Cool, canny Alonso seems to have all the answers

The remarkable story of Fernando Alonso and Ferrari's incredible season continued at the German Grand Prix as the Spaniard became the first man to win three races in 2012 and moved into an imposing lead in the world championship.

Those three victories have all been very different, but equally impressive. And each has demonstrated specific aspects of the formidable army of Alonso's talents.

In Malaysia in the second race of the season, at a time when the Ferrari was not competitive in the dry, he grabbed the opportunity provided by rain to take a most unexpected first win.

In Valencia last month, it was Alonso's opportunism and clinical overtaking abilities that were to the fore.

Fernando Alonso tops the podium in Hockenheim

Other drivers may wonder how to stop Alonso's relentless drive to a third title. Photo: Getty

And in Germany on Sunday his victory was founded on his relentlessness, canniness and virtual imperviousness to pressure.

Ferrari, lest we forget, started the season with a car that was the best part of a second and a half off the pace. Their progress since then has been hugely impressive.

But vastly improved though the car is, it was not, as Alonso himself, his team boss Stefano Domenicali and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel all pointed out after the race on Sunday, the fastest car in Germany.

Vettel's Red Bull - which finished second but was demoted to fifth for passing Jenson Button by going off the track - and the McLaren appeared to have a slight pace advantage over the Ferrari, given their ability to stay within a second of it for lap after lap.

But Alonso cleverly managed his race so he was always just out of reach of them when it mattered.

He pushed hard in the first sector every lap so he was always far enough ahead at the start of the DRS overtaking zone to ensure his pursuers were not quite close enough to try to pass him into the Turn 6 hairpin.

After that, he could afford to back off through the middle sector of the lap, taking the stress out of his tyres, before doing it all over again the next time around.

Managing the delicate Pirelli tyres in this way also meant he could push that bit harder in the laps immediately preceding his two pit stops and ensure he kept his lead through them.

Equally, he showed the presence of mind to realise when Lewis Hamilton unlapped himself on Vettel shortly before the second stops that if he could, unlike the Red Bull driver, keep Hamilton behind, it would give him a crucial advantage at the stop.

It was not quite "67 qualifying laps", as Domenicali described it after the race, but it was certainly a masterful demonstration of control and intelligence.

And there was no arguing with another of the Italian's post-race verdicts. "(Alonso) is at the peak of his personal performance, no doubt about it," Domenicali said.

It was the 30th victory of Alonso's career, and he is now only one behind Nigel Mansell in the all-time winners' list. The way he is driving, he will surely move ahead of the Englishman into fourth place behind Michael Schumacher, Alain Prost and Ayrton Senna before the end of the year.

At the halfway point of the season, Alonso now looks down on his pursuers in the championship from the lofty vantage point of a 34-point advantage.

That is not, as Red Bull team principal Christian Horner correctly pointed out in Germany, "insurmountable" with 10 races still to go and 250 points up for grabs. But catching him when he is driving as well as this will take some doing.

Alonso is clearly enjoying the situation, and is taking opportunities to rub his rivals' noses in it a little.

He is not the only driver to have been wound up by the index-finger salute Vettel employed every time he took one of his 11 wins and 15 pole positions on the way to the title last year.

So it was amusing to see Alonso do the same thing after he had beaten the German to pole position at Vettel's home race on Saturday.

The exchange between Alonso, Button and Vettel as they climbed out of their cars immediately after the race was also illuminating.

After standing on his Ferrari's nose to milk the applause, Alonso turned to Button and said: "You couldn't beat me?" He then pointed to Vettel and said: "He couldn't either."

All part of the game, but a little reminder to both men of what a formidable job Alonso is doing this season.

The race underlined how close the performance is between the top three teams this year.

Red Bull had a shaky start to the season by their standards - although to nowhere near the extent of Ferrari - but have had on balance the fastest car in the dry since the Bahrain Grand Prix back in April.

And while McLaren have had a shaky couple of races in Valencia and Silverstone, they showed potential race-winning pace in Germany following the introduction of a major upgrade.

Despite a car damaged when he suffered an early puncture on debris left from a first-corner shunt ironically involving Alonso's team-mate Felipe Massa, Hamilton was able to run with the leaders before his retirement with gearbox damage.

And Button impressively fought his way up to second place from sixth on the grid, closing a five-second gap on Alonso and Vettel once he was into third place.

This has not been Button's greatest season, as he would be the first to admit.

Germany was the first race at which he has outqualified Hamilton in 2012 and even that may well have been down to the different tyre strategies they ran in qualifying.

Nevertheless, he remains a world-class grand prix driver and Germany proved the folly of those who had written him off after his recent struggles.

And despite Alonso's lead in the championship, the season is finely poised.

Germany was a low-key race for Mark Webber, who was unhappy with his car on the harder of the two tyres but remains second in the championship. And Red Bull's two drivers clearly have the equipment to make life difficult for Alonso.

The McLaren drivers are determined to make something of their season still and Lotus are quick enough to cause the three big teams some serious concern.

Mercedes, meanwhile, have a bit of work to do to turn around their tendency to qualify reasonably well and then go backwards in the race.

"It's going to be a great, great season," said McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh on Sunday. "It already has been a great season."

And the next instalment is already less than seven days away in Hungary next weekend.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/07/cool_canny_alonso_looks_diffic.html

Pablo Birger Art Bisch Harry Blanchard Michael Bleekemolen Alex Blignaut

Hamilton glory cannot hide the hurt

Lewis Hamilton’s victory in the Italian Grand Prix was his second in three races and McLaren’s third in a row, confirming their position as the form team in Formula 1.

They have won nearly twice as many races as any other team this season – their five compare with the three of Ferrari and Red Bull. No-one else has won more than one.

Just as worryingly for their rivals, the last two victories – Hamilton’s on Sunday and Jenson Button’s in Belgium seven days previously – were utterly dominant.

The retirement of Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel with his second alternator failure in a race this season also helped Hamilton move into second place in the championship.

Lewis Hamilton

Lewis Hamilton (centre) celebrates winning the Italian GP on the podium with Sergio Perez (left) and Fernando Alonso (right). Photo: Getty 

The 27-year-old may be 37 points behind Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso, but there are 175 still available in the remaining seven races.

Alonso is, by common consent, the stand-out driver of 2012, but Hamilton has also driven a superb season and has almost certainly been second best.

Had it not been for a number of operational problems early in the championship, he may well be leading the championship. Even as it is, he has every chance of making a fight of it to the end of the season.

For a man in such a position, after a strong weekend, Hamilton was in a subdued mood after the race, as indeed he was throughout the four days in Monza.

He insisted that the BBC Sport story in which Eddie Jordan said that Hamilton was on the verge of leaving McLaren and signing for Mercedes had not affected him, but it did not look that way.

Whatever was prompting him to keep his answers short and to the point in his news conferences and television interviews certainly did not affect his driving.

He was in excellent form throughout the three days, tussling with Alonso for the honour of being fastest man at Monza.

And once the Spaniard was put out of the reckoning for victory with a rear anti-roll bar problem that left him in 10th place on the grid, Hamilton always looked odds-on for victory.

His task was made easier when Ferrari’s Felipe Massa beat Button away from the grid and held on to second place, with the McLaren never really hustling as it might have been expected to do, until he made his pit stop on lap 19. By then, Hamilton had the race won.

There was no evidence Button would have been able to challenge his team-mate had he got away in second place.

Button did close a little a few laps after their pit stops, but it was clear Hamilton was measuring his pace, and he let Button get no closer than seven seconds before holding him there until the second McLaren retired with a fuel system problem.

It was a mature, controlled drive, just as were his victories in Canada and Hungary. Alonso, who rates him as his toughest rival, will take the threat from him in the championship very seriously.

All in all, it was a tense weekend at McLaren. The Hamilton/Mercedes story made it a difficult weekend for the team and the relationship between their two drivers is frosty, presumably following Hamilton’s decision to post a picture of confidential team telemetry on the social networking site Twitter on the morning of the Belgian Grand Prix.

Button said he was “surprised and disappointed” by his team-mate’s actions, for which read “seriously hacked off”.

“I didn’t concentrate on it too much,” Button said on his arrival at Monza. “I thought it was important to say how I felt. It’s very easy not to say anything; also if you say something you can clear it up quicker. That was the last race. We’ve moved on from that.”

Perhaps, but the body language between the two men was palpably cool throughout the weekend, and they were not troubling to hide it, even in public arenas such as the restaurant at their hotel.

One night, sitting at adjacent tables, they did not even look at or acknowledge each other, let alone exchange a word.

McLaren insiders were relaxed about the situation, though. They like their drivers to race and a bit of edge focuses their minds, one senior figure pointed out.

Hamilton admitted his victory would have been a lot harder had Alonso qualified on the front row, as he looked certain to do before his problem in qualifying.

As it was, Alonso was forced to salvage what he could from 10th on the grid and, typically, he made the most of the situation.

An aggressive and clinical first few laps go him into fifth place by lap seven, but there his progress halted against the back of Sebastian Vettel’s Red Bull.

The world champion was robust in his defence, and Alonso was not able to pass before they made their pit stops together on lap 20.

Ferrari’s slick pit work, consistently among the best this season, almost got him out ahead of Vettel, but the Red Bull edged ahead, forcing Alonso to get past on the track.

When he went for the big move, around the outside of Curva Grande at 180mph on lap 26, Vettel unceremoniously barged him on to the grass, the Ferrari bucking scarily as Alonso wrestled for control.

Understandably, he was furious, although he kept his counsel after the race. It was a sure-fire penalty, in the context of a clarification on acceptable driving which was issued verbally to the drivers at the Spanish Grand Prix and then in written form in Canada.

The assumption was that Vettel was getting Alonso back for a similar situation, with roles reversed, in last year’s Italian Grand Prix. That one, in which Vettel passed Alonso with two wheels on the grass, has rankled with the German ever since.

He has brought it up at every opportunity, and this looked very much like revenge.

The difference was that, then, Alonso left Vettel just enough room, and Vettel took to the grass when he could – just – have stayed on the track. This time, Vettel left no room, and his behaviour was clearly unacceptable.

Vettel has the arrogance and self-belief that is required of all great drivers but there is also sometimes a sense of entitlement about him which is less than appealing.

He got this one wrong, and one hopes that when he watches a video of the incident, he will recognise that himself.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/2012/09/lewis_hamiltons_victory_in_the.html

Tony Crook Art Cross Geoff Crossley Chuck Daigh Yannick Dalmas

The drivers and cars of 2012 | 2012 F1 season review

The drivers and cars of 2012 is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.

Updated biographies for all 25 drivers who raced in F1 this year, plus pictures galleries of the 12 cars that contested the season.

The drivers and cars of 2012 is an original article from F1 Fanatic. If this article has been published anywhere other than F1 Fanatic it is an infringement of copyright.

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