Discussion about #1
It is hard to think of a situation where selecting the
driver to top the power rankings will be more difficult. On the one hand, you’ve
got the driver who follows his instincts and does what he deems necessary in
his ruthless pursuit towards victory; while on the other, you’ve got the driver
who follows team orders and has victory taken from him by a disobedient
teammate. Sure it’s possible Sebastian Vettel might hand back the seven points
to Mark Webber at a later race this season (if the situation arises) but, by
most accounts, the chances of that happening seem extremely slim.
1. Mark Webber (last
week: 11th, up ten spots)
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| RBR 1-2... but at what cost to future team orders? Picture courtesy of Sky Sports |
Webber did everything right in the race; good start, maximized
his strategy and played fair game. What he could not account for was Vettel
overtaking him against the will of the team. It is a bitter blow for Webber,
who has effectively been cheated out of a victory. This almost certainly leaves
Red Bull’s team orders for the rest of the season in tatters. Christian Horner,
Adrian Newey and the rest of the RBR pit-wall crew will have an interesting
three weeks before Shanghai, a shame given that the team had otherwise called
the perfect race, nailing the tyre strategy and comfortably beating their
rivals.
2. Nico Rosberg (last
week: 8th, up six spots) & 3. Lewis Hamilton (last week: 6th, up three spots)
Both Mercedes drivers could stake a claim to the top spot,
especially Nico Rosberg. The German clearly managed to drive a more even-paced
race which helped his fuel consumption and was unlucky not to be on the podium,
something which even Lewis Hamilton openly admitted while giving his podium
interview. Rosberg said, “Remember this one” on his team radio after the race,
and Ross Brawn will need to remember it, especially if he is to silence Helmut
Marko and his belief that “Mercedes have a clear #1 driver”.
A very good race from the team but they started strongly
last season before fading away, so they will want to maintain this form.
Hopefully, for their sake, team harmony remains intact after both drivers
followed team orders, something that will probably be helped by just how badly
Red Bull have been affected by a failure in the identical situation. On a side
note, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened had Jenson
Button not retired; you would have to think Rosberg would’ve been given the
green light to pass Hamilton.
4. Sebastian Vettel (last week 4th, no change)
Vettel apologized to Webber after the race for breaking the
already infamous ‘Multi 21’ team order but the damage has been done. Vettel
claims he was unaware of the team orders but he knows deep down he was wrong,
otherwise he would not have felt the need to apologize to Webber so many times.
His actions raise the unfortunate question that rears its head in sport from
time to time, just how ruthless do you need to be to win? Well, after this
race, the comparisons have been highlighted between Vettel and a certain fellow
German, one M. Schumacher. As Rocky said on the radio, Seb will have some
explaining to do. Note: this was Vettel’s
27th career victory, which puts him =6th all time
5. Jenson Button (last
week: =12th, up seven spots)
JB could’ve been placed higher in the rankings but that
would probably have been overly harsh on Vettel. A very good race up until his
pit fiasco, where human error saw the green light go on with the front right
tyre not attached cost him a shot at the podium against the two ailing Mercs. A
promising race for McLaren given their pre-season and Aussie struggles and they
made the most of their grid positions, squeezing into Q3 as the rain saved them from being
eliminated; just a disappointing outcome for Button.
6. Jules Bianchi (last
week: 10th, up four spots)
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| Button was one of several drivers to suffer trouble in the pits Picture courtesy of CNN |
An excellent 13th-place finish in the Marussia
for the young Frenchman as he overcame a difficult start to the race, which saw
him fall behind the two Caterhams. He was then able to keep Maldonado at bay
for several laps and again ran in a class-of-one race in the Caterham vs.
Marussia battle. His qualifying performance was stunning, just 0.2secs slower
than Valtteri Bottas and just over half a second shy of making Q2 which, on a
track as long as Sepang, is one hell of an achievement. Bianchi is clearly
outperforming the car and as Fernando Alonso and Webber have shown with Minardi
in the past, you do get noticed.
7. Felipe Massa (last
week: 3rd, down four spots)
An up-and-down weekend for Felipe Massa sees his fall four
spots in the rankings. He once again got the better of Fernando Alonso in
qualifying but all his excellent work over one lap fell apart in the opening
few corners as he was shuffled back to sixth. He was one of the first drivers
to switch to dry tyres and this saw him plummet to the back of the field but he
was able to recover to an eventual fifth place, aided by Button’s DNF. A very
lonely drive was livened up in the closing few laps as a late pit-stop for
tyres saw him having to negotiate the two Lotuses and Sergio Pérez, which he
did with ease. Nonetheless, after two races, Massa has proved that he is back
to his best (or at least very near it), which will please the Tifosi.
8. Romain Grosjean (last
week: =12th, up four spots)
I had initially pegged Nico Hülkenberg in this eighth spot
but swapped him and Romain Grosjean around after a second watch of the race.
Grosjean was a victim of the rain in Q2 and the usual advantage of starting 11th
was eliminated thanks to the intermediate-tyre conditions in both Q3 and the
race start. Like Kimi Räikkönen, Grosjean fell back at the start but, in a
similar way to Webber and Vettel, stayed out longer than his team-mate on the
intermediate tyres as he was second-in-line, which meant he vaulted past Räikkönen
through the first round of pit-stops. From there on, Grosjean drove a
controlled race to P6 to pick up some solid points.
9. Jean-Eric Vergne (last
week: 7th, down two spots)
JEV holds on to his top-10 position in the rankings after
recovering from being knocked out in Q1 and crashing into Charles Pic in the
pit-lane to earning his first point of the season. Vergne’s 10th-place
finish is a credit to his racecraft; he was 20th a quarter of the
way into the race after getting a new nosecone, but methodically worked his way
up into contention for picking up an ‘attrition point’ as cars in front
suffered problems and then by out-racing Bottas and Esteban Gutiérrez. It’s
fair to say 10th would probably have been the best either Vergne or
Daniel Ricciardo could have achieved today; JEV finishing fifteen seconds
behind the late-stopping Pérez and over a half a minute behind Hülkenberg.
10. Nico Hülkenberg (last
week: 15th, up five spots)
Speaking of Hülkenberg, he picks up four points on his first
start for Sauber after non-starting in Melbourne. A solid race from Nico, who
found himself solidly in the upper-midfield battle alongside the likes of Pérez
and Räikkönen – the latter of whom felt Nico was overly aggressive with some of
his defensive driving. Sauber need to improve their qualifying but, nonetheless,
the race was a good foundation for The Hulk to build upon.
=11. Kimi Räikkönen (last
week: 1st, down ten spots) & Valtteri Bottas (last week: 16th, up five spots)
Just like in the race, Bottas narrowly misses out on a
top-10 spot. I had initially penned him as sole owner of 11th,
before almost placing his fellow countryman above him, before eventually
pegging them as equals after this race. The younger of the two Finns had a
lousy qualifying session and also found himself last in the very early stages
after a mistake. However, he recovered strongly and almost grabbed his maiden
point. He has massively outperformed Pastor Maldonado in the opening pair of
races and seems to be making the most of the relatively uncompetitive Williams.
Räikkönen, on the other hand, finds himself plummeting down
the rankings. His race weekend was the exact opposite to Melbourne – he had
pace on Friday but floundered in the inclement qualifying (and also picked up a
grid penalty for impeding Rosberg) before a poor start and an early switch to
dry tyres further complicated his Sunday afternoon’s work. It took him most of
the race to get back to seventh and the former championship leader was soundly
beaten by Grosjean.
13. Fernando Alonso (last
week: 2nd, down eleven spots)
Last week’s top two have both fallen outside the top-ten,
with Alonso dropping eleven positions after his early exit. Again outqualified
by Massa, he was simply too close to Vettel in Turn 2 as he ever so slightly
outbraked himself. The call not to pit at the end of lap one was marginal,
there was a strong case to be made either way so Ferrari should not dwell on
the decision too long. It’s the third time in eleven races that Alonso has
found himself out of the race after a first (or second) corner incident after
Belgium and Japan last season.
14. Adrian Sutil (last
week: 5th, down nine spots)
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| Alonso finds himself in the unlucky 13th spot after his early exit Picture courtesy of Getty Images |
Early on during qualifying it looked like Adrian Sutil might
challenge for the #1 ranking, such was his pace. Then the rain came, and the Force
Indias faded leaving Sutil a lowly ninth on the grid (promoted to eighth with Räikkönen
penalty). He was then out-raced by Paul di Resta in spite of the fact he had
initially held up his team-mate when his own slow stop held up the queuing di
Resta. Their bad luck was compounded as both cars retired with the same basic
problem – one with their captive wheel nut system.
15. Esteban Gutiérrez (last
week: 17th, up two spots)
Two races and two solid drives from Gutiérrez, who flirted
with the points in the closing stages before a late pit-stop saw him finish 12th.
Having failed to make Q1 in Melbourne, he qualified 14th in Sepang
and kept his nose clean in the race. Hülkenberg finished about half a minute
ahead of him, showing the true pace of the Sauber but Gutiérrez has put in two
steady, if unspectacular, drives; which provides him with a decent
understanding of the car and a platform to work with for the rest of the
season.
16. Sergio Pérez (last
week: =12th, down four spots)
Checo ended a barren run of seven races without points with his
first top-10 finish for McLaren, picking up a token fastest lap on the final
lap having pitted for tyres at the end of lap 54. Pérez spent the race battling
amongst the Lotuses and Hülkenberg in the lower end of the points-scoring
positions but he was well-and-truly beaten by Button. The car has already
improved since Melbourne and will no doubt continue to do so, meaning that an
upward trend in Pérez’s results will be expected to coincide with it.
=17. Paul di Resta (last
week: 9th, down eight spots) & Daniel Ricciardo (last week: 18th, up one spot)
Difficult weekend for di Resta and none of it was his own
fault. Again, the Force India seemed quick but di Resta found himself
eliminated in Q2 after spinning off in the rain after poor strategy by the team
before the aforementioned wheel nut issue saw him having to retire from the
race, having been ahead of Sutil in the race. That said, it was again Sutil who
grabbed more limelight from the car thanks to his early heroics in qualifying,
with di Resta’s racecraft going seemingly unnoticed.
Ricciardo also fell victim to technical problems as an
exhaust problem ended his race in the closing stages as he battled for a
potential point. He was one of several drivers to find himself aquaplaning into
the Turn 3 gravel en route to the grid which also slightly damaged his car.
However, he outqualified Vergne and was generally ahead of his team-mate for
most of the race before his untimely demise. JEV has gained the early upper
hand in what could prove a pivotal season for the STR duo, should a seat
finally open up at RBR.
19. Charles Pic (last
week: 19th, no change)
No change for Pic this week, who earned a 14th-place
finish – some 8.9secs ahead of Giedo van der Garde – despite having to replace
his nosecone in the aforementioned clash with Vergne in the pit-lane. However,
this race confirmed that Marussia are now quicker than Caterham and so the bare
minimum Pic must do is to beat his team-mate and, on current form, Max Chilton
as well.
20. Giedo van der Garde (last
week: 21st, up one spot) & 21. Max Chilton (last week: 20th, down one spot)
The two rookies swap positions near the foot of the rankings
as VDG beat Chilton in the race. Giedo was also significantly closer to his
team-mate than Max was. A good battle between the two drivers, set-up thanks to
the Caterhams getting ahead of the Marussias at the start, was won by the
Dutchman, as the young Brit was once again unable to match his team-mate’s
speed.
22. Pastor Maldonado (last
week: 22nd, no change)
His miserable start to 2013 continues: two races, two DNFs,
and with two very underwhelming performances. Bottas managed to drag the car
home in P11 but Maldonado’s weekend was again littered with mistakes and he
seems to have regressed significantly from last season.
All views expressed in this blog are my own and no copyright infringement is intended.
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| Maldonado found the gravel trap for the second race running Picture courtesy of Sutton images |
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