F1 news and analysis from inside the paddock. Today, as Red Bull Racing's Sebastian Vettel breaks yet another record, Matt Youson recalls seeing Vettel's hero at his imperious best at his final race for Ferrari: the 2006 Brazilian Grand Prix.
As a reporter, you can go to every Grand Prix, follow every move and yet never actually go outside and watch the cars on track. I don’t recommend it. TV monitors provide a much clearer picture of the race or session unfolding but they don’t pack the visceral punch that you get from watching with your own eyes.
For anyone who’s never been to a grand prix and has the opportunity to do so, I’d recommend it. The logical place to sit is at and end of straight overtaking point but definitely find time to take a look at a fast corner or somewhere with a big change of direction: it’s here you’ll see an F1 car doing what it does best.
In 2006, I was lucky enough to watch the Brazilian Grand Prix from the inside of turns Four and Five. Felipe Massa won the race, Fernando Alonso was second and picked up the World Championship – but to this day, Michael Schumacher’s race eclipses it all. The record books show that Schumacher qualified 10th and finished fourth in a futile attempt to stop Alonso from picking up back-to-back titles, but that’s not even close to the full story.
Schumacher suffered a mechanical failure in qualifying and a puncture in the early laps of the race. He was so far behind when he got back on track it took him 28 laps to catch the backmarkers, but every one of those laps and every one that followed was a relentless, flat out master class. Dealing in 10ths makes it difficult to spot the faster car with the naked eye, but watching from the barriers as Schumacher hurled that Ferrari around Turn Four, it was ridiculously obvious that nobody could touch him that day.
I mention it now because, despite 91 victories (four of them here) and seven World Championships, it’s still that race Michael’s being asked about this weekend up and down the pitlane. Guess it’s not what you do, but the way you do it…
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Mark Webber with Christian Danner and DHL's Joakim Thrane © Clive Mason/Getty Images
Saturday: Tyred and emotional
As Red Bull Racing's Mark Webber picks up the award for setting the most fastest laps in 2012, we ask what's kept the Aussie ace off the top spot this season…
Usually the pots are handed out on Sunday in F1 but Mark Webber picked one up a couple of days early – the DHL-sponsored Fastest Lap trophy. Mark clinched that particular award with his purple lap in Abu Dhabi, giving him an unassailable six-three lead in the competition over Sebastian Vettel and Lewis Hamilton. Mark’s yet to win a race this season but he’s not had a problem going fast: his trouble has been with making his tyres last as long as the competition.
Most of the other frontrunners seem to have come to terms with the Pirelli rubber by now, though it took a while. Jenson Button claimed yesterday that he thought the tyres had become more predictable as the season went on and that he much preferred the situation at the start of the year where their performance was a real wildcard.
But then Button is one of the most gentlest drivers on his tyres and usually makes them last longer than anybody else.
'Not only have Pirelli made rubber a lot more interesting, it turns out they’re also good at cake'
For the record, Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery did clarify that, apart from a change to the hard tyre which may accidentally have been made from granite, the only difference between now and the beginning of the year is that teams understand the tyres a little bit better.
He also promised that next year the tyres would on the whole be softer (basically medium will become next year’s hard etc.,) and the performance gaps between them would get smaller to bring more strategy into the choices.
Having Pirelli decide to make their tyres softer is a far cry from the start of the season when people were worried that they wouldn’t last the distance, with predictions of five- and six-stop races. That hasn’t happened, although we’ve had a few four-stoppers.
Given that the initial assumption in the media centre was that these Pirellis would be as much use as a chocolate crankshaft, it was perhaps with a small sense of irony that the tyre supplier walked around the media centre last night handing out chocolate tyres to the press.
Not only have they made rubber a hell of a lot more interesting, it turns out they’re also pretty good at cake, too.
That aside it’s been a pretty quiet day in F1-land. That might have something to do with the press officers holding their annual end-of-season dinner last night. A good time was reportedly had by all, though a few this morning were complaining that the cars seemed louder than usual?
Doubtless they’ll all be getting an early night tonight in preparation for their press officers’ group photo, which will be taken on Sunday morning once the drivers are safely packed off on their parade. Despite the fact team kit tends to be a limiting factor, it’ll still be a bun-fight with masses of primping, styling and general beautification going on for the camera. Though hopefully the lads won’t keep the girls waiting too long this year.
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Friday: Ducking and diving
When the engineers talk about Interlagos being difficult because of the altitude, they probably aren’t referring to the long climb up the stairs from the car parks to the paddock – but they could have been.
In many respects it would be useful to go back to the old system of beginning the season in Brazil and finishing it in Australia, if only because Albert Park is flat.
Catering in the paddock is first class and everyone tends to end the season a few kilos heavier than they started it (drivers excepted), so seeing a thousand or so team personnel, journalists, TV crews etc., huff and puff their way up flight after flight of metal stairs to get into the paddock is painful to watch (it’s even more painful to do).
It is worth it though, because once in the paddock, ramshackle and perched precariously on top of the hill, you can see most of the track laid out below you. All the best tracks feature elevation changes and Interlagos is definitely one of the best.
It’s something that never shows up on TV. Stand at the bottom of Eau Rouge in Belgium and you’re confronted with a wall of tarmac rising up in front of you. In Brazil it’s the opposite: at the first corner the track drops away into the Senna S.
“It’s not exactly a blind turn,” says Sébastien Buemi “but as you approach you drop down and then climb up to the braking point and then drop down again for the turn and the wall on the inside blocks the view a little bit, so it can be tricky.”
Getty Images
Tricky for a driver but wonderful for a spectator because Turn One at Interlagos is possibly the best overtaking point on the entire F1 calendar – and a good argument for the engineers who says that overtaking in Formula One isn’t a question of tweaking the cars, it’s a question of tweaking the circuits.
Sam Michael, formally of Williams and now looking wrong in the McLaren garage drives that particular bandwagon: “For example look at Barcelona and Canada: we know that if we go race in Barcelona, we won’t see any overtaking; but you know that you can go to Montreal a few weeks later and see stacks of overtaking.
"That should highlight immediately to anyone with any common sense that those cars that couldn’t overtake in Barcelona are exactly the same as the ones that could in Montreal – yet on one track they overtake and on one they never overtake – that has to be because of the track layout.” He said that before the introduction of DRS incidentally, but even with it nobody was overtaking at the Circuit de Catalunya.
What Montreal has, of course, is a low speed corner, followed by the long backstraight, followed by another low speed corner into the chicane at the Wall of Champions. It’s not nailed on because of the vagaries of grip and line that need to be factored into the equation, but that’s the sort of layout which provides the best chance of seeing a move.
At Interlagos though, it’s even better. The drivers accelerate up the long, long climb from Jungcao all the way to Turn One and then need to find a braking point in the dips and swirls. There’s a passing opportunity on the inside or outside as the defensive line for Turn One tends to make the car in front vulnerable to attack at Turn Two.
'We can have a lot of fun this weekend' – Jenson Button
A couple of drivers today have expressed surprise that the DRS won’t be used on the main straight, but the point of DRS was to improve overtaking opportunities and the truth is that here they’ve never been lacking.
Of course, with the DRS zone coming into play after Turn Three, there’s a reasonable chance that anyone making a place in the Senna S is going to lose it again shortly after.
“That might happen,” says Felipe Massa, twice a winner at Interlagos. “If you overtaken on the main straight, which is the better place, without DRS then it’s possible you’re going to be overtaken again at the next one with the DRS.”
All in all it’s going to be interesting to watch. Since Red Bull came into the sport, there’s always been a Championship to win going to Interlagos. That isn’t the case this year but it doesn’t mean the race won’t be compelling. Jenson Button summed it up best yesterday: “The Championship’s won: we can have a lot of fun this weekend.”
Oh, and regarding those altitude problems: thinner air equals less power but also less drag. It mucks around with everyone’s aerodynamic sums…
Want More?
- Check out our event page for the Brazilian Grand Prix
- Video: Our Brazilian track record
- Read Sebastian Vettel's blog from Brazil
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