I couldn´t wait to get up this morning and hear more interesting stories from Sebastian´s ex trainer Tommi Pärmäkoski, who has been visiting MTV3´s F1 studio both yesterday and today. Viewers were asked to post questions on Twitter for Tommi and I also posted one. My question to Tommi was this: During those years that he worked with Sebastian, what was the most difficult moment and on the opposite, what was the most rewarding moment? I had no clue that they would pick my question for Tommi! I was so so happy to hear Tommi answering my question live on TV! He gave a very long answer but shortly told he said that the Turkish GP in 2010 when Sebastian collided with his team-mate Webber has been the most difficult moment during those years. The answer didn´t surprise me. I remember that race so so well and I remember thinking it was probably a crucial turning point in terms of Sebastian´s Formula 1 career. The most rewarding moment then... Tommi told about Red Bull´s first moments of success. The team had built up from "nothing" and had faced lots of setbacks on the way. When the same mechanics and team members started to succeed it was a very touching moment to experience it together after all those difficulties.
The weather was sunny and hot when the lights went out at Suzuka. It was extremely tight between the Mercedes team-mates into turn one. Hamilton, however, seemed absolutely determined to get past Nico, so he gave Nico no room to turn two and Nico went wide and Hamilton took the lead. Sebastian starting from P3 had made his way past Bottas in his Williams and the German also managed to pass Nico a moment later and take the second place. Ricciardo had also taken a stunning start but unfortunately he hit Massa in his Williams going into turn one and they both suffered a puncture, which forced them to limp into the pits. Due to Ricciardo´s incident Kimi had jumped 5th. Also Force India´s Perez had contact at the start and the Mexican also had to pit on the opening lap.
From the very start Hamilton started to open a gap to his rivals. There was nothing Sebastian could do to match the Briton´s sweeping pace. On the other hand there was one team that was lacking pace and performance badly and it was McLaren. Button experienced a bitter moment when he was overtaken on both sides on the main straight by Nasr and Verstappen. Quite awkward in front of the home crowd of their engine supplier... Rosberg had caught Bottas but the German was told on the team radio that his engine was overheating so he had to leave a bigger gap to the Finn.
On lap 13 Sebastian pitted for a fresh set of hard tyres. Sebastian had a perfect pit stop: it took only 2.2 seconds! Kimi pitted a lap later for a similar tyre choice. Hamilton on the other hand opted for a fresh set of medium tyres for his second stint whilst his team-mate Rosberg opted for hard tyres as well. Bottas´ tyre choice was similar to Hamilton´s so it was very interesting to see how the race was going to evolve. After the first pit stops Hamilton was still in a firm lead, Sebastian was second and Bottas managed to keep his third place ahead of Rosberg. Not for long though: already on the out lap Rosberg made an overtaking move on Bottas and managed to make his way past the Finn. Kimi was still in P5.
On lap 27 we saw a bizarre situation when Toro Rosso´s Sainz made a very late decision to come into the pits and the Spaniard hit the mark at the pit entry destroying his front wing. At the same time Kimi had closed the gap to Bottas who seemed to be struggling with his pace on the medium tyres. However, Kimi found no opportunity to try to overtake his fellow countryman so Ferrari called him into the pits. Another set of hard tyres for the Iceman. Those orange-marked hard tyres seemed to suit the SF15-T extremely well. The second pit stops were a turning point in the race: Kimi managed to jump Bottas to P4 but Rosberg also managed to jump Sebastian to P2 so Mercedes were back in the double lead!
By the lap 40 Sebastian had closed the gap to Rosberg but even if the German got within DRS distance from his fellow countryman, there was no opportunities for Sebastian to challenge the Mercedes pilot for the second place. Bottas at the wheel of his FW37 had also chased down Kimi but no real chances to overtake in that battle, either. At the back of the pack there was a dangerous situation as Marussia´s Stevens had a 360-degree spin and his team-mate Rossi just barely was able to avoid crashing into his team-mate. Behind the top ten Verstappen had impressively made his way through the pack. The Dutchman started from P17 (he had been handed a 3-place grid penalty due to parking his STR10 dangerously on the track in yesterday´s qualifying) and finally made his way up to P9! Stunning overtaking moves and no stupid mistakes. Great performance from this young rookie indeed!
Hamilton took a sweeping victory, which was the 41st victory in his F1 career. Now Hamilton equals Senna in the all-time standings. Another 1-2 for Mercedes as Rosberg finished second. Once again Sebastian had to settle for being "the best of the rest" by completing the podium. Kimi drove an excellent race and the Iceman finished 4th behind his team-mate. Bottas finished 5th, Hulkenberg 6th, Grosjean 7th, Maldonado 8th, Verstappen 9th and Sainz 10th. Important points for Lotus, who are in a serious economical crisis at the moment. Another very frustrating day for McLaren. Alonso was complaining on the team radio by saying that he had "a GP2 engine" on his car. Not the best and most constructive comment to say on Honda´s home soil...
On the podium it was enjoyable to watch how Hamilton and Vettel were fooling around with each other. When Sebastian was interviewed, Hamilton poured champagne over the German. A moment later when Hamilton was interviewed, Sebastian did the same for the Briton. The great champagne revenge by Sebastian, hahaha ;) Hamilton has a crushing 48-point lead in the championship standings and he seems to be on the path towards the world championship if there won´t be any miracles happening in the upcoming races. It will be tight between Rosberg and Vettel: Rosberg managed to increase his gap by 3 points but the gap to Sebastian is still only 11 points. Let´s see how things evolve at Sochi in a fortnight... First of all it will be interesting to see in what condition the track will be after last summer´s flood!
P.S. My husband bought me a new laptop yesterday so now I can enjoy writing my blog again :D My wrist and fingers didn´t like tapping blog posts on my smart phone! ;)
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