On the ’second’ drivers and what a difference a year makes to F1
With the first race of the year now behind us and the first points on the board it seems that Michael Schumacher may be wishing he’s driving a Ferrari this year after all; I’m not sure that he’d want to be up against Alonso though as he struggled to keep pace with Rosberg.
The second set of drivers – by this I mean Massa, Rosberg and Webber though unless he improves will soon include Button – put on an interesting show on Sunday, Rosberg beat Schumacher, Webber was beaten by Vettel and Massa out-qualified Alonso but was beaten down to the first corner.
Nico Rosberg seems to have had the measure of Michael Schumacher all weekend and underlined that by beating him in the race. There is more to this though, firstly Michael Schumacher was some 0.5s off Rosberg’s pace in qualifying but only finished 4s behind him, there are two other points that will give Schumacher hope, 1) Rosberg couldn’t overtake the wounded Red Bull of Sebastien Vettel even though others had just driven by, and 2) Bahrain is by far Rosberg’s best track, he always runs well there – he even set the fastest lap in a Williams on his debut in 2006. I’m going to hold off on Schumacher bashing until we’ve seen a couple more races.
Webber on the other hand simply couldn’t hold on Vettel all weekend, he was in a different league to the young German and needs to get it together for his home race if he doesn’t want to end up in a supporting role all year, after all he didn’t beat Vettel even though Vettel had a broken car for the last 10 or so laps. There was one interesting point about Webber’s race though and that was the tyres, he fell away from Button towards the end – maybe that shows what would have happened to Vettels tyres had Alonso had to press him the whole way.
The Ferrari story is perhaps a tale of a slightly cautious Felipe Massa, he was beaten down to turn 1 and then followed Alonso home – would it have been different if he hadn’t? I don’t think so as Alonso seemed to have time in the bag whenever he saw clean air, 5s in two laps after they both passed Vettel. With Massa saving fuel the gap was artificially large at the end but Massa has a lot of work to do if he wants to beat Alonso – I’m just not sure he can.
The McLarens tell an interesting story with Button silently driving home to seventh while Hamilton took a podium, why the difference? Well Button needs to sort out whatever the issue is in qualifying and get himself a decent grid spot. Having said that Hamilton could have easily ended up behind Rosberg had he not been held up in the pit lane and that would mean he’d have only managed fifth and there wouldn’t be such a difference. The McLarens were disappointing though, they will have to do better in Australia if they want to have a shot at the constructors title.
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