Brazilian GP was supposed to be a rain-hit race! Everyone on the grid started on soft tyres because rain was expected at some point of the race. Against all odds we saw no rain at Interlagos today. Despite the lack of rain we saw a thrilling race indeed!
Sebastian on pole got another perfect start and started pulling a gap to his rivals from the very first lap. Webber was able to maintain his second place while Alonso jumped Hamilton for 4th place. I had expected the race to be a mind-blowing show of Super Sebastian and it certainly looked like that after the opening laps... Until I heard on Vettel´s team radio that he had to manage a gear-box problem! After the race Team Principal Horner said that they had the problem from the lap five already! My heart was pounding and I was soooo afraid that Sebastian wouldn´t be able to bring his RB7 to the chequered flag!
Another difficult race for the 7-time world champion Michael Schumacher! He tried to overtake Senna in his Renault on lap 10 but they ended up colliding to each other... The collion caused a left rear puncture for Schumi and Senna´s front wing was damaged and both had to pit after the incident. The incident seemed a bit contradictory for me to judge which of the drivers was at fault... If I should have named either one, I guess I would have named Schumi to be at fault. So I was a bit surprised that it was Senna who got the drive-through penalty for causing a collision! Anyway, the race was over for both of them.
Button and Alonso had a battle of their own. On lap 11 Alonso was able to get pass Button quite unexpectedly. It was the same place where Schumi and Senna had collided previously and according to Button he had to back off because of the debris on the track. However, Button managed to take his position back from Alonso later on in the race.
There was another radio message for Sebastian saying that he had a serious gear-box problem! He had to turn down the engine and shortshift and use higher gears throughout the race... His team-mate Webber took over the lead from Vettel on lap 30. I have to say that at that stage of the race I had my suspicions... Was the gear-box problem real or was it an excuse to make Webber win the race to reach the runner-up spot in the championship standings? Considering that the German had a serious (!) gear-box problem he was able to set impressive lap times! Unlike Hamilton who also suffered from a gear-box problem and who had to retire the race due to the gear-box failure! Assuming that Sebastian´s gear-box issue was real his 2nd place was an absolutely brilliant achievement, sensational driving without destroying the gear-box for good!
Just before retiring Hamilton once again had intense wheel-to-wheel battle with Massa! But this time both drivers seemed to honour the spirit of good sportsmanship and fair play and we didn´t see any collisions between these gentlemen today!
So Webber ended up winning the race (his first win of the season) and Sebastian managed to bring his car home after a difficult race and made it a 1-2 for Red Bull. Button finished 3rd after being much more competitive on the harder tyres. Webber seemed surprisingly lame on the team radio after winning the race. I couldn´t help wondering if he also wondered about his team-mate´s gear-box problem... Webber is a real racing driver who wants to earn his victories and hates the idea that it would be handed over to him artificially. That´s one reason why I appreciate the Australian, his attitude is admirable.
So now the Formula 1 season 2011 is irreversibly over. I hope that Sebastian Vettel and the whole Red Bull team are having a party of their life! They´ve really deserved it. I on the other hand can´t wait for the next weekend... I´ll be travelling to Germany on Thursday to watch the Race of Champions live! I´m absolutely terrified of the flight to Frankfurt (last winter when I flew to Barcelona to watch the F1 winter tests I got the worst ever panic attack on the plane...) but this is a dream that I definitely want to make come true so I´m willing to go through all difficulties whatsoever. So my next blog post will be about the Race of Champions...!!
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