From Behind the Glasses
Overall Korea turned out to be a lot more enjoyable than I was expecting, yet again except for at the front. Vettel delivered another one-dimensional win that never saw him race anybody, getting away at the front and then just holding his lead. Whilst the gap wasn't anything like Singapore, it still meant there was never any interest in the front few places. Grosjean ran much of the race alone in second after Hamilton started dropping back, and it only came to life as Raikkonen snatched it away near the end. Behind that however it was all action towards the end, with the battle from fourth to eighth between Hulkenberg, Hamilton, Alonso, Button and Rosberg being great to watch for the final ten laps, with places almost changing then changing back, it was fantastic, exactly how Formula 1 should be. Behind that, there was a little gap occupied by Ricciardo until he broke down right at the end, followed by another scintillating battle as Gutierrez, Maldonado, Perez, Massa and Bottas all raced for the final point, with a series of thrilling corners occupied by two-abreast racing. It was all seemingly going to end in disaster in the battle of South America, especially as Perez (Mexico) and Massa (Brazil) thumped into one another, before managing to battle around and through Maldonado (Venezuela) and Gutierrez (Mexico). It was great to see Massa to aggressive and taking the lead of the group, on his way to an eventual ninth place. It was disappointing to see Mark Webber struck down again by more bad luck and another fire; if that man has any luck it's bad luck. And now comes the time for me to pour my scorn onto the FIA and the Pirelli tyres. However, none of this is aimed at Pirelli themselves, just the FIA. This season started out great, with Ferrari and Lotus leading the way, Red Bull knocked back a bit and Force India looking like they might get up onto the podium. In the way Formula 1 is meant to work, Ferrari and Lotus developed better cars for using the tyres and were justifiably at the front. It looked like we might get a good, competitive season out of it. And then people, mostly Red Bull and Mercedes, started whining about tyre wear. Early races saw four pit stops as the tyres wore out, leading to people to complain about the tyres and moaning Pirelli had made bad tyres. Pirelli did exactly as they were asked to do, which was make tyres that wore out to try and introduce more racing. It was the FIA that pushed this onto them, demanding they make crap tyres. Yet when they delivered crap tyres, people pointed the finger at the Italian manufacturer. In a bid to alter it slightly, they adjusted the construction to counter it somewhat, however in Bahrain they then started to suffer delaminations where the entire tread came off. They tweaked things to try and return to conventional deflations, and ran tyre tests, with new tyres slated for Britain, where we saw several spectacular tyre failures that started to make people cry about safety. This, combined with heavy pressure from Red Bull, caused them to introduce more durable tyres akin to the 2012 version from then onwards, which they didn't want to do. In May, Paul Hembrey of Pirelli commented, after discussing the tyre degradation being not-so different from the previous two seasons, "Unless you want us to give Red Bull the tyres to win the championship. It's pretty clear. If we did that, there would be one team that would benefit and it would be them." How right he was. Since they were unfairly forced into changing the tyres, introducing the new tyres for the German Grand Prix, Red Bull has sailed untouchably to five victories in six races. Vettel won in Germany, Belgium, Italy, Singapore and now Korea, and still only finished second in Hungary to Hamilton. It was done in such a fashion that frankly it looked like we wound back two years to 2011, as Vettel ran off at the front and never raced anybody else at all. Prior to the changes, Red Bull had only won two races from the opening eight, with Vettel looking decidedly less amazing when he actually had to get wheel-to-wheel with other drivers. Fernando Alonso commented this week that the tyre changes really hurt his championship challenge, and without a doubt it hurt Lotus and brought Mercedes well back into the hunt as they suffered horrendously with tyre wear at the start of the season. And it is fundamentally, blatantly unfair. All the teams had access to the same 2013 tyre at the end of last year to gather data and build their cars. Ferrari, Lotus and Force India did a better job than anyone else, and as a result they deservedly got the spoils and won races. It's what Formula 1 is about, and they did what they should to get ahead; be better. And then along comes the FIA who, with no original safety grounding and the tyres they damn well asked for, flat out took the advantage away from those teams and handed it straight to Red Bull, giving them the one thing they needed to dominate the sport again and cruise to another title. They constantly say they want more racing, and yet they took the tyres that were providing that (after a fashion) and threw them away, only to bring back the ones that made the sport into a predictable bore. It goes completely against the way Formula 1 works, and the last time I saw the FIA intervene so blatantly was for the 2005 season, when rules were brought in specifically targeting Ferrari and Schumacher to stop them winning. This went completely the other way, to reinstate the dominating winners. So, Paul Hembrey of Pirelli, you were completely and utterly right. You said what would happen, and in a matter of six races you are vindicated as the championship is now essentially over. Vettel could wrap up the title at the next race, round 15, making a 19 race championship completely pointless. You fought your corner hard in the best interests of the sport, and always had an ally in me (even though I'm a passionate nobody that nobody pays attention to) but sadly were forced by bigger forces than yourself into handing the title away on a plate. I notice that as Red Bull dominate and make the sport into a boring farce once more, Christian Horner and Helmut Marko have nothing to say now about how Formula 1 isn't a sport anymore. Funny how it was so bad for the fans and unsporting when things weren't going their way and they were making huge, sweeping attacks on the tyres and Pirelli earlier in the season. Funny how quiet they are now the boot's on the other foot isn't it, and Christian Horner only murmurs that the booing Vettel and Red Bull receive is due to jealousy...