While he may lack the one lap pace of old, when the car is to his liking he is
blistering fast in races, and rarely if ever do you see him make mistakes,
particularly close combat with other drivers.
His 250th race will therefore be warmly celebrated. At his 200th at the 2011
Hungarian Grand Prix, he produced a sparkling drive to win, but sadly
McLaren’s chances of doing so in Bahrain appear rather slim.
Here are a couple of the 34 year-old’s finest moments in Formula One.
The inevitable debate around F1 in Bahrain
Not so much something to look forward to, but there is always a debate when
Formula One travels to Bahrain, largely because of what has gone on in the
past. In 2011, the race was called off. A year later, it took place in an
awfully nervous and hostile environment. And then last season, it was to a
certain degree a re-run of 2012, but in less extreme circumstances.
This year, the feeling you get from the teams is that the issue has been put
to bed. Two years ago especially they were fearful that their being there
might trigger some kind of enormous and catastrophic event around the
circuit or in and around the main hotels, but it never really materialised.
While the grievances of many Bahrainis are real, at this stage it is difficult
to see the subject of F1’s presence being the dominant subject it was
previously. Furthermore, just over two months ago Sakhir hosted two
pre-season tests, which passed without any major incident.
If something were to happen at the weekend, it raises the question: why then
and not at testing? There is one very obvious answer: the Grand Prix is a
window into Bahrain, and it presents the best opportunity to get attention
for your cause.
The mood at Williams
What is it about Malaysia and team orders? After the race, Williams said the
air had been cleared between Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas. But it must
have been galling for Massa to hear words so similar to the instruction he
received at Hockenheim in 2010 – “team-mate X is faster than you” – if not a
little more bluntly this time around.
As Sky’s Ted Kravitz put it to deputy team principal Claire Williams: “How
could you do that to Felipe?”
For me, there shouldn’t be an enormous amount of sympathy for Felipe. While
there was probably no need to issue a team order, and the pair should have
been left to race, Bottas started lower down the grid and he successfully
clawed his way through the field to be tucked up behind Massa in the closing
laps. I fully expect Bottas to outperform Massa over the course of the
season.
However, that does not change the fact the Brazilian’s race engineer should
probably pick his words more carefully next time. It will be fascinating to
see if this situation arises once more in Bahrain.
Tyre talk
There was a time last season when Paul Hembery, motorsport director at
Pirelli, was almost the most interviewed man in Formula One. With teams,
drivers and organisers all on Pirelli’s case – in some instances unfairly,
given the task they were set and the limited testing they had – poor Paul
was often the subject of a grilling on the BBC or Sky. You couldn’t help but
feel sorry for him, given their remit and the fact he’s generally a very
nice chap.
But this year we’ve barely seen him on our television screens. Conscious to
avoid the public relations disaster that was 2013, Pirelli have made the
tyre compounds a step harder, so that degradation is less of an issue.
Drivers still talk about their tyres going off, but it isn’t the be all and
end all issue it was last year, particularly seen as there is so much else
going on.
However, for Bahrain Pirelli are bringing the two softest compounds, the soft
and the medium, on a circuit which is high for tyre wear. Now it is a night
race (it starts at 18:00 local time), so it will be cooler, and there were
two pre-season tests here, but my money would be on the tyres playing a
bigger role than in the first two races.
And finally… the noise issue slipping off the agenda – for now
The new engine noise remained a big topic of discussion in Malaysia,
particularly after Vettel decided to use a rather naughty four-letter word
to describe the sound (I’m all for drivers being allowed to say what they
think, by the way, as long as the sport doesn’t end up talking itself into
the ground).
But it seems as if, in Bahrain at least, it won’t be such a dominant subject.
A planned meeting of the Grand Prix promoters – led by Ron Walker, who
spewed a torrent of abuse at the sound after the race in Australia – has
been cancelled, for now. Apparently they could not organise something.
In addition, a meeting of the teams and Bernie Ecclestone on Friday in
Malaysia, it is believed the 83 year-old was told, in broad terms: stop
being so negative about the noise; that’s enough for now.