JENSON DOES IT AGAIN
Last year, I wound up in the one part of the world that I'd previously sworn I'd never touch with a ten foot bargepole! The Middle East. And the cool little island of Bahrain soon showed me how dumb I'd been in writing the region off. For Lewis, the race may have been a disaster but it's one long weekend I won't forget for a very long time. Well the race is still at the BIC, but Dad and I didn't have the cash to get out there this time around. And a year has proved to be a very long time. I wound up getting Vettel's autograph at Bahrain '08, didn't think much of it at the time. Now he's a two-time Grand Prix winner. Jenson still came into the '09 race leading the championship though and one thing was for certain here. There would be no rain!
Well despite his early season form, Jenson did wind up having to dodge a bullet in Q1 but both he and Lewis survived, the same couldn't be said for Webber who declared himself "screwed" after getting blocked late on. Q2 proved to be more straightforward for the Brits with Lewis if anything having more trouble, Kubica's bad form continued though and he got KOd. Glock came up with the opening hot time in Q3, before Trulli edged him...only to later get outgunned by Jenson, backed up by Lewis! I celebrated an all-British front row too soon though. Jenson was beaten, first then Glock then Trulli. For Trulli it was his first pole since the '05 US Grand Prix. Glock took P2 for his best ever qualifying performance(having made his F1 debut in Canada '04) and that completed the first ever all-Toyota front row(the team having been in F1 since '02). Vettel started P3, Jenson P4 and Lewis P5(his best qualifying performance of the season so far).
In the race itself well Lewis had a great start, getting as high as 3rd initially before getting overtaken by Jenson. After that he settled in to what used to be known as the Trulli train. In the middle of the pitstop window he got as high as 2nd but again never really looked like challenging for a race win. In the end Vettel wound up leading the group Lewis was in and the reigning world champion wound up under team orders to let the German go and fight for third with Trulli instead. He also lost that battle and wound up settling for 4th but that's still technically his best result of the season and a non-controversial podium is surely only a matter of time.
Jenson's first move of the race was to take Lewis and make it up to 3rd. After that, Ross Brawn was able to run a gameplan. Vettel was also dealt with early and though he wasn't able to deal with the Toyotas on the track, so good pit stop strategy saw the world championship leader hit the front. After that, no one was really able to challenge the Brit and he pretty much cruised through to take what he'd consider to be his greatest win of his career. It was his third win of the season and after some doubts given that he wasn't able to get ten points out of China, the fist that broke out of Honda F1's grave is proving to belong to a super being!
In the meantime, Lewis had a loose end to tie up. Namely an FIA meeting to decide his and McLaren's punishment after the mess in Australia. Looking back, the guy was naive to have trusted McLaren as much as he did. And yet, ultimately, the decision was made by a guy who has since been fired by the team. Well the FIA decided to give McLaren a three-race suspended ban. Basically, if the team do anything else out of order before April 2010 they'll have to miss three races. Same if the FIA recieve any more evidence concerning the incident. As fresh evidence is unlikely this far down the line, chances are this affair is over and done with and thank whatever diety is around for that.
So, after four races the championship looks like this: Jenson leads the championship on 31 points, with his lead over the rest of the competition having increased to twelve points. Further down, Lewis moves up to 7th with 9 points.
So, with the initial stages of the championship over, how off base are my season predictions looking? Well I certainly didn't expect BMW and Ferrari to be so far off base. McLaren, particularly Lewis, aren't doing so badly but odds on the 2008 world champion defending his title at this point look pretty slim, even if he is doing a much better job than Damon Hill did is that dodgy Arrows in '97. In fact, as a fan of both drivers, I'd say that if you put them in the same car, Lewis would prove to be the better of the two. And yet, it is almost certainly Jenson who Lewis will be handing the championship trophy to! In theory, Barrichello might challenge him...if he can work out how to keep up with his teammates. Vettel(someone who I certainly underestimated) might challenge him...but he has to get past Barrichello in the title race first.
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