Valencia and The 'Value' of Vettel

In the wake of Canada, Valencia was always likely to wilt somewhat in terms of excitement. That being said, at least there was overtaking at all, before the critics bite too hard, it's worth taking into account how difficult it clearly is to pass in Valencia, even with the double DRS zone. With that out the way, on to the criticism!

First target; Pirelli. I'm unsure whether they truly warrant this, but I'm an unheard of and completely unread blogger and they're a multi-million pound company, so.... yeah, I'm well aware my thoughts will have no influence whatsoever. My concern stems from something I think I heard during the practice sessions from the commentary team, they were saying that Pirelli were making steps to increase the endurance of the tyres because of concerns it was making them look bad as a tyre company. This is just speculation from what I gather but if there's any truth to it then shame on Pirelli, it's simply insulting to the viewership of F1 that Pirelli think that if we see degrading tyres in the race, we'll think they'll degrade the same on our cars. With cars as technologically advanced as F1 cars, designing a range of tyres with degredation rates evenly spaced must be incredibly difficult, especially since they can't test on current cars. You'd have to be an idiot to draw any conclusion other than Pirelli must be bloody good at making a tyre fit for a purpose, and assuredly, they're not making tyres for road cars that start degrading after 30 miles.

Second Target; Renault. Not much needs to be said here, once again strategy execution was poor, unquestionably outsmarted by Toro Rosso, Force India and Sauber and coming away with 1 more point than they frankly deserved today. Both Nick and Vitaly drove reasonable races today but the team are asking miracles from them if they expect placings higher than achieved today.

Lastly, I want to say something with regards to Vettel. I offer the possibility that his strength is a psychological one, he's still young enough to not question himself or second guess but when he matures and perhaps begins to question his ability, he may start to slip. That being said, he's likely to be a competitive driver for at least the next decade in F1, someone else needs to get a foothold though and perhaps start taking away some of those statistics he values so much since he's clearly taking confidence from the breadth of his dominance, not just the race wins. Of course, it's come up a few times now this seasons, comparing the Red Bull-Vettel partnership to the Ferrari-Schumacher one, always with negative connotations attached but this is misleading. On the face of it, it may appear as if the young German's dominance is making the sport boring, on the contrary, I think it has the effect of spacing the excitement, creating peaks and troughs rather than an even plateau across the season. After all, would Button's victory in Canada  have been as spectacular if missing from the list of his achievements there was overtaking the dominant championship leader on the last lap after putting him under uncharacteristic pressure? I don't think so. Every story needs a 'villain' and for now, this is what Vettel will be for everyone outside his circle of fans. Hell, I openly dislike Alonso, but I'd be lying if I wasn't quietly hoping for a last minute surge of pace to put him ahead of Vettel.

Valencia - Friday & EBD Changes

I'd say so far so good sums up the day at the end of both Friday practice sessions. P2 for Vitaly in FP1, in which all drivers kept to the prime tyre (The medium compound making it's full weekend debut as the prime for this meeting). Obviously 2nd place on the board looks great and you can't really extrapolate any negatives from this result but there are a few considerations to take from this.

1. Renault have consistently been more competitive on the prime relative to the rest of the field versus the option. (I should say though that the most stark example of this was surely Monaco, where the prime tyre was the soft compound, which is the option compound for this weekend, so maybe we'll see an adequate improvement once we strap the options on, FP2 results suggest this might be a tad optimistic).

2. At least three places are potentially unaccounted for from this session. Allegedly Vettel was running with the modified engine mapping required to meet the regulations that are coming into play next round at Silverstone. (More on this later in the post, for now suffice to say it took him out of contention for the top end of the FP1 leaderboard.) On top of this, both Mclaren's were supposedly running with their DRS disabled.

With these factors taken into account, it's not a great surprise that come the end of FP2, the Renault's found themselves 9th and 10th after 'hot laps' on the options.

Also, I wanted to say a little bit on the EBD (I'm unsure, but I'm assuming Exhaust Blown Diffuser) changes, the official F1 site says "Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel had a troubled morning", from being able to listen to the onboard and with the insight of David Croft and Anthony Davidson, it seems more likely that Vettel was actually using FP1 to test the performance of the car once it had been restricted to the upcoming regulations with regards to the EBD. And with regards to Renault, let's hope that the amount of noise caused by the EBD isn't an indication of how important it is to our downforce. The difference for the Red Bull at least seems to be pretty considerable with 2.5 seconds between FP1 leaderboard topper Mark Webber and teammate Vettel, perhaps throw in a few more tenths as well considering the average difference between the two in raw pace this season.

Montreal - Post-Race

First of all: Wow! What a race, despite the best efforts of race control, this was surely one of the greatest races of the modern era, if not among the greatest races of all time.
This of course being made doubly sweet for myself as Vitaly brought the Lotus Renault home in 5th place, scoring himself 10 more championship points and going from 9th to 7th in the driver standings. Although there doesn't seem like there's a great deal to say on his race today, despite all the action going on around him, Petrov kept largely anonymous, perhaps taking a leaf out of his new teammate's book. Nick was unfortunate I believe, but there's not much more to be said, in those conditions you have to allow for errors such as Kobayashi's.

The other issue that seems begging to be discussed after this race is how much safety is too much safety? I understand that for me, sat in my warm home, waiting to be entertained, less safety can't detract from my health or wellbeing. It sames fair to ask though, why is there a full-wet racing tyre, if the safety car is going to parade the grid around until the track is dry enough for intermediates? I don't resent the time I spent watching, waiting for the cars to get off the grid after the red flag, in fact, I might posit the idea that the waiting increased the ultimate pleasured gained from the race, tension building if you like. More on this, considered in a broader scope but with more detail, in a later post.

Montreal - Practice

Well, official word via the BBC pit reporter (the new female one, sorry, I forgot her name) is that the reason for lack of running for Vitaly this morning was due to radio failure. I'm sceptical though, we saw an onboard 10-15 minutes prior to that of him coming out of the hairpin and then getting to about forth gear and just 'coasting' down the straight. Possibilities:

In/Out Lap - Seems unlikely based on the aggression of the gear changes etc

Gearbox/Electronic Problems - Possible as seemed stuck in gear at max revs

Throttle Stuck Open - Also seems a possibility based on the revs, why else coast down the straight overheating the engine like that

That's all I can think of right now but from what was reported I'd say we're likely to see him get some times on the board before the session's over.

Open Q&A with Vitaly

Earlier this week, fans were given the opportunity to post questions on twitter, with the best being selected and answered by the man himself, here's how it went:

Are you happy with your season so far? (asked by Tasha Dragonfly)
VP: Not entirely happy as we are still not yet at 100%, and we can go a lot further than we have done already. We can achieve better results once we have upped our game in qualifying. Then, more points will come.

In what ways have you improved as a driver since last year? (asked by KIMLAWL)
VP: I now know what I can ask of the team in order to improve my results and how to get a better understanding of the car. I know the circuits better this year too, so that is obviously a massive help.

What’s the best thing about driving an F1 car? (asked by LIAM_PC79)
VP: Everything about it is amazing. The speed, G-Force, everything is great. It really is an incredible feeling being in that car.

What do you say to yourself if you have made a mistake in a race? (asked by NAUSE8)
VP: You don’t have time during the race. Of course you know when you do something wrong and you will want to improve on it next time, but there is no time to think about saying any particular words during the race.

What is your favourite track and why? (asked by CHRISHALL)
VP: I love all the tracks. It’s very special to drive at each individual circuit because they are unique in their own particular ways.

Edit:
Also earlier this week, the 2011 range of Renault merchandise is on display at the Lotus Renault GP site, take a look!