I'm trying, but nothing's happening!  I keep getting distracted from writing, either by the Coca-Cola 600 or by the incredible pull of Civilization 5... I'm playing Japan on a Huge Earth map, and I've managed to colonize everything to the East of 90°E down to Australia, up to the Arctic circle.  There's also a small but growing corner of the Empire in what would be called Chile.  Problem is, the Iroquois had no other competition on North America, and they're spoiling for a fight.

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(We're back!  Thanks to Pixy for fixing the servers!)

An overcast sky from overnight rains greeted the masses as they congregated at the Circuit de Catalunya in Barcalounger.  As the F1 Circus rolled onto the starting grid, their tasks-at-hand was quite simple.  For the two Mercedes drivers, sitting 1-2 at the top of the field, it was "beat your teammate."  One, Nico Rosberg, won the first race of the season, finished second in the other three, and held the Driver's Championship points lead.  The other, Lewis Hamilton, had won the last three races and sat on pole.  For the other 20 drivers, the job was "beat Mercedes."  Could anybody manage that task today?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2014 Grand Prix of Spain!

*LIGHTS OUT:  That last question was answered shortly after the race began: "no."  Hamilton  got away cleanly while Rosberg had a mediocre start, allowing the 2008 World Champion to open up a couple of seconds worth of lead.  It never got much larger than that, promising an interesting struggle between the two in the long run.  Behind them, however, the rest of the field could only gasp in full-blown horror as the Silver Arrows disappeared into the distance at a rate of a second per lap.  It became pretty obvious that we were looking at a race that was likely to be won in the pit lane, not on track.  And then the entire F1U! analysis team dozed off in their comfy chairs.

*RED HOT PIT ACTION:  We were woken up (see "Moment of the Race", below) just in time for the first round of pit stops... where nothing really happened.  Of the Merc drivers, Hamilton pitted first on Lap 18, relinquishing the lead to Rosberg.  Surprisingly, the robotic Mercedes pit crew coughed up a four-second pit stop for the Brit.  Not horrible, surely, but not what they usually manage either.  His teammate stopped on Lap 20 after cranking out a fast lap, had a three-second long pitstop... and wound up only 3.8 seconds behind his Hamilton.

*WASH RINSE REPEAT:  The rest of the race was exactly the same until the final round of pitstops around Lap 40.  The two Merc drivers were on different tire strategies, with Hamilton starting on Mediums, putting on another set of Mediums at the first stop, and having to put on a set of Hard tires during the last stint.  Meanwhile, Rosberg's strategy was Medium-Hard-Medium, hoping to take advantage of the softer compound to chase down his teammate.  This was clearly a concern for the British driver, as he was constantly asking his pit wall how far behind his teammate was, where was he picking up time, etc etc etc.  The lead began to drop.

*DRAMATIC FINISH?  HA HA NO.:  While Rosberg was whittling away at Hamilton's lead, one never got the feeling that he could really catch his teammate.  He got close, finishing just over a half-second behind as the race ended.  After the race, he suggested that if he just had another lap or two, he could have attacked the leader.  But he didn't have those two laps, and thus is now second in the Driver's Championship.

*EEEK!: The rest of the field could only watch in awe and terror.  The two Mercedes lapped everybody up to Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, in 7th place, and was very close to lapping HWMNBN in 6th at the end, finishing 87 seconds ahead on a circuit where the fast lap was 88.  The third place finisher, Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, was nearly 50 seconds in arrears.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  It annoys us to have to do this, but Red Bull's Seb Vettel began the race in 15th after a gearbox failure in Quals.  He managed to work his way up the field to end up in 4th, behind his teammate Ricciardo.  Okay, yes, he was 20-some seconds behind his podium-standing teammate, but still.  Ugh.

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  Mercedes.  They're so dominant it's frightening.  At least Red Bull looked like they could be caught, occasionally, but this?  Yeesh.

*MOMENT OF THE RACE:  The knock on the door just in time for the first pit stops, heralding the arrival of tasty tasty pizza from Maciano's.  The F1U! analysis crew are big fans of the double-dough pizza with sausage and extra cheese, which was on the menu today.  Their stuffed pizza is tasty and recommended.  Strangely, we're not fans of their Chicago-style deep dish pizza, which uses a different, sweeter, sauce.  That the knock on the door woke the assembled scribblers from a collective sleep should tell you everything you need to know about the action level of the 2014 Grand Prix of Spain.

*SELECTED DRIVER'S QUOTES OF THE RACE:

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A grey day greeted the F1 Circus as they settled in on the grid.  It was grey not because of clouds or a chance of rain, but the ever-present layer of smog wafting in from Shanghai, for this was China, and THIS is your F1Update! for the 2014 Grand Prix of China!

*LIGHTS OUT:  Other than mechanical failure or driver error, there was really only one chance for anybody to beat the Mercedes of Lewis Hamilton today, and that was to catch him and pin him down quickly.  The problem was, the driver most likely to manage that feat, Nico Rosberg, was sitting in fourth place.  In between the two Mercedes teammates were the two Red Bull pilots, 4Time Vettel in second and Daniel Ricciardo in third.  Neither were particularly inclined to move over, but the RB10's Renault engine simply doesn't have the grunt to keep up with the Merc W05.  However, it's more than powerful enough to keep a car behind them.  A good getaway would be essential for Rosberg... and that's exactly what he didn't get.  The telemetry on his car failed just as the lights began to stage, so the team couldn't tell him exactly what would be the right settings for a good getaway.  He bogged down, dropped down to seventh, then was clubbed by the Williams of Valterri Bottas that surprisingly didn't damage either car.  A couple of years ago would have seen one or both out with shattered suspensions; apparently the teams are making their carbon fiber with a special Wheaties layer.  In any case, it would take Rosberg some 14 laps (and one pit stop) to make it back up to fourth place, and any chance he had to catch his teammate was long, long gone.

*MEANWHILE:  Felipe Massa seems to have a job for himself in drag racing after his F1 career is over.  For the second race in a row, the Williams driver had the greatest reaction of all time off the line.  He swung to the right to get around the wallowing Rosberg, then cut back towards the center of the track to avoid a blocking 4Time Vettel.  He was balked by Ricciardo directly in front of him, and then the Ferrari of HWMNBN bumped into him.  And by "bumped", we mean "uppercut to the chin."  Again, neither car was obviously damaged, though in the time it took Massa to return from Low Earth Orbit, he had lost most of the places he'd gained with his magic start.

*OH, AND...:  By the end of the first lap, Hamilton had a 1.5 second lead over Vettel.  By the end of Lap 6, it was four seconds.  By Lap 9, it was nine seconds and growing by over a second per lap.

*LIVE BY THE START, DIE BY THE STOP:  Despite his short visit to the ISS, Massa looked like things were still going well.  He was in 8th place, holding back the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen, and was looking racy.  All looked normal when he swung into the pits for his first tire change, but things were anything but.  At first it looked like the Williams mechanics were putting the rear tires on the wrong sides (right on left, left on right), but then it became obvious that they had the wrong compound of tires!  Then it became clear that there had been some subtle damage in his encounter with HWMNBN... the left-rear wheel nut refused to come off the tire.  By the time everything was sorted out, what should have been a three-second pit stop had turned into a one-minute-plus nightmare.  Massa would return to the race in 18th, never to be seen again.

*AND THEN...:  Eventually, Rosberg managed to pull himself up the field, disposing of the Red Bulls with ease, then HWMNBN late to take 2nd place.  In the last 10 laps, the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo began to take huge chunks of time off of HWMNBN, looking like he might have had a shot at catching him.  In the end, his tires gave up and he ended the race some four seconds behind the Ferrari.  Remember this, for it will be come important later on.  The Spaniard was some six seconds in arrears to Rosberg.  Rosberg was a distant 18 seconds behind Hamilton, and it seemed like it could have been more if the polesitter had wanted to push the matter.  That makes three wins in a row for Shiv Hamilton, the third time Mercedes has finished 1-2 this season, and the team has won all four races this season so far.  This is disturbing in so many ways, we can't even begin to start.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  HWMNBN.  The Ferrari F14T just isn't that good of a car.  Oh, it's perfectly okay, but it isn't really a podium contender.  UNLESS the driver is HWMNBN, who can take a less-than-stellar chassis and make it good.  Right now, the best anybody that isn't in a Mercedes can do is third, and that's exactly where HWMNBN brought his Ferrari this race, when by all rights it should be somewhere around sixth or seventh.  THAT'S a drive.

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  Mercedes.  The first time since 2004 that a team has had three 1-2 finishes in a row, and that car, Ferrari's F2004, is probably on the short list of best F1 car ever.  Completely dominant.

*MOMENT OF THE RACE:  On Lap 23, Rosberg passed 4Time Vettel for 3rd place, but it wasn't easy.  Vettel fought the pass tooth-and-nail, but couldn't quite keep the Mercedes back... and the struggle allowed Red Bull teammate Daniel Ricciardo to close up tight to the back of Vettel.  The two were on different strategies, and Ricciardo had fresher tires to boot.  As they crossed the start/finish line for Lap 24, Ricciardo was a mere .230 seconds behind.  Half a lap later, the call came from the pit wall: "4Time, let Daniel (Ricciardo) through, please.  Let him through."  Ominously, Vettel didn't respond.  Finally, Vettel asked "What tires is he on?"  "Primes, same as you."  Vettel, in defiance of team orders, came back with "Tough luck."   It took another lap or so, but Ricciardo managed to force the issue and get past.  In the two or three laps involved, however, Nico Rosberg had managed to run away and hide to the tune of nearly six seconds.  How much time did he lose behind Vettel just because 4Time threw a little temper tantrum?  Certainly enough to have made a difference at the end of the race... he may not have been able to get past HWMNBN, but it wouldn't have been a four second gap.  Good job, 4Time!

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

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The sun was sinking in the west as the Mumbling Herd pulled up on the front straight.  Mercedes driver Nico Rosberg sat on pole, his teammate Shiv Hamilton poised next to him.  This was normal.  Behind them, however, the goofy side of F1 had reared its head: the Williams of Valtteri Bottas and Sergio Perez's Force India made up the second row, and nowhere to be seen were the Red Bull duo.  But would it last?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2014 Grand Prix of Bahrain.

*LIGHTS OUT:  To say the first lap of this race was exciting would be understating the case.  When the lights were extinguished, all manner of hoo-hah (technical F1 term) broke loose.  For example, Felipe Massa got the jump of a lifetime from seventh and found himself in third by the first turn, while Hamilton managed to take first from his teammate, but only after the two of them went hammer-and-tongs with each other.  Up and down the field, you saw ridiculously successful moves, enough tire smoke to eliminate malaria from the Earth, all of it accompanied by showers of sparks caused by the dragging of legality planks, a sight we don't see that often during the day.  Even when Jules Vergne's Toro Rosso crawled into the pits with a rear tire shredded, we had excitement as he got on the radio saying that he had been hit by "...the crazy Lotus guy.  I don't know who it is.  Absolutely mental!"  (Mr Maldonado, please pick up the red courtesy phone.)  The F1U! analysis team just sort of fell about the place at that one.  Little did we know...

*MIDRACE: Things more or less settled down after three or four laps, which allowed everybody to catch their breath and notice that the two Mercedes cars had opened up a three-second gap to third-place Felipe Massa.  A gap that, ominously, continued to grow: nine seconds after eight laps, nearly 14 seconds after 13 laps.  Rosberg continued to bird-dog Hamilton, bouncing back and forth between a half-second behind and over a full second.  It was obvious that, barring incident, the race was firmly in the hands of the Silver Arrows.  Things got really weird on Lap 16 when the Red Bull pit wall got on the radio to 4Time Vettel... and told him to pull over and let his teammate Daniel Ricciardo go by, as he was faster and stood a better chance to catching the lead pack. 

*SAFETY CAR:  That's pretty much the way it stayed for most of the race... Shiv Hamilton leading Nico Rosberg, with everybody else fighting for third.  We also got the wonderful image of Luca di Montezemelo, Chairman of Ferrari, turning away in disgust as HWMNBN was blown away by a Force India.  And then the entire race changed as a Safety Car was called out (see "Moment of the Race", below), bunching the entire field back up and giving the field hope that, this time perhaps they could keep the Mercedes duo in the same area code.  The long, long Safety Car period saw pit walls up and down the paddock rubbing their hands together in anticipation: plenty of fuel for the final 10-lap dash to the checkered flag.  Even the F1U! historian, dozing on the lounge after the completion of his massage, roused himself for this one.

*GO FAST:  The restart proved to be anticlimactic in one way: the Silver Arrows went screaming off into the night, opening a four second lead in a single lap.  Part of that was simply because the two Mercedes were just faster than everybody else.  The other part, though, is that positions three through nine were held by five Mercedes-powered cars and the two Red Bulls.  They were so busy attacking and defending against each other, sometimes at the same time, that nobody had the time to try and drive perfectly and thus catch up to the top two.  This melee caused the TV Director no end of headaches as once again, Hamilton and Rosberg were once again going tooth-and-nail with each other.  Indeed, it was getting so tight that Paddy Lowe, Merc Tech Director, got on the radio to both his drivers to point out that it'd be best to get both cars to the finish, as opposed to one or both in the fence or as scattered pieces of carbon fiber.  It's good that he reminded them of this, because it was only a few laps later that the two of them had their tires overlapped... just think what would have happened if they weren't told to be careful.  The two of them would continue to race until the end, with Hamilton leading Rosberg across the line by just under a second... and 24 seconds ahead of third place.

*BUT:  Back in third place, Force India's Sergio Perez had opened a tiny gap between himself and the Red Bull of Daniel Ricciardo, but it was quickly fading with but a few laps left.  Meanwhile, in fifth place, Force India's Nico Hulkenberg had 4Time Vettel staring at his rear wing, just begging for a single mistake that his fading RB10 could exploit.  It never came, though.  Just ahead of them, Ricciardo was doing everything he could think of to get past Perez on the last lap.  The F1U! crew admits to rooting for Force India in ways usually reserved for the Chicago Cubs.  The wishes and hopes of us (and most of the rest of the world, it must be admitted) guided Perez across the finish line 4/10th of a second ahead of Ricciardo.  The two Williams drivers crossed the line behind Vettel, at least close enough to see him.  Third through 10th places were covered by nine seconds, bringing a great race to a close.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  As much as we wish to give this to Sergio Perez, Shiv Hamilton deserves it more.  While he led all but three laps, his teammate Nico Rosberg was always right there, grimly hanging onto his rear wing, looking for any chance to mug him for first place.  It never came.  When Rosberg forced the issue, Hamilton wasn't afraid to hip-check him into the Persian Gulf if need be.  It looked easy, it was anything but.

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  Nope, not Mercedes.  Force India got their first podium since 2009 and their best two-car finish ever.  Break open those Kingfishers, guys, you deserve 'em!

*MOMENT OF THE RACE:  On Lap 41, Candy Maldonado swung into the pits for his final tire change.  Upon exiting, he managed to drive directly into the side of the Sauber of Esteban!  The weird twin-tusk of the Lotus went right under the side of the Sauber, with the effect that you might think:

After the Sauber stopped flipping, flopping and flooping, Esteban! managed to key his radio to plaintively ask "What was that?!?"  THAT was the Maldozer, Esteban!.   The accident brought out the Safety Car, which gave us the exciting race end, thereby earning the Moment of the Race!

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

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A hot and humid day greeted the assembled F1 Circus as they formed up on the grid in Kuala Lumpur, with a low, dark sky overhead threatening to dump rain at any time.  In short, just another day in Malaysia!  Would polesitter Shiv Hamilton lead his Mercedes home for the win?  Would his teammate Nico Rosberg make it two in a row?  Or would the slightly surprising Hannibal Vettel get the first win of his title defense?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2014 Grand Prix of Malaysia!

*GO!:  Unlike last race, they only needed one try to get under way, and what a start it was for Mercedes.  Shiv Hamilton rocketed off the line, clearly untouchable, while Vettel's car seemingly infected by the dreaded Mark Webber Lousy Start^© disease, was completely unable to hold back a charging Rosberg.  Nor could he keep his own teammate, Daniel Ricciardo, from jumping in front, something we never thought we'd see here at the F1U! Palatial Studios.  It would take a few laps for 4Time Vettel to take the position back from the junior member of the team, by which point it was clearly academic: unless there was a Mercedes breakdown, there was no stopping the Silver Arrows today.

*GOOD TO BAD TO WORSE TO ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:  For Ricciardo, the day was shaping up to be continued proof that he could hang with his more highly decorated teammate.  While he'd surrendered third place to 4Time, the Australian had hung on his tail, right up until the final round of pitstops.  It was on Lap 41, though, that everything went south.  Ricciardo stopped for tires, an evolution that went as smoothly as always until he was released back into the pit lane... it seems that the man on the front-left tire had not yet finished bolting it onto the car when the Aussie drove away.  While he was quickly told to stop, he had managed to make it a good distance down the lane... and while there are hundreds of ways to be penalized during a race, there are really very few that will get you disqualified from a race.  One of those, though, is reversing in the pit lane.  So he had to sit there until the Red Bull mechanics could run down to where he was, then push him back to the pit stall, complete the act of bolting on the tire, then let him go again.  In the process, he was lapped.  From 4th place to nowhere in a heartbreaking minute.  And then it got worse.  A lap after the fiasco, one of the mounting pylons on his front wing broke, dropping the wing to the ground and causing one of the endplates to begin digging a groove trench in the tire.  Right back into the pits he went for new tires and a new nose, exiting some two or three laps down.  Then, as if all of that wasn't enough, a lap later he got the news that he had been given a 10 second stop/go penalty for the earlier unsafe release into the pits.  By the time THAT had been served, he was four laps down and would retire the car a few laps later.  Not the luckiest of racers, our boy Daniel.  Oh, and then the FIA handed him a 10-grid spot penalty for the next race as well.

*RACE END:  Hamilton was dominating the race so totally that Mercedes was actually telling him to "preserve the engine" around the half-way point.  This meant that the lead to his teammate was only 17 seconds when the Grand Prix ended.  Similarly, Rosberg had been able to dial his settings back as well, and still beat Vettel to the line by a good seven seconds.  What's more telling, however, is the fact that only eight cars were on the lead lap when the race ended.  That's a disturbing statistic, and one that could suggest a huge gap between the "haves" and the "have nots" is brewing.  For now, however, the new F1 is proving to be quite refreshing: it wasn't the most fabulous of races, but at no time were you bored.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  Lewis Hamilton.  The Shiv recovered nicely from his car failure at Australia, didn't he? At this point, we want to note that the average driver loses roughly 7lbs during a race at Malaysia, yet Hamilton was bouncing around like he'd just driven down to the corner shop after the race.  Amazing.

*TEAM OF THE RACE: The first Mercedes 1-2 finish since 1955, and they're now leading the Constructor's Championship with 68 points.  Red Bull has 15.  Yes, we relished saying that.

*MOMENT OF THE RACE:  For most of his career, Felipe Massa has been told to pull aside and let his teammate pass.  It came to a head a couple of years ago when he was told "Fernando is faster than you."  Immediately afterwards, it seemed like the "fighting spirit" had gone out of him, and he was never the same driver again.  Signing with Williams this year, it seemed unlikely that he'd be put into a similar situation again.  That lasted all of two races.  Late in the race, he'd been dueling with the McLaren of Jenson Button for 6th place, never quite seeming to be able to close up to really challenge the Brit.  Meanwhile, Valterri Bottas, his Williams teammate, had fresher tires and was looking a bit racier on the day.  The inevitable occurred, and the Williams pit wall called out "Felipe, Valterri is faster than you."  They even used the same sentence.  And Massa refused to pull over.  A second call went out, explaining the tire situation.  One could imagine the diminutive Brazilian replying with a "come get some" hand gesture.  To his credit, he did keep Bottas behind for the rest of the race, but at what price his standing with the team?  This could prove to be very important down the road...

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

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While there were clouds overhead at Albert Park, Melbourne, Australia, there was nothing but blue sky and sunshine in the hearts of F1 fans everywhere.  As the purring herd formed up on the grid, one got the feeling that something exciting, something big, was about to happen at this, the first race of the new season.  Did it?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2014 Grand Prix of Australia!

*AND THEY'RE OFF... NOT SO FAST!:  The way a F1 race begins is relatively simple.  The cars perform a recon lap around the circuit and then takes their places on the starting grid.  When the last of the 22 cars comes to a halt and the field is deemed ready, race director Charlie Whiting presses a button on his console which begins an automated process: five red lights come on, one after another.  Once all five are illuminated, a computer-selected random amount of time passes before the lights go out.  When the lights wink off, the race begins.  Today, however, this didn't happen.  Instead, the cars formed up, and just as the first red light began to illuminate, a track marshal began frantically waving a yellow flag towards the back of the grid.  After a moment, Whiting pressed one of the other buttons on his console.

Two solid green lights and three flashing yellows designate an aborted start.  Everybody went around for another lap while the second Marussia of the day was rolled off the track to start from the pit lane (the first Marussia didn't start before the first recon lap).  So now we had to do it all over again.  Little did we know that trouble was brewing.

*AND THEY'RE OFF... WAIT, HOLD UP...:  This time, the red lights came on, stayed on for a decent amount of time, then extinguished, starting the 2014 F1 season with a loud-ish growl from 19 V6 turbo-powered engines, and a purr from the three cars starting from the pit lane.  In the run down to Turn 1, McLaren's rookie Kevin Magnussen had a good start, diving from the inside of the track to the outside in a calm, controlled fashion... or at least, that was the plan.  Instead, he wound up like this:

Amazingly, he didn't hit the wall, nor did the Ferrari of HWMNBN impale itself into the side of the McLaren.  Instead, he gathered the car up and was threatening Lewis Hamilton's Mercedes by the time they reached the first turn.  Further back in the field, though, F1U! favorite Gandalf Kobayashi was discovering that he had a problem.  It wasn't that he was driving a Caterham, having turned down an offer from Ferrari to drive sports cars for them, but that his Caterham had no brakes.  One can imagine how much of a disadvantage this could be for a F1 driver.  Fortunately, there were convenient methods of slowing down right in front of him... a Ferrari and the Willams of Felipe Massa.

Both Gandalf and Massa were out as soon as they stopped bouncing.  Up at the front of the race, though, things were proceeding apace... except that both Shiv Hamilton and Hannibal Vettel were complaining about their cars.  Hamilton's Mercedes just sounded wrong, and was being passed with ease.  Vettel's Red Bull didn't sound particularly unwell, but he was saying that he had "no K", meaning the new KERS-style hybrid system.  Unlike the old KERS unit, the new one can't be simply switched off; it's an integral part of the Power Unit.  The first lap ended with Nico Rosberg leading Red Bull's Daniel Ricciardo, Magnussen, a fading Hamilton, Force India's Nico Hulkenberg, and HWMNBN.

*...AND THEN:  Two different radio calls left the F1U!'s coverage team stunned.  Both Mercedes and Red Bull called in their lead drivers (Hamilton and Vettel, respectively), telling them their races were over.  Hamilton was only running on five cylinders; Vettel was running on not much of anything at all.  Both expected-to-be contenders for the World Championship were out of the race by Lap 5.

*SAFETY CAR:  The race continued mostly as expected until around Lap 10, when the surviving Williams of Valteri Bottas, in a struggle for fifth with HWMNBN, gave the outside wall a nice stiff tap with the right-rear.  A few moments later, a massive stroke of luck befell the Finn.

Yes, luck indeed.  The whap broke the tire rim, allowing the failed tire to fall off altogether, as opposed to the more common "shred-and-flail" method of failure that tears up any nearby bodywork and often means the end of the victim's race.  While in this case Bottas lost nigh on 10 positions, he was at least able to continue with no obvious damage.  When the safety car was summoned so the tire carcass and associated debris could be recovered, the field was bunched back up, meaning it would be easier for the Williams to make an impact on the race.

*BACK TO WORK: To be honest, the rest of the run was something of an anticlimax.  Nico Rosberg owned this race from Turn 1, and after the restart he was putting a second per lap onto his lead over Ricciardo, who was only a second or two ahead of Kevin Magnussen, who had decent gap back to his teammate, Jenson Button.  The driver to watch, though, was definitely Bottas who quickly began to work his way back up the field.  by Lap 35, he was up to 5th place, though a pit stop dropped him back to eighth.  By the end of the race, though, he had managed to get back to 6th, the best finish for Williams since the 2012 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi.  Nearly a half-minute up the road, however, Rosberg had finished first, followed by Ricciardo, Magnussen, Button, and HWMNBN.  An easy and, really, an expected, victory for Mercedes, though a surprising result for Red Bull who just a few days ago were saying that they considered just finishing the race to be their goal.

*AND THEN: A few hours later came the news.  Daniel Ricciardo's RB10 had been found to be running a fuel flow sensor that had been brought before the FIA and found to be giving invalid results.  The FIA had told the team they couldn't use it and Red Bull used it anyway.  They were then warned before the race not to use it and were allowed to change it... and they used it anyway.  After the race, Ricciardo was duly excluded from the results, having his 2nd place finish stripped and promoting Button up to the third step of the podium.  Red Bull is appealing the decision.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  Nico Rosberg should probably be given this, considering his lights-to-flag win, but instead we'll give it to Valteri Bottas for his gritty drive.  What would have happened if he hadn't've clonked the wall?

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  McLaren.  Last year was their worst season since 1980, with zero podiums and, indeed, never even looking like a threat for a podium.  Today?  A 2-3 finish, with their rookie driver on the higher step.  That's gotta bode well for the team from Woking.

*MOMENT OF THE RACE:  This new category won't necessarily be the most important moment, or the most dramatic, or even the most obvious, moment of a particular race, but the one that sticks in the head of the F1U! Team.  Today's moment is brought to you by the front jackman / Mohel for Team McLaren's pit crew.

Ladies and gentlemen, the first circumcised F1 car.

*SELECTED DRIVERS QUOTES OF THE RACE:

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There were low grey skies hovering above Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace at Interlagos as the samba line known as the F1 Circus made its way to the starting grid, but the track surface was still dry.  It surely wouldn't stay that way, though.  THIS is your F1U! for the 2013 Grand Prix of Brazil!

*RACE:  Once the lights went out and the Thundering Herd charged down to Turn 1, we had the amazing sight of someone other than 4Time Vettel leading the race.  Both Vettel and his teammate, Mark Webber, had less-than-optimal starts.  This opened the door for both Nico Rosberg and Ferrari's HWMNBN to make runs at the Driver's Champion.  Rosberg got past, HWMNBN did not, but gave Vettel something of a scare through the Senna S complex.  It didn't last long, and neither did Rosberg's lead.  He did officially lead the first lap though, so that's nice for him.  Shortly thereafter, Vettel's RB9 blew past him on the straight and it became a normal 2013 race again. 

*AND THEN:  On Lap 3, something distinctly abnormal occurred.

It's been long enough since the last comprehensive engine kablammo that we here at F1U! can't remember when it was.  In this case, the Renault RS27 of Lettuce Grosjean's Lotus let go, killing every mosquito in São Paolo.  Fortunately, he did not lay down an oil slick, nor did the immense amount of smoke released block vision for very long.  We here at F1U! remember when we'd see this scene every couple of races...

*OTHER THAN THAT?: The rain didn't come.  Everybody was looking to the heavens, trying to figure out when they'd open up.  Every driver was told to protect his tires as much as possible, so to keep that first pitstop at bay until it rained.  The thinking, quite logically, was that those who couldn't keep the tires alive would be at a disadvantage if they stopped before the rains came, as they'd have to stop again for rain tires.  But the rains didn't come, and the looks of confusion up and down the pit lane were plain to see.  "Wait, it was supposed to rain... now what do we do?"  It got so bad that when the second round of stops occurred, it still hadn't rained and Red Bull completely peed theirs down their legs.  Vettel came in, the team took his tires off... but they didn't have new tires for him, they had Webber's out and waiting.  In the time it took them to run into the garage and grab them, Webber came in and was forced to "stack" behind his younger teammate.  Clearly the two were supposed to pit in the opposite order.  This cost Vettel about six-to-eight seconds of lead time, though it hardly mattered. 

*FINALLY:  Drops of rain began to appear on the on-board cameras with around 10 laps to go, but still the skies refused to drop The Great Equalizer upon the circuit.  The Legendary Announce Team tried to play it up as if the track had become "greasy," but the lack of fishtailing and drifting proved them wrong.  We don't doubt that the traction was somewhat less than perfect, but it wasn't that bad either.  Then, a few laps later, the inevitable occurred: 4Time Vettel swept across the finish line.  He led his retiring teammate by 10 seconds, followed by HWMNBN another nine seconds back.

*LOOKING AROUND:  Vettel won every race since the Summer Break, nine in a row.  This is the first time any driver ever has won nine races in a row in a single season.  He won 13 out of 19 races on the season (tying him with Slappy Schumacher for the most in a season), and 10 out of the last 11.  He scored more points alone (397) than the next closest team (Mercedes, 360).  He scored 83.58% of the maximum points possible  Only Mercedes and Red Bull scored pole positions all season. 

*AND THUS:  The 2013 season has come to an end, and with it the V8 engine era.  Next March will see the return of turbocharging, though perched on V6 engines.  Well, it'll be different, that's for sure.  F1U! may come back, too... only time will tell.  Thank you for reading, and we'll see you in 2014!

*OH, AND THIS:  The last two episodes of McLaren's Tooned:



So that's how they dealt with Hamilton!

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A remarkably warm day (for November, not for Texas in general) greeted the two longhorned Red Bulls (see what I did there?) as they led the rest of the thundering herd (get it?) to the starting line at the Circuit of the Americas.  Would head cowboy Tom Landry 4Time Vettel become the first driver in F1 history to win eight consecutive races in one season?  Or would rival drover Mark Webber say goodbye to America with a win?  Perhaps gardian Lettuce Grosjean would break through with his first victory?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2013 United States Grand Prix!

*WELL, NO:  For all intents and purposes, the race was over by the time Vettel climbed Phil Hill and made it through Turn 1.  In fact, not only had he locked up the win but Lettuce Grosjean, taking advantage of yet another Mark Webber Lousy Start®, slotted into second place... which he wouldn't relinquish either.  So, yeah, there's the race writeup, right there.

*BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE:  Over at Chizumatic, Steven finally watched his first F1 race.  He's absolutely right that DRS is, as he calls it, a hack.  Before it came around, we saw practically zero passing; now we see regular passing, but usually only in certain locations.  We here at F1U! like DRS about as much as we like Bubonic Plague, but it has done what the FIA wanted it to do.  Steven also talks about the pitstops, and how even a "slow" one looked fast to his eyes.  During the race, someone (Button?) had a four second long stop, and we were going "wow, slow" around the three second mark.  But then, Mark Webber had a 2.3 second stop that Red Bull is claiming was actually a sub-two.  Whatever, guys.

*STILL MORE:  The "official language" of F1 is supposed to be English.  All radio conversations are supposed to be in English, but Ferrari continues to speak to HWMNBN in Italian, particularly for sensitive messages.  For the most part, the Red Team has been playing it straight this year, but every now and again, you'll get things like this that remind us why we despise the Scuderia.

*NO REASON, JUST A COOL SHOT:

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Due to the gobsmackingly hideous weather, I had to go into the Duck U Bookstore for a while this evening.  As a result, I'm in no mood to write about the race.  Steven has an entertaining little writeup HERE... I'll answer his questions/comments when I do the F1U.  Meanwhile, here's a picture of Adrian F'n Sutil's Lap 1 wreck to tide you over until then!

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We just lost an hour's worth of work on the (Mini) F1 Update! that we'd been working on.  We are not pleased.  THIS is your F1U! for the 2013 Grand Prix of Abu Dhabi.

*UGH:  Did you think 4Time Vettel would ease up on the rest of the field now that he'd won the driver's championship?  Oh heavens, if only that were the case.  The lights went out, polesitter Mark Webber had one of his patented Lousy Start^®s, and suddenly Vettel found himself in the lead out of Turn 1... a lead he would never relinquish.  Down at the other end of the field, Kimi Raikkonen, who had been excluded from Quals, decided that he could win the race in the first turn.  He tried to fit his Lotus underneath the Caterham of Giedo Van Der Garde, into a space that was going away even before he turned in.  This unwise move cost the Finn his front suspension.  However, he did get a jump on traffic back to the hotel.

There are already people baying and lowing about his leaving the circuit before the race was over, but c'mon, really?  What exactly could he do to help matters?  Give advice on how to handle the front straight?  How not to take Turn 1?  Support the team?  Considering the way this weekend has gone for the Raikkonen/Lotus relationship, I wouldn't be shocked to hear (in a few years) that he did it on purpose.

*ZZZZZZZZZ:  As the sun disappeared over the Yas Marina circuit, due to both planetary rotation and solar eclipse, 4Time Vettel made the sport ridiculous.

At one point, Red Bull's champion had a 43 second lead over his teammate in second place.  There was one stretch of time where he was two seconds a lap faster than anybody else on track.  We'd like to chalk it up to the rest of the field getting an early jump on 2014, but there's still too much to play for... no, 4Time just killed everything possible today.  It may have been the most dominating drive we here at F1U! have ever seen... and it was also ridiculously boring.

*OWTCH:  In the race's endgame, HWMNBN had just made his second pitstop and came charging out of the pit tunnel with a full head of steam.  Toro Rosso driver Jules Vergne had worn tires and held 7th place, but the Ferrari driver wanted the place badly.  Problem was, Vergne couldn't hold his racing line, drifting somewhat into the path of HWMNBN.  The Spaniard was forced to take to the off-track pavement.  His return was... exciting.

There had been complaints about the curbing at Yas Marina all weekend, and in almost the same place during Quals, Shiv Hamilton broke the rear suspension on his Mercedes.  HWMNBN's Ferrari got some good air and returned to earth with a 28G thump that set off the shock alarms that require a mandatory visit to the hospital.  Usually this happens immediately; that sort of force is usually caused by an accident, after all.  In this case, HWMNBN was complaining of some back pain but finished the race.

Afterwards, he was transported to the hospital strapped to a backboard, as seen in this picture released by his agent.  At no time was he unconscious... heck, he drove the rest of the race, finished in 5th and had the fast lap of the race.  Still, there is some question as to whether he'll be allowed to drive at the US Grand Prix.

*NOTE:  Vettel's win keeps open the possibility of tying two major F1 records.  This was his 11th race win in 2013... if he wins out, he'll tie Slappy Schumacher's 2004 season with 13 wins.  In doing so, he'd also tie Alberto Ascari's record for consecutive victories, nine.  Like it or not, we're watching something special here.

Next race is in two weeks, right here in the good ol' USA!  See you then!

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There was not a cloud in the sky when the Thundering Herd formed up on the grid for today's race in Upper Noida.  There didn't need to be, as the sky was invisible from all the smog.  No matter, race time approached, and polesitter Hannibal Vettel had a chance to join the F1 Immortals.  Would he manage the feat of winning four consecutive driver's championships, or would Ferrari's HWMNBN manage to extend the fight for another race?  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2013 Grand Prix of India!

*NOPE:  The lights went out, releasing the straining field towards the first turn like a quarrel from a crossbow.  For Vettel, on soft tires and with nobody in front of him, this was no problem.  HWMNBN though, on medium rubber and mired in 8th place, was about to discover why the midfield is often called the "carbon fiber zone."  He lost one of the endplates of his front wing on Mark Webber's rear tire in Turn 1, then suffered a big impact with Jenson Button in Turn 4.  Thus ended any chance the Spaniard of extending the championship chase as he was forced to pit for a new nose, emerging buried in 20th and never to be heard from again.  He would finish the race in 11th, out of the points.

*THE REST:  With the question of whether Vettel would be crowned Champion out of the way early, it merely became a question of whether he would win the race, too.  By the end of the first lap, he was almost three seconds in front of the Mercedes boys and his strategy had become clear: run as hard as he could for as long as he could on the soft tires, then switch to the mediums and let everybody else pit to regain places.  After turning what were, essentially, two qualifying laps, he had nearly five seconds in hand.  What WAS surprising is that he stopped immediately after.  He emerged in 15th and immediately began his cruise to the front.  And it was a cruise, too: very few of the drivers ahead of him bothered to put in even a token effort to keep him behind.  Why bother, when he would have the benefit of DRS eventually?    By Lap 10, he was in 5th place.  By Lap 29, he was back in the lead, though he would pit a couple of laps later.  This mattered not, as everybody around him pitted slightly earlier and he would regain the lead by Lap 35.

*CHALLENGE OVER:  There was only one car showing any signs of being able to duel with Vettel today, and that was the RB9 of Mark Webber, Vettel's erstwhile teammate.  While it was questionable as to whether or not he could have caught the leader, if there was anybody in the field willing to give it a shot, it'd be the Aussie.  After all, he's retiring after the season, and it's not like the two of them are exactly friends.  Even that went the way of Vettel, when Webber's gearbox began to malfunction.  Moments later, he was told to park the car with a failing alternator.  While it's not clear if Vettel had the same malfunction, the team DID tell their young champion to stop using KERS and even his drinks button, all the better to relieve strain on his alternator.

*THE END:  A few laps later, Vettel swept across the finish line, almost 30 seconds ahead of second place Nico Rosberg in what might have been the single most dominating race the combination of Red Bull strategists and Red Bull driver had put together.  Flat-out amazing.  Not only was it his third straight win at India, and not only did it clinch his fourth consecutive driver's championship, but it also clinched the Constructor's Championship for the team as well.  Possibly even more amazing is that this is Adrian Newey's 10th constructor's championship as a car designer.  There's rumors that Newey plans to retire after 2014, to take up the challenge of America's Cup boat design.  We here at F1U! hope that happens; Newey is so good at his job that his abiltiy completely unbalances the championship.  But it takes a good driver to get the most out of the car, and that's what Red Bull has in Sebastian Vettel, four-time World Driver's Champion.  The donuts Vettel performed on the front straight after winning cost him a reprimand and €25000, but we think it was worth it.

Next weekend, they race in Abu Dhabi.  See you then, see you there!

Oh, and here's McLaren's Tooned, Ep06.

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It was a bright sunny day in Japan as the Thundering Herd took to the grid at Suzuka, led by Red Bull's Mark Webber.  How long would that last?  And would the Aussie, retiring at the end of the season, be able to stay up front?  Or would his teammate Hannibal Vettel, sitting next to him on the grid, manage to run away and hide as he's done so many times in the past?  This is your F1U! for the 2013 Japanese Grand Prix.

*THE RACE: The past two races have seen a grand total of one leader, total: Hannibal Vettel.  He's led every single lap run since the start of the Singapore Grand Prix.  But it became amazingly clear very quickly that this wasn't to be the same sort of race as we've seen of late: Vettel getting a good start, then running away and disappearing over the horizon.  No, instead both Red Bull drivers had less-than-stellar starts, the Lotus of Lettuce Grosjean jumped into the lead from fourth, and Mercedes' Shiv Hamilton managed to skewer himself on the front wing of Vettel.  It didn't do much damage to the Red Bull, despite Hannibal's squeals, but Hamilton had a ruined rear tire.  He was almost a lap down by the time he made it to the pits, and the team retired the car a few laps later.  Meanwhile, Lettuce slowly managed to inch away from the trailing Red Bulls, opening up a lead of a couple of seconds on Webber by Lap 10.  The Aussie was the first of the three drivers to pit, on Lap 11, followed a lap later by Grosjean in what was clearly a covering move by Lotus.  Vettel as usual made his tires last longer than his immediate competition and didn't stop until Lap 14.  After the pit stops, all three were on the hard tire, and the order was Grosjean, Webber and Vettel.  Until Red Bull decided to maximize their chances of a win, that is.  On Lap 22, after a remarkably short stint for hard tires, Webber was brought to the pits.  The team had switched him from a two-stop strategy to a three-stopper.  Amazingly, the Aussie came out in third place, as the top three cars had opened up a huge gap to the rest of the field.  In effect, there were two separate races going on today: the Podium Race, and Everybody Else.  This strategy shift turned the race from one taking place on the track to one taking place in the pits and the plotting tables... a type of  race that Red Bull has proven to be very good at.   As it turned out, staying on the two-stop strategy was the correct one, as Vettel wound up taking the lead after his second stop.  On tires eight laps newer than Grosjean's, Vettel passed the Lotus on Lap 40, functionally for the lead as Webber pitted on Lap 43 from first.  There was some possibility that Webber could have caught his teammate, but instead it took him some six laps to get past Grosjean; he could get close, but wasn't quite able to complete a move.  As it was, Vettel led Webber by seven seconds at the end, and Grosjean was two behind Webber.  The Ferrari of HWMNBN was nearly 37 seconds behind the Lotus.

*WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?: Vettel has now won five races in a row, something that's only happened a few times in the history of F1.  We didn't realize that Slappy Schumacher actually did it twice in 2004: a five-win streak followed by a seven-win streak.  That was the year we here at F1U! began watching Formula 1... we're amazed that we stuck with it.

*OH BY THE WAY...: The STBFTWC will probably have to wait one more race.  Vettel will go into the Grand Prix of India with a 90 point lead over HWMNBN.  If he finishes fifth or higher, he wins the driver's championship, no matter what HWMNBN does.  In effect, the Ferrari driver has to win out while STBFTWC has a historic string of breakdowns.

India in two weeks... break out the chapati, tikka masala and Kingfisher, everybody!  See you then.

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It didn't rain, and the result was preordained.  Yet there was some awfully weird stuff happening in Yeongam, South Korea the other day, and we're here to cover it.  THIS is your F1Update! for the 2013 Grand Prix of Korea.

*THE RACE:  To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the lights went out and Hannibal Vettel, our polesitter, jumped away to the lead.  However, and this is a huge difference, he did not go streaking off over the horizon, looking like he was trying to lap the entire field and standing a good chance at managing the feat.  Instead, he only managed to open up a 2.5 second lead over Shiv Hamilton, a lead that didn't much look like it was going to get much larger.  As radio calls began to fly back and forth between drivers and pit walls, the reason for the smallish lead became clear: tires.  The two tire compounds Pirelli had brought to the track, the super-soft and the mediums, were not lasting anywhere near as long as expected.  In particular, the front-right tire was taking a serious beating around the back half of the track, what with all of its left-hand turns.  Still, none of this was making it look like Vettel was going to be kicked out of first place any time soon.

*THE WEIRDNESS:  And then the weirdness began.  On Lap 28, Nico Rosberg was all over the back of his Mercedes teammate, Shiv Hamilton.  Hamilton was suffering from tire problems; all the tires on the day had graining problems, but once the graining wore away, the tires would be almost as new.  Not so with the set on Hamilton's car at this moment.  We quote from his radio call to his pit wall: "They went through the graining period already; now they're sh*t."  All of this made passing Hamilton a slice of pie for Rosberg.  He got into the Brit's slipstream, opened his DRS, and pulled out from behind... and this happened:

The two top mounting points for the nose of Rosberg's Mercedes failed, dropping the front wing to the pavement.  We here at F1U! have watched Formula 1 for years, and we've never seen a car's nose detach without having suffered other damage, like from an accident.  While spectacular, and in the long run it certainly cost Rosberg a podium shot, the car was essentially undamaged.  Once the nose was replaced, the Mercedes continued on as if nothing had occurred.  What happened three laps later, however, was somewhat more critical.  On Lap 31, McLaren's Sergio Perez had a huge lockup going into Turn 1, putting a visible flat-spot on the front-right tire.  A few hundred yards later, with Mark Webber close by, this happened:

Perez's tire completely let go, the rubber carcass separating completely from the kevlar backing, and taking big chunks of McLaren bodywork with it as well.  Webber, fresh out of the pits and shod with a brand new set of medium tires, had no choice but to drive through the debris field.  Almost immediately, the Red Bull pit wall told him he had punctures and he had to pit for a new set of tires.  Problem is, he had 24 laps to go and the last set of medium tires that he had... were the ones that had just been ruined.  Say goodbye to his chances for a podium.  Fortunately for all concerned, the Safety Car was called out to allow for clean-up of the tire and associated detritus.  It stayed out for six laps, then came in and racing began again.  The restart lasted all of three turns, for it was there that Adrian F'n Sutil spun and slid directly into the side of Webber's Red Bull.  Sutil continued on, but this is what happened to Webber:

The contact apparently shattered the oil cooler, which promptly caught fire, as intense a blaze as any we've seen in F1 for a while.  However, that isn't the weird part.  No, the weird part is that, before the Safety Car was called out, this was spotted on-circuit:

The track Fire Vehicle was sent out before the field had been neutralized... and that's Hannibal Vettel directly behind it.  Almost immediately after this, the Safety Car was called for, white flags (indicating a slow-moving vehicle is on track, and drivers should be alert) were being waved and it looked like the field began to form up behind the truck, instead of the Safety Car!  NEVER seen that before.  Fortunately for everybody, that was the last of the weirdness and the race continued as normal afterwards.

*THE END: In the grand scheme of things, though, none of this was anything but a mild diversion for Vettel, who wound up romping home ahead of the Lotii of Kimi Raikkonen and Lettuce Grosjean.  He now has a 77 point lead over his nearest competitor, and can clinch the driver's championship in Japan.

*WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?:  Vettel earned his second consecutive Grand Slam (winning from pole, leading every lap, setting fast lap of the race), the first driver to do that in F1 history.  There's no reason to think he couldn't do it in Japan, either.  Yeesh.

*FINALLY: Japan is Sunday morning.  We'll see you then!

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Readers...
I'm having problems being creative tonight.  This events of this race, particularly the second half,  actually deserve a decent writeup, and I don't feel like I have it in me at the moment.  It'll happen on Monday.
Probably.
Yours,
-Wonderduck

PS: While you're waiting, here's McLaren's Tooned Ep05

I'm curious to see how they're going to handle the next driver...

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Oh my god.

This is your F1Update! for the 2013 Grand Prix of Singapore.

*THE RACE:  At the extinguishing of the lights, Hannibal Vettel had a less-than-perfect getaway from pole, while second-sitting Nico Rosberg had a good start.  This gave us the glorious image of Rosberg leading the race into Turn 1.

An instant later, he overcooked it, missed the turn, ran wide, and relinquished the lead to the three-time World Driver's Champion. 

And that was the last time anybody was ahead of Vettel all night.  By the end of the first lap, he had a 1.9 second lead over Rosberg.  By the end of the second, the lead was over four seconds and climbing.  He made his super-soft tires last longer than everybody elses, pitted after his challengers and came back out with a ten-second lead.  The only thing that could perhaps halt the bleeding was a Safety Car, which was duly called out when Daniel Ricciardo drove his Toro Rosso into a wall on Lap 24.  This cut the lead back down, of course, but the rolling restart played right back into the hands of Vettel.  It only took four laps for his ten second lead to come back, and in 12 laps he had a 30 second lead... plenty long enough to pit for tires and come back out in the lead.  And so it came to pass that Vettel won the race by 32 seconds over the Ferrari of HWMNBN, who was himself nearly 10 seconds ahead of the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen.

*WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?:  Nothing good, for both us the fans and for Vettel's competition.  Red Bull has already shown that they can't be headed on slower tracks, and they've mastered fast circuits, too.  There is no obvious reason to assume that Vettel won't dominate the rest of the season.  Our only hope is for mechanical failures to rear their ugly head.  This is not as far-fetched as it may seem, as the team seems to be suffering gearbox problems.  Indeed, Mark Webber's gearbox burst into flame on the last lap, causing him to pull over short of the line... which caused a whole bunch of additional problems.  Y'see, after the race was finished and the surviving racers were on the cooldown lap, Webber jogged out onto track to catch a lift with HWMNBN.

This caused two or three other cars to have to make frantic avoiding manuevers so as to not run into the back of the stopped Ferrari.  Here's CCTV footage of the incident, which earned both drivers reprimands.  As it was Webber's third of the season, he's earned a 10-spot penalty for the next race.

*ON THE OTHER HAND:  Historically, Vettel is doing things we've seen but rarely in history... dominating his sport in a way only a few people have ever done.  Michael Jordan, Slappy Schumacher, Wayne Gretzky, B*rr* B*nds... and Vettel.  We should be aware of that fact, and admire it.  It's an amazing streak, but it's killing the enjoyment we here at F1U! have for the races.

*FINALLY:  Even McLaren's Tooned! was a recap episode this race.  Well, if the other teams have given up, why not the animation team, too?

Two weeks until Korea... we'll see you then!

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Rain.  Rain is the great equalizer in F1.  Rain will make contenders out of midpackers, garbage out of champions, and exciting races out of boring ones.  As the field headed out to the grid a half-hour before the start of the 2013 Grand Prix of Italy, they were clad in Intermediate tires, courtesy of showers passing overhead.

*THE RACE:  But when the cars rolled away for the recon lap, the track had dried completely and all were wearing slicks... and we here at F1U! were considering drinking heavily.  When the lights went out and the entire Herd thundered down to the ridiculously tight first chicane, polesitter Hannibal Vettel fed us all a scrap of hope when he locked up his front-right tire, flatspotting it and imparting a serious vibration to the front of his car.  As a result, Vettel stopped before the 2nd place Ferrari of HWMNBN.  The Spaniard stayed on track for as long as he could, praying for the gray skies to open up and force everybody onto rain tires, but no luck.  He pitted on Lap 27, giving first place back to Vettel in the process.  And that's the way it stayed until late in the race, when both Vettel and teammate Mark Webber in third were warned about a serious gearbox problem.  Instructions were issued to short-shift whenever possible, so better to protect the unhappy assembly.  This killed any chance that Webber had to catch the Ferrari, and allowed Vettel's lead to drop from nearly 15 seconds to a meager five.  But that's how the race ended as well, bringing an end to the European leg of the F1 season.

*WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?:  It feels like the rest of the season is a fait accompli.  Vettel could sit out the next two races and even if HWMNBN won them both, he'd still be leading the driver's championship.  He could sit out the next three races before Shiv Hamilton would be in the picture.  Red Bull has a lead of 104 points over Ferrari in the constructor's championship... and a maximum of 43 points can be earned by a team per race.  Vettel has now won half of the races run this season, and it just seems impossible for him to be headed the rest of the way.  The next race is at Singapore in two weeks, and there's probably no circuit on the calendar that would be a more prototypical "Red Bull Track."  Yeesh.

*ON THE OTHER HAND:  A Ferrari on the podium at Monza is reason enough for the tifosi to go insane.  Here's a picture taken by HWMNBN after the trophy ceremony:

Just imagine what it would have been like if he had actually WON.

*FINALLY:  McLaren Tooned 50 Ep04, just in time for Rush...

It's worth watching with the captions on...

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There were grey skies above Spa all race, but not once did it rain.  That's a shame, because a bit of rain might have turned this into something of a race.  THIS is your (Mini) F1Update! for the 2013 Grand Prix of Belgium!

*THE RACE: For roughly thirty seconds, it looked like we had a good race in stock.  The lights went out, polesitter Shiv Hamilton made a good start and stayed in front of hard-charging Hannibal Vettel into La Source and through Eau Rouge.  At the start of the Kemmel Straight, however, the Red Bull got a tow from the Mercedes, swept past, and never looked back.  By the end of the first lap, even though he had to pass to take the lead and thus didn't have the entire lap to work with, Vettel had a 1.5 second lead.  A few laps later, it was up to seven seconds, and it became clear that Red Bull had a ridiculously low downforce setup on the car.  That's a safe gamble at, say, Monza, where it almost never rains, but at Spa?  A single drop of rain would send the RB9 sliding into the Ardennes Forest. 

But it didn't rain, and Vettel just ran away with the race.  His tires lasted longer than anybody else, the lack of downforce didn't hurt him at all, and he had a 15 second lead at one point.  It would have been bigger, but the team told him to dial it back, and for once, he listened.  The final podium was Vettel, Ferrari's HWMNBN (who had a great race from 9th), and Hamilton.

*SO WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?:  Nothing good.  Red Bull's weakness in the past has been the faster tracks.  Their naturally high downforce levels have always meant they've been slower than most everybody in a straight line.  If they can run with almost no rear wing and still have enough grip to survive in the fast sweeping turns of Spa, what are they going to be able to do at the next race at Monza?

*ALL THE REST:  Kimi Raikkonen retired from the race today with brake failure.  This was his first retirement since he returned to F1, some 38 races.  It was also his first non-points-paying finish in 27 races.  This dropped him to fourth in the Driver's Championship race, from second.  He's now behind Hamilton in 3rd, and HWMNBN in 2nd.  Mind you, that's 46 points behind in 2nd.

Greenpeace protested the SHELL sponsorship of the race and tried to disrupt the podium ceremony.  They managed to trigger two small remote-control banners, one of which made it on-camera for a moment.  If you're curious, there is footage on youtube of it; we won't link to it. 

*FINALLY:  We here at F1U! appreciate our readers' patience as we go through this most busy of times at work.  We'll do better next time, two weeks from now at Monza!  See ya then!

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Hot.  A clear, cloudless sky graced by a flaming sun greeted the F1 Circus as the cars rolled onto the grid.  The ambient air temperature was over 90°, the track surface was well over 120° and everybody was anxiously eying the soft tires to see if they'd melt or just fuse to the asphalt.  Did they?  Did the heat help or hinder polesitter Shiv Hamilton?  Or was bloodthirsty Hannibal Vettel going to be able to do bad things to the rest of the field?  THIS is your F1Update! for the 2013 Grand Prix of Hungary!

*AND WE'RE OFF!:  To be honest, we here at F1U! were expecting the usual "Vettel takes the lead, then runs away and hides" race.  And we were wrong.  Today, the Red Bull RB9 looked mortal... worse, it looked human.  In the opening stint, Hamilton led the field from pole, with Vettel around a second back.  However, he couldn't get much closer as he had the Lotus of Lettuce Grosjean stabbing and diving at him for position.  While entertaining enough, it was clear that the soft tires of everybody at the front of the field weren't going to last long... and they didn't.  The instant he felt his rubber going bad on Lap 9, Hamilton pitted, and the race, oddly, hung in the balance.

*ON THE BUTTON:  The Mercedes driver came out behind his former teammate, Jenson Button, in 8th place.  Button had started on the medium tires, which would last some 25 laps.  Hamilton had switched to the mediums as well, and on his fresher tires swept past the McLaren driver at the beginning of the next lap and began to turn fast laps.  Then it was time for Hannibal Vettel to pit.  He too switched to the medium tires, and he too came out of the pits behind Jenson Button.  The difference, however, is that the Mercedes has a top speed of at least six mph faster than the Red Bull, and Vettel simply could not make a move on Button as a result.  It took until Lap 24, when the McLaren's tires finally went, lemming-like, over the cliff, for Vettel to get past the Glare On Wheels.  At the end of the first tire stint, Vettel trailed Hamilton by around 1.5 seconds.  When Vettel finally got around Button, he was over 13 seconds behind, and the race was essentially over.

*GOING FOR SILVER:  Kimi Raikkonen had a different tire plan from everybody else.  Most of the field was on a three-stop strategy, but Raikkonen, driving a Lotus that was historically gentle on its tires, was going for a two-stop.  Late in the race, it looked like it was about to pay off... he was in second place, but on Lap 55, Vettel pitted for the final time and set off in pursuit of the Finn.  It took him approximately four laps to get within DRS range but there it stopped.  Even though the Lotus had significantly worn tires, and Vettel got to use DRS, the speed difference was negligible... the Red Bull could get close, but couldn't do any more.  Then, just as an anticlimax, the pit wall began to instruct Vettel to begin entering fail codes into the steering wheel, and to back off the man in second place for cooling purposes. 

*AS AN ASIDE:  Heat has always been the Achilles heel of Adrian Newey-designed cars.  As perhaps the premiere aerodynamicist in F1 history, his designs are marvels at the esoteric art of bending airflow to the whims of the quest for speed.  As a result, his cars get every gram of aero downforce possible out of the rules, but this often comes at a cost.  First, his cars lack straight-line speed, caused by the drag inherent in downforce.  Second, his designs are sensitive to ambient heat.  The aerodynamic bodywork is so detailed, so sculpted, and so precise that there's usually no extra space to allow for cooling.  During today's race, the team told Vettel to back away from the car ahead two different times: chasing Button and chasing Raikkonen.  The RB9 needed to get clean air into its radiators to keep from overheating in the ridiculously hot Hungarian atmosphere.  This cost the team dearly today.

*THE END:  Hamilton got his first win as a Mercedes driver, finishing some 11 seconds ahead of Kimi Raikkonen.  Vettel finished some three seconds back from the Lotus, followed by his teammate Mark Webber.  Ferrari's HWMNBN was 5th, over half-a-minute behind the leader.  Lettuce Grosjean, who had a penalty-filled race, finished in 6th, 52 seconds back.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  To be honest, nobody truly distinguished themselves today.  Hamilton won, clearly, and that's quite nice, but he wasn't particularly challenged at any time.  So instead of giving it to him, or Kimi, or Vettel, or anybody like that, we're giving it to Táltos Maldonado.  The Williams driver finished the race in 10th place, thus earning the legendary team their first point in the championship standings for 2013.

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  Red Bull.  They finished third and fourth, further solidifying their grasp on the Constructor's Championship.  On a day when nobody stood head-and-shoulders above the field, that's got to count for something.

*MOVE OF THE RACE:  On Lap 31, Jenson Button was behind the Ferrari of Felipe Massa.  He'd been behind for a bit, and was threatening to make a move on the Brazilian, but nothing was obviously going to happen anytime soon.  Then, as the pair headed towards the chicane-like Turn 6/7 complex, the McLaren driver decided he'd had enough.

A small bobble by the Ferrari driver opened the door for Button, who decided that he didn't have to brake for the upcoming turns.

Somehow keeping the car from flying off into the Hungarian wilderness, Button managed to make the turns and just steal 7th place from Massa.  It wasn't a flashy pass, but it was very well done indeed, and impressed us enough to win the MotR. 

*MOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE:  On Lap 24, Jenson Button was heading a train of cars, with Hannibal Vettel, Lettuce Grosjean and HWMNBN all stacked behind him.  Unfortunately, his tires had fallen off the cliff, and it was clearly just a matter of time before the field swallowed him up.  Vettel went by, and then Grosjean thought he'd have a go.  First, he got most of the way past the McLaren, then tried to get back on the racing line.

Then he decided that he didn't really need to follow the layout of the track.

As is usually the case, the stewards took a dim view of these actions, hitting him with a 20-second time penalty after the race.  It had no effect on his place in the standings, but it did show that last year's goofball is still lurking somewhere.  Here's your Mooooo, Lettuce.

*SELECTED DRIVERS QUOTES OF THE RACE:

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:16 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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A brilliant blue sky welcomed the assembled masses as the Thundering Herd formed up on the grid at the Nurburgring's F1 circuit.  Mercedes' Shiv Hamilton was on pole, with hometown boy Hannibal Vettel next to him. Vettel's Red Bull teammate Mark Webber was directly behind Hamilton, in what could be considered a precarious situation for the Mercedes driver.  Still, the Silver Arrow has proven to be the equal of the RB9 as late; would the status quo be upheld?  Or would the other status quo, that of Vettel running away and hiding, gain preeminence?  Or would the Ferraris, lurking two rows behind, make their gamble on the harder tires pay off?  THIS is your F1Update! for the 2013 Grand Prix of Germany.

*LIGHTS OUT!:  The start of any F1 race is always a frantic scramble for position... either improving it, defending it, or losing it.  Polesitter Hamilton, obviously concerned about the Red Bull of Vettel, immediately cut across the circuit when the lights went out to begin the race.  The young German was having none of it, however, and stood his ground as he quickly came alongside the Mercedes driver.  All of this had the effect of opening a clear path for the other Red Bull driver, Mark Webber.  Normally, this wouldn't be an issue... Webber is the only person on the grid with his own named starting technique, after all (the legendary "Mark Webber Lousy Start^©").  For once, however, the Australian had a clean, nearly perfect getaway from third... and found nothing but empty asphalt ahead of him.

The Red Bull wave quickly swamped Hamilton, relegating him to third by the time they reached Turn 1, the two Lotus drivers hovering just behind him.  Meanwhile, Ferrari's HWMNBN and his medium tires tried grimly to hang on to the cars with the faster soft tires.  This proved to be easier said than done, as he was 10 seconds behind by Lap 7... and he was having to drive the rubber off of them to manage even that much.  Instead of the 20-25 laps he expected to do, he only managed 13, pitting before the Lotus of Lettuce Grosjean on softs.

*SAFETY CAR... HUH?:  On Lap 24, the proceedings were interrupted when the Marussia of Jules Bianchi blew its engine in a massive volume of smoke, followed by an impressive amount of flame.

Bianchi brought the car to a halt, then under instructions from the pit lane, triggered the fire extinguisher and headed for the hills.  A track worker approached with a portable extinguisher, as did a tractor to carry the stricken car behind the barriers.  We then discovered another way in which F1 cars are unlike road cars: no parking brake.

Gravity: it's not just a good idea, it's the law.  Parked on a rise, the empty Marussia began to roll backwards and across the circuit, not coming to a halt until it made it to the other side where it was brought to a halt by an advertising sign.  Fortunately, this occurred with no other cars around, though not by much: that's Vettel's Red Bull at the top of the screencap there.  The Safety Car was summoned as the wild Marussia was brought to heel.  At this point, the order was Vettel, Grosjean, Raikkonen, HWMNBN and Jenson Button, having a great drive for McLaren.

*FINALLY:  The safety car stayed out for five laps, then racing resumed.  For the most part, the order remained as above for the next 20-odd laps, until the final pitstops.  There, Kimi Raikkonen pitted with 10 laps to go for a set of used soft tires, reemerging in third, a mere 3.5 seconds behind Vettel, with teammate Grosjean between them.  As the laps ticked down, Raikkonen narrowed the gap, his medium-shod teammate being told to get out of his way on Lap 55, with 2.5 seconds between him and the Red Bull.  Every lap, the Finn shaved off a little more of the gap, trying desperately to bring it down to less than a second so he could use the DRS and pick up that extra speed advantage over the Red Bull.  Finally, going into the last lap of the race, he did it: 1.0 second exactly.  He could get no closer than 7/10th of a second, however, and Vettel took the win, followed by Kimi and Grosjean.  HWMNBN crossed the line in 4th, then came to a halt on track by turn 1.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  Mark Webber.  He started third, nearly got the lead at the beginning, and was a serious contender for second place today, until a pit screwup (see below) put him dead last and a lap down.  He then got the free pass from the safety car, putting him back on the lead lap, then fought his way up the field to finish 7th.  Pretty good result, all things considered.

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  Lotus.  They may be second-guessing the need to bring Raikkonen in for that set of soft tires on Lap 50, but he probably wouldn't've had the speed to bring Vettel to heel otherwise.  And a 2-3 finish is pretty sweet anyway.  Good job.

*MOVE OF THE RACE: On the final lap, Shiv Hamilton came up behind the McLaren of his ex-teammate Jenson Button, suffering on old tires.  A try at Turn 1 didn't work, so Shiv decided to give a run around the outside of the long Turn 2 a go.

Much to everybody's surprise, including perhaps Hamilton himself, his less-than-stellar tires held traction well enough to let him power past Button.  He then remembered to leave Button racing room in the next turn as well, instead of cutting across his nose.  A fine job of driving from both Brits, and our favorite Move of the Race.

*MOOOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE:  On Lap 9, Mark Webber brought his Red Bull in for his first stop.  The team had problems with the right rear wheel, however, and were not able to get it fastened onto the stub axle.  Maybe it was a tire gun problem, maybe the nut wouldn't engage, whatever, the upshot was that the Lollypop man let the car go without the tire being attached.  It stayed on the car long enough to allow him to get some speed up before it fell off and went careening down the pit lane.

The Lotus pit crew had just finished servicing one of their cars and were in the pit lane when the tire assembly tore through them; fortunately they were all able to avoid the missile.  Unfortunately, FOM cameraman Paul Allen, who had his camera focused on the Lotus driving away, had no idea that the rubber-and-metal beast was coming for him.

It caught him on the shoulder, sending him face-first to the ground.  He apparently suffered a broken collarbone in the incident, which is about as lucky as you could possibly get.  A video of the incident is here.  The team ran down, collected Webber's car, pushed it back to their pitbox, put another set of tires on, and sent him on his way... a lap down, but still in the race.  To everybody involved on the Red Bull pit crew, congratulations, here's your Mooooooo.

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:


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Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:59 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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We here at F1U! didn't notice the skies over Silverstone today, but it wasn't raining, that's all that's really important.  So it wasn't raining when the cars formed up on the grid behind polesitter and "hometown lad" Shiv Hamilton.  One could only assume, however, that points leader Hannibal Vettel was feeling confident and relaxed as the 22 drivers waited for the lights to go out.  But what happened after that?  That's why you're here!  THIS is your F1 Update! for the 2013 Grand Prix of Great Britain!

*LIGHTS OUT!:  Here at F1U!, we understand that Red Bull driver Mark Webber has a problem.  We call the "Mark Webber Lousy Start^©" and are just amazed every time it happens.  Other than in Australia, however, he's been pretty good this season.  Not today, though... today, he made up for lost opportunities.  When the lights went out, Shiv Hamilton made a clean getaway from pole, as did Hannibal Vettel in his Red Bull.  Hamilton's teammate Nico Rosberg's start wasn't quite as good as Vettel's, which dropped him into third.  And then, there was Webber.  Our first thought was that he had been balked by a slow-starting Rosberg, but replays proved us wrong: it was a classic "MWLS^©," and a real doozy at that.  As they approached Turn 1, he was already down to 10th, and soon to be playing the part of pinball.  He was plonked by the Lotus of Lettuce Grosjean, kicked off the track and into the runoff area of Turn 1 with quite a bit of damage to his front wing.  Dropped to 15th, it looked like he was out and gone from view.  Meanwhile, Felipe Massa apparently woke up today feeling like the man he was before the incident with The Spring.  He jumped to 5th place from 11th on the grid and was looking quite racey indeed.

*ONE TWO THREE!:  Hannibal Vettel's modus operandi when he starts a race from the pole is "get away clean, do everything possible to get one second ahead of second place by the time they turn on the DRS system, then run away and hide."  It's a good plan, and has worked very well for him.  Upon occasion, it's worked for other drivers as well.  Today, Shiv Hamilton was giving it a shot, and sure enough, everything was coming up roses for him.  He had a 1.5 second lead over Vettel when DRS was activated for the field, and was over two seconds ahead on Lap 7.  It was early, but things at least seemed like they were going well for the Mercedes driver.  Then, suddenly, everything went south.  His left-rear tire nigh-on exploded, sending pieces of rubber spraying across the racetrack and greatly reducing the amount of traction available.  He managed to limp his car around half the circuit back to the pits, but dropped from first place to last in the time it took to do so.  One could only imagine the glances down to the Pirelli office on the pit lane.  Of course, this promoted Hannibal Vettel into the lead, Nico Rosberg to second, the Force India of Adrian F'n Sutil to third, and Felipe Massa to fourth.  Until Lap 10.  It was on Lap 10 that Felipe Massa's Ferrari blew his left-rear tire in almost the same place as Hamilton.  The glances at Pirelli's office suddenly changed to stares.  Then, on Lap 15, while Jules Vergne was under attack by the Lotus of Kimi Raikkonen, we saw our third tire failure of the day.

It goes without saying that it was a left-rear, of course.  That made three in seven laps, and four on the weekend (McLaren's Sergio Perez suffered a left-rear failure during practice).  The stares at the Pirelli offices had become glares.  Unsurprisingly, given the amount of carbon fiber and rubber debris strewn around the circuit, Race Director Charlie Whiting called out a Safety Car, only the third we've seen at Silverstone since 2006.  Whiting later admitted that he considered red-flagging the race at that point.

*HOO-BOY:  A number of drivers came in for new tires at this point.  Soon we were hearing radio calls from Ferrari and Red Bull to HWMNBN and both Hannibal Vettel and Mark Webber, saying the same thing: we see cuts on the inside of your left-rear tires, stay off the curbs.  Tire pressures were duly increased and drivers tried to be slightly less aggressive.

*YOU'RE KIDDING:  When the race resumed on Lap 21, it was very much like we've been used to at the beginning of a race: Vettel rabbitting off into the distance, Rosberg grimly keeping in touch but failing to do anything to close the gap.  For the next 15 or 16 laps, that's the way it stayed; Vettel with a two or three second lead over Rosberg, while Vergne retired his Toro Rosso.  The damage it suffered when the tire let go was too much for safety's sake.  When Vettel came in for his last tire stop and resumed in the lead, it looked like the race was won.

*AND THEN...:  On Lap 42, the partisan British crowd at Silverstone reacted before the announcers did, a huge cheer coming up from every throat on the front straight: Hannibal Vettel slowed, then stopped, just past the start/finish line.

His gearbox failure brought out the second safety car of the day, sending many of the leaders scrambling for the pit lane again for a new set of tires.  The lone exception was Kimi Raikkonen, who quickly was saying to the Lotus pit box that "they'd made a mistake."  In many ways, Nico Rosberg was the big loser from all this: while gifted first place, he also lost a thirteen second lead.  The standings were Rosberg, Raikkonen, Sutil, Ricciardo, Webber, Perez, Button and HWMNBN.

*GO GO GO OH NO NOT AGAIN: The safety car came in on Lap 45, giving us a seven-lap sprint to the finish.  Mark Webber, he of the Lousy Start back at the beginning of the race, began to gun down those ahead of him: first Ricciardo, then Sutil, putting him in third and hunting himself some Finnish Lotus driver.  And then, on Lap 46, Sergio Perez suffered a failure of his left-rear tire.  Again.  The fourth tire failure of the race didn't bring out a safety car, but the glares at the Pirelli offices had become daggers. 

*THE END:  Webber fought his way past a recalcitrant Raikkonen (and if that looks hard to type, you're right) to take second on Lap 48, and he began to track down Nico Rosberg, a mere 1.37 seconds ahead.  Meanwhile, the Finn's old tires proved to be too much for him to overcome.  First HWMNBN, then Shiv Hamilton, got past him, dropping him to fifth.  Back up at the front, Webber cut the lead to Rosberg down to 0.765 seconds, but could get no closer as the race ended.  HWMNBN finished third, with a charging Hamilton 0.632 seconds behind him.  Both the Aussie and the Brit had to be ruing what had happened at the beginning of the race.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE:  Boy, is this one hard to call.  Webber started 4th, dropped to 15th, and finished 2nd.  HWMNBN started 10th, dropped to 11th, and finished 3rd.  But Mercedes' Shiv  Hamilton started on pole, suffered the first tire failure, dropped to dead last, then worked his way back to fourth place.  That's a pretty decent performance, all told.

*TEAM OF THE RACE:  Mercedes.  1st - 4th is a pretty good way to finish, particularly given all that went down with Hamilton during the day.  Honorable mention goes to Force India for finishing 7th and 9th, with Sutil holding a podium position for a good chunk of the race.

*MOVE OF THE RACE:  On Lap 49, Shiv Hamilton was behind Adrian F'n Sutil's Force India, and looking to get past in a hurry.  When he made his move, it looked like there was no way he could make it work... he was so far back.  Sutil braked, Hamilton didn't, and he still made it look like the car was on rails as he zipped up the inside and blew the doors off the Force India.  Just an astonishing pass on TV.  After watching it frame-by-frame on my computer, it wasn't as impressive, sure... but at the time, we here at F1U! Central dropped our forks into our deep-dish pizza in amazement.

*MOOOOOOOO-OOOOVE OF THE RACE:  On Lap 31, HWMNBN had come in for new tires.  The 2.8 second stop seemed quite impressive, and the Ferrari lollypop man released him to rejoin the race... right into the path of the incoming Lotus of Lettuce Grosjean.

How he avoided the Lotus, the McLaren pit crew, the Lotus lollypop man, and an unsafe release penalty is entirely beyond me.  Here's to Ferrari's pit lane crew, and here's your Mooooo!

*SELECTED DRIVER QUOTES OF THE RACE:

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Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:59 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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