At 1 it’s the mighty F1 car!  Mark Webber looked rather cheesed off as he clambered out of the car following his crash, and only realising “in the shower” what a lucky escape he’d had.  So you can drive into the back of a slow-moving Lotus, flip the car high up into the air for a few seconds, do a mid-air side-roll, come back upright again, and slam it into the wall at 200 mph … and guess what?

You’ll escape completely unharmed.  You’ve really got to hand it to the designers and the FIA this time; they’ve done a great job on safety.  The drivers can be forgiven sometimes for forgetting about safety when their number 1 priority is to win win win, but at least we know the car is doing its job pretty darn well.

Number 2 is Germany.  Christian Horner, who is himself English, joked to the German Vettel that it would be Germany’s only win of the day when Vettel triumphantly crossed the finish line.  Sadly for us English fans this was not the case.  The 27th June 2010 was a great day for German sporting achievement.*

*unless you’re Michael Schumacher that is.

At 3 it’s the midfield!  Yes, the entire midfield.  It’s my Badgerometer ok, and if you don’t like it you can create your own and post it in the comment box at the bottom of this page.  Leaving aside the ‘B’ teams, it’s a great sight to see the whole of the midfield being competitive and successful at Valencia.  There’s a Williams in 4th, Renault 5th, Force India 6th, BMW 7th, and a Toro Rosso in 9th.

Everyone loves an underdog, and if Valencia was good for anything then this was it.

At number 4 it’s common sense.  Football is anti-technology altogether, and spurns time delays, resulting in some very dodgy decisions … but Formula 1 goes entirely the other way by having only ‘provisional’ results for hours after the race.  Poor Jenson Button had to stand on the podium knowing that his trophy and 3rd place could be taken away from him at any moment by the stewards for being the wrong speed behind the safety car.

However, common sense prevailed to everyone’s relief.  The 5 second penalties shuffled the deck a little towards the end of the points, but that’s about it.

At 5 it’s the only drivers who ever drove for Brawn GP – Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello, now at McLaren and Williams respectively.  JB knew what he was doing all along with Kobayashi, and picked up a nice podium from it as well.  Did anyone notice he took the fastest lap of the race too?  Badger loves Button.  Simple.  And Rubens had a stunner of a race!  He won at Valencia last year, and took an extremely impressive 4th place behind his former team-mate in the race.

Nice work chaps.

Don't mess with Montezemolo

This week I’m miffed with Ferrari.  They are nowhere near fast enough on

the circuit, so who do they blame for their string of poor performances?  Themselves?  Of course not, you mad English fool!  Blame the FIA, blame McLaren, blame Hamilton, blame the rules, blame the Pope, blame Canada … blame everyone but themselves.  In the manner of some evil genius baddy in a bad Bond film, Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo said this of the Hamilton safety car controversy,

“We are sure that the FIA will fully analyse what happened, taking the consequent necessary decisions. Ferrari will watch this with interest.”

Quite frankly Ferrari should spend more time developing the car, and less time moaning!

At number 1, somewhat controversially, it’s the Canadian grand prix itself.  They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that’s certainly true of the Gilles Villeneuve circuit on the stunning man-made island in Montreal.

After a year’s absence from the Formula 1 calendar, the Canadian grand prix returned and we were treated to yet another exciting wheel-to-wheel race.

Gone are the days when we would enthusiastically cheer one measly overtaking move per race.  On Sunday it was, at times, hard to follow what on earth was going on with all the pit stops, overtakes, drag races, scraps, pit lane racing … but it was brilliant.  Who needs rain?  Who needs a safety car?  The 2010 season is fast turning into an F1 classic already…

World © Sutton

At number 2 it’s Jenson Button, much like his result in the race.  But that’s not why he deserves a place in the Badgerometer Hall of Fame, it’s because of his maturity, sportsmanship and graciousness in defeat.  Either he’s a really really good actor, or there genuinely is mutual respect between the McLaren drivers.

Maybe it’s due to the fact that they both possess World Championship titles, or that McLaren learnt the hard way after the disastrous (but entertaining) Hamilton-Alonso pairing that saw them BOTH lose the championship in 2007.  Regardless, Button deserves a good old slap on the back for such a refreshing attitude.  Your time will come Jenson.

At number 3 it’s got to be the surprisingly fast Force India team!  Ok, so 9th and 10th isn’t stellar, but they did have their fair share of bashes and bumps during the race.  Liuzzi seemed like a write-off after his 1st lap dodgem-style collision(s) with Felipe Massa sent him spinning.  A battle with Kubica left Sutil with a puncture, and he dropped down to 13th after another pit stop, but managed to ‘force’ his way up to 10th.

Still, with both drivers in the points (something only Red Bull and McLaren can also boast) it’s a damn fine performance.

The headphones go in your ears, Vettel, not your actual head! World © Sutton

At 4, it’s the greatest invention since the dawn of Formula 1: the team radio.  Personally I think they should spend a bit more money harnessing the supreme power and hilariousness of team radios.  There should be a red button channel on the TV purely for team radio broadcasts, and another separate radio stream just for the Felipe Massa-Rob Smedley (his Ferrari race engineer) exchanges.  Who knows how many pet names Smedders has for his ‘Felipe baby’?

And perhaps Vettel might re-think his blatant sarcasm over the radio after having it broadcast to millions around the world during the race.  The Red Bull team asked him to nurse the car to the finish, due to a gear box problem, and then the following lap told him to get a move on and overtake!  Naturally Vettel was unimpressed, and confused.

At 5, it’s Nico Rosberg.  How someone can finish up in 6th without once being caught by the TV cameras in an impressive feat of ingenuity and sheer skill.  Did he take part in the race at all?  Was he sitting in his garage having a hot dog, before rejoining around lap 60 to see the chequered flag?  Who knows, but Petronas, Mercedes GP’s major sponsor are undoubtedly on the phone complaining to Bernie Ecclestone as we speak.

A typical F1 Steward?

This week I’m miffed with The Stewards.  Those mythical adjudicating creatures of Formula 1, much like the sand people of Star Wars fame, who seem to delight in making completely arbitrary and sometimes contradictory judgements and penalties.

I suppose it isn’t their fault.  Hamilton’s cheeky fumed-powered flying lap in qualifying left him pushing the car back to the pits to preserve enough fuel for steward testing – which isn’t strictly against the rules, but isn’t really fair either.  So what was the penalty?  £10,000… aka peanuts to McLaren.  Charlie Whiting, F1 race director, has said this of the tactic:

“Any team whose car stops on the slowing down lap after the race will be asked by the stewards to explain why this happened, ” Whiting said.

“If they are not satisfied that the reasons were beyond the control of the driver or team, and feel that this has been done deliberately to gain a competitive advantage, appropriate action will be taken.”

I bet the teams are quivering in their fire-proof boots at the thought of having to … “explain” their actions.  Scary stuff indeed.

The Badgerometer handy round-up of all the post-race rulings!

1. Michael Schumacher escaped penalty for double crossing on the straight to defend against former team-mate Felipe Massa.
2. Whereas Massa was handed a 20-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane!  It doesn’t make any difference though, as he was an entire lap ahead of 16th place Kovalainen in a Lotus.
3. Jaime Alguersuari was “reprimanded”, whatever that actually means, for an early collision with Rubens “The Plough” Barrichello.
4. Robert Kubica, or Bobby K as we like to call him, was also “reprimanded” for his supremely dangerous dive into the pit lane which nearly took out Adrian Sutil.  Doesn’t Bobby K remember that he nearly DIED at the Canadian grand prix in 2007?

It’s also pretty annoying to have to wait until the end of the race to have everything investigated – sort it out sand people!

At number one this week is the spectacular collision between Red Bull team-mates Mark Webber and Sebastian Vettel.  If you have two fairly evenly matched drivers in Formula 1, then Golden Rule No 1 is obviously  ‘never take each other out’.  That Golden Rule is even more applicable when your two drivers are in 1st and 2nd place on the race-track.  So what did the Red Bulls do?  They only went and broke the Golden Rule, that’s what!

But where does the blame lie?  Most people seem to think Vettel, but Red Bull boss Christian Horner seems to think it was Webber’s fault when he told the BBC  that “the large mistake remains that not enough room was given”.   Horner went on to say “they’re both big boys”.  Big boys, or big babies?  You’ve probably seen the replays enough times, so who do you blame?

At 2, it’s patriotism.  Sunday’s podium consisted of two British drivers, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button, both in British cars, with two Union Jack flags flying proudly above, plus Mark Webber whose Australian flag had a little tiny Union Jack in the corner.  God Save the Queen, the British national anthem, should have been paid at least twice, not just once.  But the best news?  It’s a mere 6 weeks until the British grand prix at Silverstone.  Hip hip hooray!

At 3 it’s the mighty F-duct!  Flying duct?  Fabulous duct?

The, err, mighty F-duct

Fearsome duct?  What the F*** duct?

There have been mutterings in the paddock about this little piece of engineering, and at the Turkish grand prix we finally got to see what all the fuss was about.  Instead of disappearing into the Turkish sunset as they normally do these days, the Red Bulls were kept honest by the McLaren boys thanks to their F-ducts.

Essentially, the duct helps the cars adapt better between the demands of the fast straights and the slower corners.  And the real reason they’re called F-ducts?  They appear where the ‘F’ in Vodafone is on the McLaren car.  That’s some brilliantly clever advertising to sponsor a much talked-of duct, at no extra cost.  But equally, it is also fairly irritating that Vodafone are incapable of spelling the word ‘phone’ correctly.

Number 4 is everyone’s favourite F1 golden couple.  No, not Lewis Hamilton and Nicole Scherzinger, there was far too much of her inane chat during the coverage anyway.  I’m talking about Felipe Massa and Rob Smedley, his race engineer (although that’s clearly only his ‘official’ title).  Brundle found them on the grid having a typical married-couple-esque debate about the fact that Massa “never listens”.  “I am listening” said Massa, adamant he was in the right.  Also, it’s a good excuse to re-watch the classic ‘Felipe Baby’ moment in their long-standing relationship…

Click here to view the embedded video.

At number 5, it’s the mysterious weather system which was hanging over the Istanbul park on Sunday.  Rain in 5 minutes… rain in 3 minutes… rain in 6 minutes… drizzle, a light smattering, a few drops, umm?  The coverage kept zooming in on some incomprehensible ‘Rain Radar’, and Martin Brundle delighted in announcing the appearance of a couple of miniscule drops on Vettel’s camera.  But the rain never really arrived.  It was particularly amusing when the Mercedes team told Michael Schumacher that 2-3mm of rain was expected soon, to which he quite deftly replied, “this doesn’t mean anything to me”.  Quite.

You can just feel the love in the room...

This week I’m miffed with Jonathan Legard.  Ok, I just lied.  I meant to say every week.  But it won’t do to linger on his shortcomings.  All I’ll say is that it’s “absolutely crucial” (classic Legard) that he and Brundle start acting like a pair of commentators, rather than sounding like two miffed men sitting in a room trying to out-dull each other.  Perhaps the BBC should send Brundle and Legard off on some sort of team-building adventure week in the Brecon Beacons.  Now that would make great TV.

Welcome to Badger’s barometer of F1-related stories from the Monaco grand prix, otherwise known as the Badgerometer!  Here’s our top 5 from the race…

Damon Hill does his best to suppress his 'revenge face' (c) LAT

At number 1 it’s revenge, getting your own back, having the last laugh, whatever you want to call it.  Damon Hill, the former British F1 world champion, was one of the four FIA stewards at the Monaco grand prix who ruled Michael Schumacher’s last gasp dash past Fernando Alonso illegal.  “The hate mail has started” said Hill, once the Schumacher fans realised who had had a part in having their favourite penalised.

For those who remember 1994, however, Hill’s actions will seem perfectly justified.  After a controversial crash in the final race at Adelaide, Michael Schumacher won the world championship by a single point.  Check out the video footage of the famous altercation.

Click here to view the embedded video.

At 2, it’s the stunning Mark Webber.  Sector after sector, lap after lap, Webber notched up fastest, after fastest, after fastest, and won the Monaco grand prix despite a whopping 4 safety cars.  At one point I questioned whether Webber was in the car at all, and in fact had been replaced by some highly-tuned machine.  But no, the evidence suggests that Webber has in fact hit his F1-peak, much like we realised with Jenson Button at Monaco last season.

After years of being  known as the unluckiest man in F1, it’s about time Mark Webber had his moment.

At 3, it’s crash!  BANG!  Wallop!!  Only 12 cars made it to the chequered flag in Monaco this weekend, and the top 10 took home some valuable points.  That means that half the grid crashed out during the eventful race on the streets of Monte Carlo.  The first safety car was on lap 1 thanks to rookie Nico Hulkenberg’s smash in the tunnel, and then two more safety cars were caused by F1-veterans Rubens Barrichello and Jarno Trulli.

Just goes to show that experience really doesn’t count in Monaco.  From the photo above, it’s amazing that both Trulli and Chandhok walked out of their cars alive!  The safety car I haven’t yet mentioned is also the most amusing.  On lap 44 the SC flags started flying because … drum roll please … a drain cover was loose.  Right.  Sounds more like an SouthWest trains excuse to me.

At number 4 it’s Martin Brundle’s love-in with the German reporter Tania Bauer.  You may remember her as the one who Brundle is always elbowing out of the way in his quest for a driver interview.

This weekend Brundle bumped into Bauer in the middle of the ‘tube station’-like Monaco grid, and thankfully this time they could both have a laugh about their frequent grid-meetings.  Classic stuff.

Number 5 of this week’s Badgerometer is the sprightly Fernando Alonso.  To say that it’s hard to overtake at Monaco is frankly an understatement.  However, Alonso kept us all hugely entertained at the beginning of the grand prix by daringly overtaking several other cars down into the Nouvelle Chicane.  From starting in the pitlane, to finishing 6th, at Monaco no less, it’s impressive stuff from the former world champion.

This week I’m miffed with the teams.  Well, specifically, the teams making stupid mistakes which could potentially hamper their drivers’ championship campaigns.  Button’s race was ruined by human error, but even McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh’s account differs from that of Button:

“Human error caused a cooling cover to be left off the left-hand radiator on the lap to the grid” – Whitmarsh

“I knew after the formation lap that there was a cooling cover left on the left-hand sidepod, where the radiator is,” – Button

Sort it out!  Making the mistake is bad enough, but they could at least agree on what the problem actually was.  Mercedes also had a weekend to forget, with both mistakes in qualifying and the race.  Nico Rosberg managed to hold up Schumacher in qualifying., scuppering both their races.  “We cocked up” said Ross Brawn, boss of Mercedes GP.  Too right you did.

… and this just wouldn’t be a Badgerometer without some mention of the attire of Eddie Jordan.  This week he surpassed even his own thresholds of bad taste by wearing a pair of eye-offending purple trousers, with matching purple glasses.  And you thought the white jeans were bad enough.

The Red Bulls: blink and you miss them! (c) Getty, redbull.com

At No 1 it’s the Red Bulls.  ‘In their own league’, staggering, untouchable, speedy-gonzalez, lightningly-quick, ‘Whoah!’, wowzers, Gordon Bennett!!  Call it whatever you like, the pace of the Red Bulls in Spain was quite simply embarrassing for all the other teams on the grid.  Although they still can’t quite shake off their unreliability gremlins, with poor Vettel having to drive the final 6 laps with effectively ‘no’ brakes.

But with that kind of pace, and two very talented drivers, it’s a potent mix for potential championship success.

At No 2, it’s Hamilton’s gravel-splashing spectacular crash in the dying minutes of the grand prix.  Ok, so the race at Catalunya wasn’t as dull as the season opener in Bore-rain, but Hamilton’s exit from 2nd place certainly livened up the finish.  Of course, I’m not advocating crashes – they’re very dangerous.  However, Formula 1 simply wouldn’t be Formula 1 without its fair share of smashes and crashes.

And yes, it was very disappointing for Hamilton to score a big fat ZERO when he was lining up nicely for a podium (and 2nd place in the drivers’ championship).  There are no prizes for guessing how the Spanish crowd reacted to Hamilton’s demise, and Alonso’s corresponding elevation to 2nd place.

Your Jedi mind-tricks won't work on us, Michael! (c) mercedes-gp.com

Making his first appearance in the Badgerometer’s top 5 this year is …. Michael Schumacher at No 3.  Having been miffed with him in a past Badgerometer, Schumacher has finally turned the corner in what has so far been an uncharacteristically poor start to the season.  4th place isn’t too shabby when you consider the relative performance of the cars ahead of Schumacher.

Clearly the updated Mercedes (they changed the weight distribution) very very much suits Schumacher rather than his team-mate Rosberg, who until now was quite firmly putting the granddaddy of Formula 1 in his place.

At 4, it’s the Virgin Racing team, who officially popped their F1 cherries (so to speak) and managed to get BOTH cars to finish a race.  Well done chaps, you are now real men.  All you need to do now is, err, get quicker.  A LOT quicker in fact.  Otherwise they’ll simply be slow-moving (and highly irritating) roadblocks when we arrive in Monaco on Wednesday.

Jaime's back-up plan: male model

No 5 is a small mention of Jaime Alguersuari’s race.  Being his ‘home’ race (Jaime is Spanish and therefore knows Catalunya pretty well), this was always going to be a better-than-average weekend for the Toro Rosso driver.  It was all looking so peachy for Jaime off the start, making up an advantageous 7 places up to 9th.  But then came a drive-through penalty for knocking the front wing off the car of the unsuspecting Chandhok.  At the chequered flag he took 10th, and an all-important point for the Toro Rosso team.  Plus we got a nice little mid-field story unfolding thanks to Jaime’s penalty.   Good stuff!

This week I’m a tad miffed with the absence of David Coulthard.  Eddie Jordan having his own free-reign over our televisions screens is not a pretty sight, but I’ll give him his due, the shirt this week wasn’t too bad.  I’d probably give the shirt a 6 out of 10, and that’s me being extremely generous.  When DC is around at least someone talks some sense.  It is no coincidence that the best of the BBC crew are ex-F1 drivers.

Frankly if anyone should be missing for a week it should be Jonathan Legard.

What are your top stories from the Spanish grand prix?  Here at Badger we love a good old natter!

(c) McLaren.com

The number 1 spot this week could only go to Jenson Button.  Last year’s championship is looking less and less like a fluke for the McLaren driver.  You can be the best racer in the world (and by that I mean Lewis Hamilton), but if you don’t have the strategic racing instinct and intellect then that talent will simply go to waste.  Hamilton’s career is littered with wasted opportunities and stupid mistakes, yet throughout that time his actual racing itself has been almost unparalleled.  Jenson now has two wins out of four under his belt already, and is sitting pretty on top of the drivers’ standings with 60 points, which is 10 more than his nearest rival.  There’s a reason why that coveted ‘number 1′ belongs on Jenson’s car.

In at number 2, it’s got to be pit stops!  Not 10, not 20, not 30, but … 69!  Sixty-nine!  The pit crews must have thought 2010 was going to be a breeze without all the re-fuelling malarkey.  Apparently not.  At the grand prix this weekend it would have been damn handy to have had a split viewing screen:  one for the race track, and one for the pit lane given how much action occurred down that little stretch during the course of the race.  It was slicks (for dry weather), then onto intermediates (the ones with little grooves for light rain), then back onto slicks, intermediates, more intermediates, help!  Who knows, but it was brilliant to see some pit action that was genuinely exciting rather than merely for ‘hopping’ each other (as it was last year with refuelling).

Jenson creates a mini M25 on the track in Shanghai

Number 3 is, somewhat unusually, controversy.  China had us searching for the F1 rule book, and trust us, it’s not a ‘light’ read.  Think Ulysses, War & Peace, and the Lord of the Rings combined … but far less coherent and a heck of a lot less interesting.  Controversy ‘No1′ came off the start line as Fernando Alonso ‘jumped’ the lights.  A particularly brilliant TV replay was race director Charlie Whiting wagging his finger as he spotted Naughty Nando cheat his way to the front.  Tsk tsk.  Still, 4th isn’t bad for Fernando given that misdemeanor.  Controversy ‘No2′ was Lewis Hamilton and all his shenanigans.  Racing in the pit lane entrance?  Check!  Cutting across the gravel after deciding to make a last-minute pit stop?  Check!  Racing Vettel on the exit of the pit lane?  Check!  Controversy ‘No3′ was Vettel’s squeezing of Hamilton as they raced side-by-side out of the pit lane.  Controversy ‘No4′ was golden boy Jenson Button and his ‘trick’ of parking the car on the hairpin just before the restart after the safety car, causing a bit of an M25-style traffic jam.  Phew!  What a lot of cheeky behaviour from the drivers in China!

At 4 it’s a shout out to Vitaly Petrov!  The bloke may look a bit ill most of the time, and he is a Renault cash-cow, but I’m truly impressed by his 7th place at Shanghai.  He started in a lowly 14th, and put in a solid, measured performance in difficult conditions.  Michael Schumacher: start taking notes.

No 5, and I’m a little ashamed to say it, was the absence of Eddie Jordan (in the flesh that is).  It was rather refreshing not to have to be forced to look at his eye-offendingly poor taste in clothes.  Tight fitting, sweaty, pink, white jeans, oh dear Eddie.  It was also so much easier to shut him up being only a booming voice from the other side of the world.  Thank-you to the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.  Through every ash-filled cloud there is an Eddie Jordan-free silver lining.

Half a dozen crazy marshalls dash onto the track to pick up 2 pieces of Alguersuari's wing

This week I’m a bit miffed with the safety car deployment.  We all love a good old safety car period:  the field gets bunched up again, there’s usually a big crash, and the little stewards come out with their brooms (seriously, who uses brooms?  Are we in the 18th century?) and frantically attempt to pick up the bits of carbon fibre like Benny Hill characters!  Still though, I’m a bit miffed with the trigger-happy release of the safety car in China.  Oh!  There’s a microscopic bit of wing on the track!  Help!  Deploy the safety car immediately!  Over-reaction, much?

(c) Getty redbull.com

In at 1 it’s the wonder-boy Sebastian Vettel.  Pole in Bahrain, pole in Australia… but only 12 points garnered from both combined (which under the new points system is rather measly).  But it was 3rd time lucky for Vettel who deservedly took the top step on the podium at Malaysia.  Although he can’t afford the unreliability and mishaps of last year, and in the previous 2 races.

This season, due to the points overhaul, the rewards for winning are so high that even a couple of ‘off’ races could see the championship going down the drain.  Repeat after me, the single most important thing in Formula 1 is… reliability, reliability, reliability.

A storm brews over the Sepang circuit (c) Getty

At 2 I would like to raise my hat to the weather!  The grand prix itself may have been dry, but a stormy qualifying meant a momentous shake-up of the grid, and therefore a far more topsy turvey and exciting race.  Last year it rained so much the Malaysian circuit practically turned into the Pacific ocean!  Brilliant.  I don’t like rain normally, but in the world of F1 a little bit of rain goes a long way.

So F1 has done cities, mountains, coasts, rain, deserts, heat, but never…. snow!  Never say never.

At 3 it’s climber of the day, Lewis Hamilton.  20th on the grid, to 6th at the chequered flag is not too shabby at all.  I don’t like trumpeting about Lewis’ talents too much.  The man already has some serious ego issues, and singing his praises would only be counter-productive.  But on this occasion I will admit that he was mighty impressive.

All he needs now is some modesty and wisdom, and then he will truly be a complete driver.

In at number 4 are the often neglected rookie teams!  Malaysia was a stunning success for the 3 teams who only joined the ranks at the beginning of this season.  Virgin Racing managed to finish at last (one car out of two is a good start), Trulli finished 5 laps down for Lotus, and HRT… got both of its cars to the finish line!  Impressive stuff.  Next hurdle: to finish both cars without being lapped.

At 5 it’s the rapidly forming 8-way battle for the championship.  Last year it was great to see ‘rookie’ team Brawn GP and veterans of F1, Jenson and Rubens, taking wins after wins at the beginning of the season.  However, it is miles more exciting to see Massa, Alonso, Vettel, Button, Rosberg, Hamilton, Kubica and Webber all in the hunt as we head to China this weekend.

Michael starts a new craze: the solo Mexican wave

This week I’m pretty miffed about Michael Schumacher.  Ok, so we’re only three races in so far, and a mechanical failure is hardly Schumacher’s fault, right?  But I’m miffed all the same.  This isn’t the Schumacher of yore, winning left right and centre, perhaps cheating a little, and never ever having reliability issues.

Yet this season he’s slower than team-mate Rosberg, more mistake-prone, and is beginning to have the luck of Mark Webber.  Could we be seeing a mysterious and oh-so-convenient return of the ‘neck injury’ which prevented Schumacher’s return last season?  Why else would Mercedes have such an accomplished test driver in the form of Nick Heidfeld, other than for the replacement of Schumacher if it all goes tits up?

(c) Sutton, Autosport

In at number 1 in the Badgerometer chart is wheel-to-wheel overtaking.  Could the races at Bahrain and Australia have been any more different?  Bahrain overtaking moves = 0.  Australia overtaking moves = loads!  Where Bahrain made me fall asleep in the middle of the day, the race in Melbourne kept me awake and on the edge of my seat, despite having not actually gone to sleep that night before the race started in the wee hours.  The cars were achingly close to each other.  What could be more exciting?  I tried to pick out one move during the race that stood out, but the sheer VOLUME of overtaking warranted the top spot in this week’s Badgerometer.

At number 2 is Jenson Button, and this is the part where I get to say ‘I told you so’.  When everyone else was saying that Hamilton was going to whip Button by a hefty margin, it was pretty clear that things were never going to be so clear-cut.  Button has three major advantages over Lewis, namely maturity, a superb season last year, and (most importantly) a smooth driving style.  I know, you’re thinking ‘who cares about smooth driving’ apart from that evil driving instructor you had at 17?  Well, smooth driving means less tyre wear, and less tyre wear means fewer tyre changes, and with no refuelling this year tyre-wear is going to be a make-or-break factor in the 2010 season.  And it was in Australia.  Button had the wisdom and raw driver intuition to switch to slick tyres before the pits became as conjested as central London.  He then spent the race keeping his tyres in great shape to win, whereas everyone else was forced to pit for fresh tyres.  Expect a season-long battle of the McLarens.

Number 3 goes to Renault!  To say they’ve had a tough couple of years is frankly an understatement:  poor performances on-track, sackings, firings, accusations, cheating, the wrath of the FIA, the loss of Alonso (again), the loss of all sponsorship, a car that looks like an angry bumblebee… but in Australia they came 2nd.  2nd!  I know!  It’s amazing.  Hats off to anyone to predicted THAT outcome in the Fantasy Grand Prix.  Kubica is certainly not a looker, nor is his car, but boy can he drive.  With new parts destined for the car this weekend in Malaysia, Renault may well be able to claw some dregs of a reputation back from the F1-gutter this season.

Number 4 is Fernando Alonso.  He had comically bad start to the race, spinning himself 180 degrees on the first corner, and was forced to sit there while every other car went whistling past him.  But did he give up?  Of course not!  His team-mate Massa may have beaten him to the podium, but Alonso managed to climb his way back from almost certain defeat to take a stunning 4th.  And now he’s aloft on top of the driver’s championship table.  Massa won’t roll over for him, so Alonso will have to raise his game if he wants to recapture the championship.  If he can do that, Alonso could be untouchable.

At number 5 it’s the new safety car.  Thanks to the rain, and a smashing crash by Kobayashi, Hulkenberg and Buemi, the brand new Mercedes SLS 63 got it’s first outing of the 2010 season.  And what a stunner of a car!  Gone is the hairdresser’s Mercedes of recent years, and in comes the brilliantly retro new safety car.  I think I have a new crush.

This week, I’m pretty unimpressed by Lewis Hamilton.  Australia was only Lewis’ 2nd race without his dad Anthony Hamilton, who until this year was his manager and accompanied Lewis to every race on the calendar.  So like a petulant unsupervised child, Lewis managed to get himself in trouble with the boys in blue, and then … SHOCK HORROR… criticised the team.  To put this in perspective, Lewis doesn’t normally go one breath, let alone one sentence, without ‘thanking the team’.  If I could have a pound for every time Lewis has said ‘the team’ since his arrival in Formula 1, well, I’d be rich enough to fund a modest sized F1 team.  Renault perhaps.  Complaining about your own team gets you nowhere.  Look at Rubens Barrichello and his infamous ‘blah blah blahhing’ of last year.  Fernando Alonso’s short tenure at McLaren was probably not helped by his public criticisms of the team, such this line from Montreal, “we know that all the support and help is going to him [Lewis Hamilton] and I understood that from the beginning.”  Naughty little Lewis.

The Badgerometer is where we, the F1 Badger writers come up with our top five things about F1 at any point in time.  Anything from cars, drivers, overtakes, great escapes, mistakes or Eddie Jordans choice of footwear can make it into our chart…

Welcome to the Badgerometer top 5 from Bahrain!

Formula 1 kicked off the new decade in the desert, but luck certainly deserted Sebastian Vettel when he suddenly ‘lost power’ due to suspected exhaust problems.  It wasn’t a particularly racey-race, especially not for the new teams for whom the Bahrain grand prix was effectively their ‘testing’ time.  Below is a picture of the 18 champions all at Bahrain this weekend.  Can you guess who has been photoshopped into the picture?  If you can get that, and name every person in the photo, then you will win… the chance to nominate the ‘No 1′ for the Australia Badgerometer!  Fine, if you want ‘real’ prizes then you’ll just have to sign up to our Fantasy GP.

(c) joesaward.wordpress.com

All the familiar BBC faces, and voices, were back for the 2010 season, with Eddie Jordan and David Coulthard commencing yet another year of eye-offendingly horrendous outfits in matching WHITE jeans.  The only person in the entire world who can get away with white jeans is Elizabeth Hurley, and somehow I doubt she is even remotely a fan of Formula 1.  Anyway, enough with the fashion parading, and on with the Badgerometer top 5 from Bahrain….!

In at number 1 it’s everyone’s favourite little Brazilian, Felipe Massa.  To come back from the brink of death, (and near-blindness) and take 2nd place in the season opener is truly the stuff of legend.  After his dreadful crash back in July 2009, the odds of Massa returning to F1 were, to say the least, slimmer than the chances of Martin Brundle making an unexpected comeback to the cockpit in 2010.  He may have been only No 2 in the race, but Massa hands down deserves the very first Badgerometer No 1 of the season.  There’s literally nothing bad you can say about him.  He’s not scandalous, he’s dedicated to his team, he’s recently become a dad, and he is sure to keep team-mate Fernando Alonso honest as the season progresses.

(c) f1photos.org

At number 2, it’s the Lotus team.  Ok, so no one will ever be able to repeat the stunningly successful ‘rookie’ year of Brawn GP (now Mercedes) of last season, but Lotus deserve a proper slap on the back for not only getting one of their cars to the full race distance, but also beating the Toro Rosso of Sebastian Buemi.   The saying goes that it’s not the winning, but the taking part that counts.  Lotus may not have even come close to winning in Bahrain, but at least they actually took part in the whole race!  That’s more than either Hispania or Virgin racing can say.   The Lotus car also looked pretty darn good against the backdrop of sandy dunes and palm trees.  By comparison, the Hispania looked like the dodgy Formula 3 car from 1994 I once found rusting away in my aunt’s garage.  That car didn’t work either.

At number 3, it’s none other than Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso. He’s back everyone, so be afraid, be very afraid.  Michael Schumacher must be feeling like he’s done the time warp back to 2005/06.  Back then, the sprightly young Alonso basically destroyed him, and Schumacher eventually retired under a cloud of poor performances.  Fast forward to now, and you’ve got Alonso on the top step of the podium collecting a WHOPPING 25 points, and Michael languishing down in 6th on a measly 8 points.  To add insult to injury, Alonso is now in a Ferrari, which is Michael’s old team.

(c) f1photos.org

At 4 it’s the ‘new’ improved pitstops.  Blink and you miss them.  You pop to the kitchen to put the kettle on, and before you know it every single driver has been into the pits, changed their tyres, and are back out and battling on the track.  With no refuelling this year, the pit stops are edging ever-closer to nanoseconds.  Which leads nicely onto the ‘new’ 2010 strategies.  The brilliance of Formula 1 is that every year the ‘formula’ changes, and the race-winning formula needs to be discovered afresh every year.  Right now, who knows what’s going on with these new-fangled no-fuel pit-stops, or the strategy, or the tyres?   But that’s the sheer genius of Formula 1: it is always evolving, changing and surprising.

Murray-isms have returned!  Definition: Murray-ism [muh-ray-iz-um], noun, an error or discrepancy in Formula 1 commentary; Origin: the legendary Murray Walker.  Is it a Virgin Racing car, or an HRT?  Martin Brundle certainly doesn’t know, or care.  He was too excited about his quip “the virgin pit stop for the Virgin team”.  And don’t ask Legard whether it’s a Red Bull or Toro Rosso.  I mean, it’s not like they’re paying him to know that kind of stuff, right?  But secretly, I do quite love it when the commentators do a  Murray-ism.  It makes you feel all knowledgeable, smug, and a bit like some sort of F1-yoda.

This week I’m feeling pretty miffed about the new graphics for the 2010 season.  You practically need a pair of binoculars, or a magnifying glass, to see what on earth they say.  They’re barely bigger than those tiny weeny disclaimers you see at the bottom of adverts for shampoo.  Of course the racing TV feed is important, so massive graphics saying JENSON IS 5 SECONDS BEHIND SCHUMACHER!!! running through the centre of the screen in large bold red letters would obviously be a tad distracting.  However, the positions and the timings are pretty essential to the average viewer too!  The initial lack of radio feed was also rather unimpressive.  Get it sorted Bernie!

Our stunning columnist, Emma E. Rouge is currently on vacation, so for another week, we’re treating you to the musings of another Badger writer’s personal thoughts on the grand prix weekend.  Put your hands together please for Ciaran Buttonham’s F1 Top 5 and bottom 1 – Thanks – Ed. Read Emma’s previous columns here

Following the unfortunate events in Saturday’s qualifying, we were left in some doubt as to whether we could possibly enjoy this year’s Hungarian Grand Prix.  Thankfully, and despite the last 35 laps of mundane misery, Eddie, Flavio and the boys were in town to make sure that his was yet another treasured episode in 2009’s Formula One World Championship.

Just Like The Good Ol’ Days

Oh truly, it was for the fleeting of moments just like old times. When the resolution of the first corner battle became pronounced in the presence of not just Raikkonen, but Alonso and, rejoice, our little Hamilton as well. Oh how we smiled, for we knew that this was going to be racing. Full on dominance by the masters, forget your new boys Brawn and Red Bull, we had Ferrari on McLaren, with a, well ok a Renault. But who was driving the Renault? Yes that crafty old mono-browed purveyor of racing filth, none other than Mr Fernando Alonso. After everything the so far bizarre weekend had thrown our way, we could now feel comfortable enough to sit back, relax and allow normality to quench our flustered hearts once more. And we would have got away with it, if it weren’t for those pesky kids mechanics.

Eddie has always been a lovable character around the pit lane

Look Out, Jordan’s About!

Eddie Jordan let loose on the Formula One grid is not so much the bull in the china shop we had expected but perhaps more like that aunt who has the terrible, but fascinatingly hilarious habit of getting ‘merry’ and telling everyone exactly what she thinks of them. It couldn’t have been scripted, Jordan’s first utterances to FOM supreme Bernie Ecclestone;

Eddie “Aren’t you signing the Concorde Agreement this week?’

Bernie “I can’t write…”

Eddie “I just thought you couldn’t pay.”

Oh no you didn’t! Eddie Jordan is a bad man to say that to Mr Ecclestone. What next – will it be “how are you finding sitting down?” to Max…

In that moment Eddie erased all his previous wrong doings and slanderous blitherings, he is now Prince Phillip sans the peculiarly acceptable (it’s alright ‘cause he’s old) racism.

Here’s Hammy!

He’s back and no sooner had he crossed the line than the muppet of all things media related, was moping on about the team. No, to be fair, I don’t think a single one of us really minded; after all the struggle and strife the lad has had to contend with in the past months, we’ve seen him really mature as a character on and off the track, and Hamilton was dead on in thanking his team, who as Eddie Jordan so eloquently put it have managed to do something with “that dog of a car.” The most rewarding thing about Sunday for fans of Lewis was the very pronounced fact that this was no fluke. Though he battled little for his prominence at the front, there was no doubt that the McLaren team arrived in Hungary this past weekend with a supremely dominant car in both straight-line speed and cornering ability, (yes I know it’s a slow track). And reassuringly, in the past years that we have seen the McLaren, they have not been ones to allow their development to fall off mid-season. Hamilton for WDC 2009 anyone?

Briatore’s Belligerence

We’d criticise, but perhaps the next point is the very reason we all secretly love the Flavster. No? 40-odd laps run, Alonso out, Piquet out of the team, Flavio had had enough. And, to be fair, who can blame him, when you’ve got an insanely beautiful wife at home, is the prospect of hearing mono-brow moan and Jr cry something that’s going to keep you hanging about that dust bowl for long? Badger honestly can’t fault him on his behaviour this week and maybe even salutes him a little. But now that we’ve got a need to fill column inches, what is going to happen to poor Piquet? As Brundle pointed out, these young guys are coming into the sport earlier and earlier, and being expected to perform on a par with veterans like Barrichello, I’m not suggesting a two-tier driver championship, but maybe something needs to be done about their lack of experience. If only there was some way for the drivers to like test the cars or something, I dunno, too far out maybe…

Panic, Pandemonium and Profanities!

Was that actually not the best end to a qualifying session we could have hoped for? It was more exciting, more involving and vastly more hilarious than anything I can ever remember. Before I go on further, can someone please explain to me how in that small gap where Jenson Button’s eyes normally rest, there is suddenly a whole world of expression and exclamation when his visor is up? Even with the sound off, you could still guess what precise expletive was being uttered from within. And thanks Jake, just in case the small kiddies who are so puzzled by your sudden disappearance from their television shows and reappearance on Daddy’s programmes weren’t confused enough, you had to pretty much spell out the muffled potty mouth of Mr Button. I’m sure the Mail will be giving Button a kicking for that now he’s struggling with the championship, good old tabloids. I elect that we begin a campaign to dramatically spice up the end of qualifying in similar fashion. Perhaps on the premise of musical chairs, all engines are cut and regardless of position on circuit, the guys will have to jump from their cars quick as a flash and sprint back to the pit lane. First one to get weighed is on pole and so on? Maybe not! So how come someone got away with banning refueling next year then?

This week, I’m a bit miffed by Red Bull, or to be more specific Sebastian Vettel. Come on lad, you’re better than this, and I’m going to look stupid if you don’t win after all the biggin’ up I’ve done around my band-waggoning Button friends. Where on earth have you been, and what’s happened to your raw speed? No actually, I’m more miffed by knee jerk steward reactions that I had hoped were left firmly at the door or 2009.