Sunday, May 9, 2010

Austria/Australia? - 2010 Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix

Something that non-English speakers tend to get confused about is the difference between "Austria" and "Australia." The difference being on is a country that borders Germany in Europe and the other one is a continent on its own in the Pacific Ocean.

After today's Spanish Grand Prix, I thought about this and realised what could be quite a funny joke. An Australian won with an Austrian team - i.e. Mark Webber won with Red Bull Racing. Mark drove a very easy race winning from pole position. His team mater managed to hold onto third after having an eventful race starting second and falling quite a lot backwards.

Lewis Hamilton's tyres punctured and sent him into the wall on the long turn 3 with just two laps to go which meant everyone managed to gain a place. Fernando Alonso, the local favourite ended second.

I thought Michael Schumacher drove a brilliant race to come fourth, just one position off the podium. When he came out of his only pit stop, he slotted in front of Jenson Button and successfully held the McLaren driver up until the end of the race. There were a dozen or so laps where reigning World Champion Button tried to pass Schumi at the end of the pit straight, but Schumi either had better traction or went defensive very well, or both. He ended up keeping Button behind him for 50 or so laps right until the end.

One of the post race interviews with Button showed him to be quite upset. He did have a good car, but neither the strategy or the race pace lived up to expectations. He was also quite dismissive about Schumi's tactics on the race track. Neither I nor any of the commentators seem to have found anything wrong with Schumi's driving, in fact it was extremely good. Button could do with a bit of thinking on how to pass the seven-times World Champion in the future.

Current standings:

  1. Jenson Button 70pt
  2. Fernando Alonso 67pt
  3. Sebastian Vettel 60pt
  4. Mark Webber 53pt
  5. Nico Rosberg 50pt
  6. Lewis Hamilton 49pt
  7. Felipe Massa 49pt
  8. Robert Kubica 44pt
  9. Michael Schumacher 22pt
  10. Adrian Sutil 16pt

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