The title tide has turned
He might
still be the World Championship leader but Fernando Alonso is no longer
the title favourite. The four-point difference between Alonso and
Sebastian Vettel is as good as parity, but it is the Red Bull driver who
holds all the advantages entering the final stretch of the season:
form, momentum, and superior pace.
With Ferrari unable to significantly upgrade their car since the
summer break, Alonso's position has become the loneliest in sport - that
of the long-time leader who knows he is being caught by a faster rival
but is powerless to respond. With the finishing line still not in sight,
the Spaniard is losing a title fight that only the official standings
still believes he is winning.
The giveaway of the championship's true position is that the onus is
now firmly on Ferrari to make the next move after Red Bull pulled a fast
one out of their bag of development tricks. Undetected on its debut
Singapore, their Double DRS device can only be maximised in qualifying,
but is another critical ingredient working in Vettel's favour. In Japan,
its benefit proved the critical difference between Vettel disappearing
up the road without a hint of bother to a literally straightforward
victory while Alonso ran into a whole heap of trouble from sixth on the
grid.
It's an immutable law of F1 that most cars start a race at roughly
the same rate, which is why the pole-sitter more often not keeps his
premier position through the first lap while those in the midfield often
collide at the first corner. Boxed into the danger zone by Ferrari's
failure to unlock the F2012's one-lap pace, Alonso has thus suffered two
first-corner retirements in four races through no blatant fault of his
own.
In Ferrari's mitigation, Alonso was on course to qualify fourth
before Kimi Raikkonen's leery spin brought out the yellow flags, and
their race pace, as quickly displayed by Felipe Massa, was formidable.
Nevertheless, they were no match for the upgraded Red Bull, as the size
of Vettel's winning margin made plain. At over twenty seconds, it was
the largest since Nico Rosberg's victory in China, and the first
back-to-back triumph of the entire campaign. We're a long way past
ominous now.
Vettel is now the default leader of the World Championship because
Red Bull have won all of the latest skirmishes in the development war.
There's only one set of shoes, and one car, to be in with five races
remaining.
Grosjean may not have any answers
The Romain Grosjean problem has turned into the worst kind of puzzle.
The shock-treatment of F1's first race ban in almost twenty years has
worn off in less than two weeks and the question now being asked after
the Frenchman's latest first-lap calamity isn't 'what can be done?' but
'can anything can be done?'. As they don't separate culpability from
involvement, the statistics don't tell the full story, but neither do
they lie. Seven first-lap crashes in fourteen races is far too many for
Grosjean's presence to be considered mere unfortunate coincidence.
The suspicion, borne of the belief that Grosjean's vow in Singapore
that he had learned his lesson was utterly sincere, must sadly be that
the Frenchman is fundamentally flawed, handicapped by an innate
shortcoming in close combat - a lack of composure? a lack of spatial
awareness? - that makes him a danger to himself and plenty of others.
Beyond suggesting that Lotus instruct their driver to undergo intensive
training by tackling the M25 at rush-hour for a week, particularly the
pullaway from the Dartford Tunnel tolls, it's difficult to know of
anything the team can do. Grosjean is desperately trying to stay out of
trouble, but the more he tries, the more trouble he seems to run into -
literally. It's becoming the worst kind of problem: one without an
apparent cure.
The great shame is that we've flashes of genuine brilliance from
Grosjean this season, not least when he jousted fearlessly but cleanly
with Fernando Alonso at Valencia, and plenty of pace too. But pace is
pointless when a driver can't finish the first lap. Grosjean is becoming
the equivalent of a goalkeeper who is a world-class shot-stopper but
who throws every cross into the back of his net.
Mercedes poised for an embarrassment of riches
Unless they
have another Double Diffuser trick up their sleeves for 2013, Mercedes'
euphoria at capturing Hamilton must surely be turning to anxiety. Have
they bitten off far more than they can chew? The team were pointless
(literally and arguably metaphorically) in Japan and, on current form,
will end the season sixth in the Constructors' Championship before
starting the next with arguably the best driver line-up on the grid.
Good luck to any marriage counsellors called in to reconcile such an
unbalanced state of affairs.
Perez faces steep learning curve
A weekend to forget for
Sergio Perez. Even his progression into Saturday's top-ten shoot-out
produced discomfort given it served to focus attention on the fact that
he had previously qualified higher than twelfth only once since Spain.
It's a stat which must alarm his future employers too. The similarity of
Button and Perez's softly-softly driving styles will pay a useful
dividend in terms of set-up next year, but McLaren are always going to
be fighting uphill battles if neither of their drivers can put the
MP4-28 anywhere near pole. Button's Saturday record this year is a 12-3
defeat.
Just as troubling was Perez's ragged, rash attempt to overtake
Hamilton around the outside of the hairpin, a move that could only have
ended either in a collision or the gravel trap. Given the value of the
ten points he was poised to collect for Sauber in the Constructors'
Championship, it was bordering on dumb. As Ferrari have already
intimated once or twice, Perez still has much to learn - perhaps too
much. It's only at best that the youngster's promotion is a year ahead
of schedule.
Kobayashi and Massa seal their 2013 drives
Including a
career-best result for one, and a two-year best for the other, Sunday's
result ought to be enough for both Kamui Kobayashi and Felipe Massa to
retain their seats for another year. Whereas Perez was compelled into
the strategy which secured second place at Monza because he failed to
reach Q3, the first podium of Kobayashi's career carried the additional
credit and credibility of building on a successful Saturday. It was a
complete performance which deserves to secure his place on the grid for
2013.
Having being denied entry to Q3 at Suzuka, albeit by less than a
tenth of a second, Massa's weekend wasn't quite as complete, but the
pace that he showed on Friday and Saturday morning laid the platform for
his Sunday afternoon defeat of both McLarens in a straight fight. Where
has this sort of form been for the rest of the year? Who knows, but
Felipe's immediate post-race optimism about 2013 was made so soon after
the event that it sounded more like a potential cause of his improvement
than a symptom. Reassurance, it seems, can do wonders.
Webber forgets about the small steps
The Red Bull driver is
having a very odd season: he's only twice made it onto the podium and
on both occasions he stood on the top step as victor at Monaco and
Silverstone.
McLaren loses because Hamilton doesn't want to be an easy winner
Too
bad for McLaren that they were too good for Lewis Hamilton and the
challenge he craves. "I know some of the greats have gone from a great
car to not such a great car and have helped to develop a winning team,"
he told the press corps on Thursday in a moment of high illumination.
"Michael [Schumacher], for instance, went from being a world champion to
Ferrari. We haven't really got any other driver in Formula One who is
known for that. To have that as a challenge is amazing."
And that romanticism goes right to the heart of Hamilton's decision
to move from green pastures. He has been sold not on reality but by a
dream which made Mercedes' obvious shortcomings an attraction rather
than a deterrent. Conversely, perversely, McLaren only did themselves
down by producing this season's fastest car. Hamilton's expectation that
its successor, the MP4-28, will prove to be a frontrunner next season
may have been the final straw.
With a little squinting, it's possible to see the point he is making, but he's a curious chap to be sure
http://www1.skysports.com/formula-1/news/22058/8147831/Conclusions-from-the-Japanese-GP
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