible crime? Yes it is. I've seen several people asking why so many people believe this is such a great crime when this kind of thing happens all of the time. Former Williams sporting director and future US GPE boss Peter Windsor says he would do the same thing Dave Ryan did. I absolutely believe that most people in the Stewards office, for years, have massaged the story to make themselves look good.

It's not as if the Stewards encourage and rewards honesty just ask Sebastian Vettel. However now the Stewards have the team radio the game has changed. So was it a big crime? Yes it was the worst crime in terms of F1. It was the crime of stupidity. Not realising that they couldn't get away with a lie like that anymore.

People have asked would the same reaction exist if it wasn't McLaren? The answer is that it wouldn't. Does this mean the situation is unfair for McLaren? Not really. McLaren have suggested for years that they are whiter than white. That they don’t tell lies. They even used this as their successful initial defence in 2007 of the investigations into the spying scandal. They said that they don’t lie and that the situation was caused by a couple of bad eggs. This was believed by the FIA until the e-mail traffic came to light causing the second investigation and the fine. McLaren have always shown themselves in this honest, sporting, fair light. And this shows that something different is the true situation. And that’s news. Ferrari acts like normal isn’t news.

People are surprised that the reaction to this situation has been so large. However I would say that in Joe Public’s world this is worse than the spying scandal. Why? Because in the spying scandal it’s hard to tell exactly what was done, when it was done and why. It’s all nebulous.

This is like ramming another driver off the track. McLaren were effectively driving Trulli off of the track. And yet it is slightly worse than that. This isn’t a heat of the moment decision but rather a cold, calculating attempt to down an opponent. Has this happened before in F1? Yes lots of times. Is this the first time in recent memory that somebody has been caught doing it? Yes probably. The closest incident I can remember was Schumacher parking his car across the racing line in Qualifying at Monaco. And even then he could deny it (even though nobody believed him). In this case they have been caught red handed stealing points. That is why it is such a big story.

Finally for those who believe that the FIA are biased against McLaren I offer one observation. In the post race stewards meeting at Australia the Stewards didn't use the telemetry information, they didn't listen to the team radio, they just asked Toyota, Trulli, McLaren and Hamilton what happened. And despite a fifty : fifty split they went with McLaren's version of the truth. They took McLaren as the ones telling the truth. Does that sound like a team who are being hounded by the FIA?

The general feeling seems to be that those teams carrying the double (or triple) diffuser won't be punished by the FIA next week. Perhaps, however, that was never the point of the protesting teams? Perhaps they were merely trying to disrupt their opposition, delay the development of their car, while they built the diffusers themselves. I don't know what goes on inside these FIA hearings, but there might also be an extra advantage the protesting teams were hoping for. In their defence, the diffuser teams might have to publicly give precise details of how the rear of their car works. Perhaps this precious information is all the other teams want?

As I said last week …What a way to start the season! Two classic races in two weeks with Brawn and Button on top in both of them, amazing result for the newest team in F1.

It was a shame the race didn't run its full length today but really with the state of the light it was the correct decision. Now if they had run the race at the proper time they would still have had the rain but could have restarted the race and finished it off later etc etc etc, but anyway …

It was a shame really for Rosberg as he lost out quite badly, but Button took the lead firmly from him during the first pitstops. Not so good for Vettel either, he was running pretty well until he aquaplaned off the road and became a victim of his antistall anti-antistalling on him, and Ferrari… where do I start? They are now so last in the constructors championship, where did it all go wrong?


but how did we get on?

First with the revisions from last week

SofaF1 Championship Round 1 Revised

Nick 8
Jeremy 4
Bearded Stew 4
Jackie 3
Alex 3
Rod 3
Fourstar 2
RG 2
Christine 2
GrifF1 2
Igor 2
Takuya 2
Mr T 1
Piqued 0
Mr S 0
Aitch 0
Pete 0
Mr C 0

The only changes were Rod losing a point for Hamilton, and Jackie and RG gaining 2 points and 1 point respectively for Trulli



SofaF1 Championship Round 2

Mr C and Igor really benefitting from Buttons pole and win.

Mr C 9
Igor 7
GrifF1 4
RG 3
Nick 3
Jackie 3
Alex 3
Mr S 2
Pete 2
Piqued 1
Christine 1
Bearded Stew 1
Fourstar 0
Mr T 0
Jeremy 0
Rod 0
Takuya 0
Aitch 0


Therefore

SofaF1 Championship so far…


Nick 11
Igor 9
Mr C 9
Jackie 6
Alex 6
GrifF1 6
RG 5
Bearded Stew 5
Jeremy 4
Christine 3
Rod 3
Fourstar 2
Mr S 2
Takuya 2
Pete 2
Piqued 1
Mr T 1
Aitch 0


** Please note full points have been awarded at this stage, subject to SoFIA approval.

Well F1's political season is back with a vengeance and between all the press conferences, stewards meetings, suspensions and sackings there was a race last week - hard to believe I know - and there is going to be another one come Sunday.

So as is traditional please give us, before qualifying starts, your pole sitter and your top eight finishers for the race!

Good luck all!

Hamilton excluded from Aussie GP