© No Ammo 2012
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The world of Formula One has been a veritable gold rush of astonishing pictures and news stories to write about. With cheating, crashes and whining across the board, the drama queens are prancing the boards, which certainly makes interesting reading.
Moaning directed at red bull surfaced last week, McLaren Mercedes consider it an unfair advantage that technology they can't perfect is employed on the car. It seems they are a tad angry about flexibility in Red Bull's flapping wing, which improves the aerodynamics under braking. Despite the fact that the wing passed all tests it is required to pass and the FIA declaring they are acceptable. Christian Horner had this to say: "There are stringent tests. I am happy that our car complies with all the regulations and take it as a compliment to our engineers when a fuss like this is sometimes made by rival teams." - Christian Horner
Team Orders were also the talk of the FIA town this week, from Newspapers to daytime festivals of chit-chat, the media has been wetting its pants over the horror of these events. Ordering Massa to let Alonso past robbed the viewer of a down and dirty race between the two team-mates. Rule 39.1, "Team orders which interfere with a race result are prohibited." - F1 sporting regulations section 39.1 apparently needs more clarification, although the statement seems pretty definitive. My guess is that they misspelt changing.
The latest instalment of the soap opera that is the grand prix was one of the most thrilling races in a while with drama from start to finish.
In a stunning display of driving, Barrichello takes Schumacher on the pit straight in a manoeuvre that was reminiscent of something out of the Burnout series. Certainly a brown trouser moment, proving Schumacher is still the ruthless bastard he always was, going to any lengths to leave his dignity firmly embedded in the pit wall.
Afterwards Barrichello said: "He made a mistake on the last corner. You know we’ve been there and what we want from racing is to be fair and have battle, especially on a track that is so difficult to overtake on. You should choose a line and that’s it. But he just closed, closed, closed and luckily the wall ran out. There’s not a rule for that but between ourselves we should just take a line, stick to a line and that’s it." - Rubens Barrichello
Schumacher responded in usual blameless style saying:
"I knew he was coming so I was moving over to the inside to make it clear to him to go on the other side. He didn’t choose to so it was a bit tight. But we know certain drivers have certain views and then there’s Rubens." - Michael Schumacher
For trading his soul with the devil, Schumie awarded himself the grand medal of a ten place grid penalty for Spa on the 29th of August.
As the safety car came in during the first half of the race, Vettel left a yawning chasm between himself and team-mate Webber. The onset of this was to give Webber the advantage, which he didn't need. When Webber finally came in for his stop on lap 45, breaking the record for the number of laps run on super-soft tires, he exited with a lead more than that of the advantage he was given. For Vettel's troubles he earned a drive through penalty and shattered his chances of a win or loser's first.
Within Seconds of each other, in the rush of the safety car, the cars of Kubica and Sutil collided. Kubica was slapped with a penalty for the lollipop man's tomfoolery, justice eh?
Meanwhile Nico Rosberg misplaced one of his rear wheels in the Williams garage. Luckily nobody was injured so fun can be poked at it without having to feel bad. The Footage is doubtlessly going to make it into near-miss YouTube videos soon.
Petrov, played down his valiant effort in the race, so we will too. We won't sink to Russian stereotypes and vodka jokes yet at least.
Suffice to say, this was an eventful week for the sport, likely one it won't live up to for a very long time. Now I must prepare to eat my hat when in Spa half of the track is contraflow and the safety car drives the wrong way round. Now sod off.