McLaren Exhaust - Problems?

I know everything doesn’t have to be symmetrical on a car, but during the British Grand Prix I noticed how completely different the 2 sides of McLaren’s exhaust were.

McLaren Exhaust. No symmetry. British Grand Prix.

Now there’s nothing wrong with trying new things and setting up a car to be baised for a particular direction, but I think McLaren needs to get to basics with their car. The 2 different exhaust exits are symbolic of their problems. Forget the fancy stuff - just keep the car simple and work on making it fast.

So That’s What HANS is for!

Mark Webber demonstrated what the HANS (Head And Neck Support) device is useful for during the British Grand Prix weekend… :)

Mark Webber finds a good use for his HANS device.

British Grand Prix - Why Didn’t I Bet?

Isn’t it amazing - Jenson Button has been unstoppable this season yet come his home Grand Prix and that dominance goes out the window. It’s the complete reverse of what I like to call the “Spanish motobike rider syndrome” - which is a phenomenon you see in MotoGP and other bike events where Spanish riders are much MUCH more competitive in their home Grand Prix than in other races (provided they keep the thing on the track ;)).

I had a feeling this would be one race that escaped Jenson… should have taken that bet :)

I think the point form works better so we’ll go back to that for this round:

  • Sebastian Vettel - Wow.
  • Mark Webber - Almost wow :) Great job getting ahead of Barrichello though! And good to see the Aussie media start to give some front page coverage to him (at least on the news web sites).
  • Rubens Barrichello - Great that he managed to beat his teammate, but should have drove it home by taking the win.
  • Felipe Massa - After Vettel I vote Felipe for drive of the race. He fought hard and got a great result.
  • Nico Rosberg - Solid. Williams edging ahead of Toyota?
  • Jenson Button - Hard to tell whether he could have done more. I really hope he doesn’t settle for playing a numbers game for the rest of the season :(
  • Giancarlo Fisichella - What happened there? Wasn’t he ahead of Alonso and Hamilton at one point? Then he ends up 10th. I guess that’s still good for Force India though :)
  • Kimi Raikkonen & Kazuki Nakajima - Didn’t quite catch where they dropped down the pack so much?
  • McLaren, Renault, BMW - Oh dear…

Turkish GP - I Guess KERS was Cool

Another race another Button win. That’s all I have to say…

Just kidding :) But really, Jenson Button’s dominance made this race rather boring. Thankfully Rubens Barrichello managed to balls up a few things again to prevent another Brawn 1-2. Not that I have anything against Brawn GP but we don’t want them to take the Championship too early do we Bernie? :)

It was good to see the Red Bull cars back on pace after a disasterous Monaco (for Vettel anyway).

McLaren and Ferrari are still lost at sea.

Nico Rosberg finally got some decent points instead of just showboating on Friday practice :)

Was great to see how KERS can keep a slower car (like a McLaren) in front of a car with a lot more overall pace.

I’ll put it out to the readers - can anyone stop Jenson Button now?? In any race let-alone for the Championship? :)

Monaco - Smooth and Steady Wins the Race

Well Jenson’s done it again. His record of wins this season is amazing. With the super soft tyres being a lot less durable in Moncao, Jenson’s smooth style put him in a league of his own.

Jenson Button - The guy is a bit boring to watch on track, but boy is he effective. It’s like watching Alain Prost all over again.

Rubens Barrichello - With a fantastic start there was so much promise at the start of the race. But again, he was absolutely no match for Button. Could it be the car is developed around Jenson’s style? Whatever the case, ADAPT Rubens! :)

Felipe Massa - Thank you for making the race exciting Felipe! At the start of last year if I had to get rid of a Ferrari driver it would have been Felipe, but now it’d be a very tough call between Felipe and Kimi.

Sebastian Vettel - What on earth happened here? This was supposed to be the race where he could finally topple those evil Brawn GP cars now that Red Bull has a double-decker diffuser. Biggest disappointment of the race!

Mark Webber - Vettel’s teammate however did a good job with what seems to be a bad car for the Monaco track. Let’s hope the Red Bull package is better on the high speed tracks.

Kimi Raikkonen - Fantastic weekend for Kimi. I know it sounds weird, but I think this guy has sooooo much personality :) Think about it… :)  And is it just me or does Kimi look a lot fitter?

BMW Sauber - Another team to massively disappoint with the new diffuser.

Nico Rosberg - Again fast in practice but didn’t really follow it up with a good results. Sure it was a better result than normal, but Williams have really been disappointing this year (disappointing is my favourite word this year ;))

Lewis Hamilton - Qualifying was a real shame. I would have liked to have seen him up the front giving the others a bit of argey bargey hehe ;)

Fernando Alonso - Not much to say here really. Sorry to all the girls from the Raquel del Rosario pages ;)