Pinnacle of Motorsport or Club Racing?

This 2013 Formula One Season certainly started in a more interesting fashion then I could have predicted and the 2013 Malaysian Grand Prix continued that trend with an equal parts recipe of weather, tires, and baffling decisions. 

Let’s start with the baffling decisions.  At multiple points in this race decisions made by drivers and the team bordered on comical and fitting more with an amateur club race than what is supposed to be the pinnacle of motorsport.  Let’s rattle off a few:

Fernando Alonso damages his Ferrari’s front wing on lap 1 and instead of pitting decides to stay out and in turn 1 of lap two ends his race in the kittey litter. 

Force India decides to pit both Adrian Sutil and Paul di Resta on the same lap to switch to dry tires only to have Sutil experience the first of many wheel nut problems holding BOTH cars back in the race.

Toro Rosso pits Jean-Eric Vergne and releases him directly into the Caterham of Charles Pic.

McLaren releases Jenson Button without attaching his right front wheel nut which thankfully they noticed and got him stopped on pit lane before he got up to speed.  Oh, and he was leading at the time and certainly had a reasonable chance at a top five finish in what appears to be a far inferior car to the leaders.

And finally my favorite and mostly harmless blunder of the race had to be Lewis Hamilton forgetting what color pajamas his team wears and pulling into the McLaren pit stall to receive service on his Mercedes.  I guess you do have to forgive the guy as he was employed by McLaren for over a decade but still a pretty big brain fart!

Now with all that being said it certainly made the race entertaining!  The combination of the wet weather start and all of these mistakes actually made the race thoroughly enjoyable to watch.  There was a stretch during the early part of the race that I had a hard time remembering who was running in what position because SO much was happening.

I think we also have to give credit to Pirelli for not relenting to the bitching and moaning about the degradation of the tires because the strategy has been fantastic for the entertainment value of the broadcast.  As a viewer of the sport I am thrilled that we are not having the same predictable multi-million dollar parades that we have had repeatedly over the last decade and I applaud Pirelli for helping to shuffle the deck.

Now the ugly side of the tire degradation is the ridiculous team racing strategies that have started to unfold and reared their ugly head in this Malaysia race and it was fascinating to watch how two sets of team mates dealt with this issue.

Let’s start with Mercedes and Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton.  I think I took away from this race that Hamilton although not being publicly crowned the number one driver seemed to get that benefit in the later stages of the race.  Now we only got to hear the communications between Ross Brawn and Rosberg so it is hard to figure out the full story but it was obvious that Rosberg was not happy with being told to hold position behind Hamilton.  At one point Rosberg even demanded over the radio that Brawn “owed him one” for taking one for the team.  Was this Brawn really wanting to save fuel, equipment, or tires or are we already looking at a points racing scenario for Hamilton allowing him to claim the bottom step on the podium?

Now let’s jump to the first and second place finishers of Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber at Red Bull.  Webber seemed to get the benefit of Vettel pitting a lap too early for dry weather tires and took control of the race for the first 2/3rds of the race.  Vettel clearly disobeyed team orders to back the engine and pace down and took the fight to Webber and cruised to an easy victory. The resulting camera shot of the interaction between Webber and Vettel in the waiting room before the podium celebration was pure television gold. Adrain Newey looked like he soiled himself as this was happening and was looking to make sure he didn’t stain the carpet.

The issue of team orders has always been a polarizing issue in Formula One and I honestly have never been a fan of them.  To that end I actually kind of appreciate that Vettel ignored the team and drove his own race even if I do feel it was dishonorable.  I do wish I could be a fly on the wall during the Mercedes and Red Bull debriefs as there was clearly tension amongst the drivers and both Ross Brawn and Christian Horner seemed agitated with their charges as well.

At the end of the day it does look like Red Bull and Mercedes have the cars to beat so far in this young season with potentially the Ferrari close behind.  I do have a feeling that Ferrari and Fernando Alonso will have a hard time living down the costly error made today if the team or Alonso is in contention at the end of this season.  This Malaysian Grand Prix certainly was robbed of some entertainment with Alonso’s early exit as Felipe Massa certainly showed the car was capable of at least battling for the third spot on the podium.

Now we have a LONG three weeks to watch the next chapter of this entertaining story at the Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai.  I am certainly hoping we get a race as entertaining as the first two!