SOUR GRAPES?

It seems the controversy over the Valencia race has not died down. How can it be extinguished with comments coming out Maranello and Alonso that they were cheated, the race was manipulated and the sort. Alonso even said that a bottle thrown onto the track was the response from angry fans, angry at the cheating done by Lewis Hamilton.

There have been loads of commentary and discussions and comments by everybody. The funniest thing so far was that Ferrari in trying to denounce the FIA and McLaren and Lewis Hamilton, has even used comments from their fans on their forums as "proof". Hahahahahahahahaaa..

As for Alonso, I think he still has 2007 stuck in his mind. He needs to grow up and move on. Comments from forumers make sense such as this one:

If the race wasn’t ‘manipulated’, how about a penalty (race ban?) for Alonso bringing the sport into disrepute? This is standard procedure in any sport.

I also think his comments regarding the ‘justified anger’ of the fans at Valencia and his allegation that the bottle was thrown onto the track as part of this rage a very close to incitement. His outbursts may be amusing, but they’ve stirred up a lot of anger and vitriol when to most external analysis this anger results from his own frustration at bad luck and the failure of his team to produce a car as good as he wants. - David BR

At the end of the day, Alonso and Ferrari just couldn't take it that after all the upgrades they put into the car for Valencia, they couldn't do better because of bad luck. That's all it is, bad luck. The timing of the accident, the safety car, the positions of the cars on track and what they were doing all conspired against Ferrari. Just accept that.

It was to Hamilton’s benefit that the stewards took so long to decide, that Kobayashi held Button up so much, and that Valencia’s pit lane configuration means drivers lose little time going through it. On another day this penalty could just as easily have dropped him out of the points.

Again, it was just the situation. Ferrari really need to look at themselves since nobody else on the paddock agrees with them, there must something wrong with their rants. It's time to move on.

VALENCIA GP 2010

First of all, apologies for not writing as much as I could. I'm really tied up nowadays with work and my new business venture - P1 Motorsports Hospitality. We are into bringing motorsport fans to attend their favorite F1 or MotoGP events here in Malaysia (and hopefully in other parts of the world soon) in a comfortable setting but more importantly, motorsport focused. No typical tours here. We eat, sleep and breathe motorsports.

Well, on to the Valencia GP. It was thought to be another boring featureless race even with all the new upgrades teams brought with them. And going by the performance during FP1, FP2 and FP3, it was still undecided which team had the real advantage. As it turned out, Red Bull who were written off at Valencia still had the advantage.

Red Bull secured another qualifying 1-2 with Lewis Hamilton managing to hold on to P3. The race start was really edge of your seat stuff as Hamilton overtook Webber and went straight for Vettel's jugular. Almost had him too. They touched actually and Hamilton damaged his front wing a bit.

All was quiet until lap 8 when Mark Webber ran into the back of Kovalainen, flew up into the air 360 degrees, landed on his head, bounced around and hit the barriers - at 190mph! Wow! I was speechless. But due to safety measures and technology, he just walked away. Just another day at the office.

That incident brought out the safety car which promptly caused everybody to pit, except for Vettel, Hamilton, Alonso and Massa who were all out of position. Hamilton managed to overtake the SC (intentionally or not) and Alonso and Massa got stuck there for the remainder of the lap while Vettel, Hamilton and virtually everybody pitted away.

Now, Hamilton did break the rules by overtaking the safety car and he was duly punished with a drive through but the structure of the race at that time did not cause him to lose his P2, so he was lucky. Alonso and Massa's race was ruined because they got stuck at the wrong place and the wrong time. It was unlucky and that is part of racing.

But they and Ferrari can't stop complaining. They even suggested to change the SC rules again just because of this. If it was them that benefited, I'd bet my balls they wouldn't be crying to change the rules. Sore losers! Just ridiculous the statements that Ferrari and Alonso made.

But lets not dwell on that because these people are never satisfied unless they benefit or they can cheat and get away with it, like they did at Fiorano while "filming".

In the end, congrats Vettel and McLaren. Lewis still leads into Silverstone when the new updates to the car will be available and McLaren will blow Ferrari away again.

Lastly, I have to pay tribute to Kamui Kobayashi. What a race he drove. He drove with the same set of tyres for 52 laps, running 3rd for a long time and holding back Jensen Button (who wasn't really trying anyway). Then after changing tyres, he overtook Alonso on the last lap and overtook Buemi on the last corner to snag 7 points. This guy deserves a seat in a better car.

CANADIAN GP 2010 QUALIFYING

The Canadian GP is always tiring as on this side of the world, qualifying is at 1am. And the race is at midnight but it's a good thing I'm off on Monday. These few days have been great with the Canadian GP on with Le Mans at the same time and the World Cup in full swing.

But this morning after waking up at 1am, groggy and sleepy, I immediately came to my senses as the circuit Gilles Villeneuve came alive with the sounds of the glorious V8. It was an exciting and glorious qualifying session after 2 years missing from the action. The McLarens and Red Bulls were on the pace as expected with Ferrari showing some pace after the disastrous outing in Turkey. I expected them to come back as this race was using the super soft tyres.

The action was fast and furious with Lewis taking command of the circuit and taking pole off Webber on his last flying lap which was set with 8 seconds remaining on the clock. It was one of those classic poles as everybody had run out of time and him being still on the lap after the chequered flag had fallen.

Button didn't do too well as he finished P5, something to do with his tyres not getting in enough heat. He seems to have this problem of getting heat into his tyres since last year at Brawn.

The interesting part of this qualifying and the strategy for the race is that Red Bull have gone for the Prime tyres for qualifying i.e. the harder compound while everybody else has gone for the super soft. They still managed to get P2 and P3 though, just shows you the true pace of the Bulls.

It seems that they will try to overtake Lewis at the start and maintain a long lead before changing tyres later. Hopefully Lewis can keep them behind at the start and as everybody knows, Montreal likes to throw a few safety cars which should help Lewis to pit for the harder tyres. But then again, anything can happen in F1.

The rest of field didn't make such an impact. Renault faded out of view although they did better than Mercedes. Schumacher got P13 while Rosberg P10, they were both beaten by Force India. It was expected that Force India would do well with their low downforce chassis and Mercedes engine.

All in all, another great qualifying from one of the best tracks on the calendar. Really glad Montreal came back. Now, looking forward to the action tonight.

Qualifying Times

01. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:15.105
02. Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:15.373
03. Vettel Red Bull-Renault 1:15.420
04. Alonso Ferrari 1:15.435
05. Button McLaren-Mercedes 1:15.520
06. Liuzzi Force India-Mercedes 1:15.648
07. Massa Ferrari 1:15.688
08. Kubica Renault 1:15.715
09. Sutil Force India-Mercedes 1:15.881
10. Rosberg Mercedes 1:16.071
11. Barrichello Williams-Cosworth 1:16.434
12. Hulkenberg Williams-Cosworth 1:16.438
13. Schumacher Mercedes 1:16.492
14. Petrov Renault 1:16.844
15. Buemi Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:16.928
16. Alguersuari Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1:17.029
17. de la Rosa Sauber-Ferrari 1:17.384
18. Kobayashi Sauber-Ferrari 1:18.019
19. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 1:18.237
20. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 1:18.698
21. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 1:18.941
22. Senna HRT-Cosworth 1:19.484
23. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 1:19.675
24. Chandhok HRT-Cosworth 1:27.757

CANADIAN GP 2010 PREVIEW

Well, the Canadian GP at Montreal is back. I'm glad it's back as Montreal is a very nice and fun circuit to drive, even though it looks simple and boring. It's very fast as it has a lot of long straights punctuated by chicanes. Plus the races here is always not processions as there's always something going on up and down the track. And it's raining there now.

The Bulls still look good for a strong performance here, as they are everywhere. But at least we can hope for a strong fight from McLaren, whose F-Duct will definitely give them a big advantage as Montreal is just full of straights. Also in their favour is the fact that the Bulls are strong in fast corners but Montreal has not much fast corners.

I'm also looking forward to Robert Kubica making some sort of upset here as he has been good at this track. Even though he had a very serious crash here in 2007, he won the race in 2008 (albeit being gifted the race win as the leader at the time retired). Here is the video from that crash, watching it again puts the Massa accident to shame.

Somebody made a 3D animation of the same crash and it is a fantastic video, showing how the crash happened in detail with highlights of the parts of the car that saved his life.

I'm looking forward to the Force Indias making an impact as they have a very good straight line speed. Adrian Sutil should be able to fight for position in the top 10 and score some good points. Not too sure about Liuzzi though but then again he has a new chassis, so maybe both cars could make in to the top 10.

As for the rest, nothing much to say. Lotus dreaming of scoring their first points ever is a bit too high an expectation. The only way is for some huge accident involving 15 cars or something to make that happen.

Anyway, looking forward to F1 action again at a great circuit although I'll be sleepy at midnight as the race airs here at that time. And with the world cup starting at the same weekend plus the Le Mans 24 hours race also on-going, it's gonna be a tiring but exciting weekend. Have a great weekend everybody.