Wednesday 13 June 2012

Canada 2012 - What We Learnt

By David Galton-Fenzi

2012 is Epic
7 winners in 7 races
6 championship lead changes so far
What more needs to be said?

Schumacher is Cursed
In this ultra-reliable era of modern F1 racing you just don’t expect a driver to have such cursed luck as Schumacher is having in 2012. His run continued in Canada, a track he’s won at before 7 times, with his DRS getting stuck in the open position forcing him to park it in the garage once again.



Other retirements over the season include a gearbox failure in Melbourne while running third, an errant pitstop in China where one of his wheels wasn’t attached properly meant he had to retire from a strong 2nd place. In Bahrain the team thought him safe in Q1 but didn’t count on the track coming to those running late (and a rampant Kovalainen) which stranded the German in 18th place (later 22nd after a gearbox change). He had DRS issues in the race too but still managed to secure 10th place in a decent recovery drive.
His retirement in Spain was all his fault but I’d wager a princely sum not even Schumacher thought just how much his penalty would affect him in Monaco, being denied a glorious pole position and certainly a decent haul of points if not a win. The latest debacle in Canada the last straw in a truly tumultuous time. What must grate even more is his teammate has managed to complete every racing lap so far this season in his seemingly bullet proof not-so-identical-after-all-perhaps silver arrows.


If this is the karma gods extracting payment for Schumacher's first career fortune then he may be in for a bit more pain yet, but you make your own luck sometimes and surely Schumachers time must come soon.

Jenson is Fading Fast
Just what has happened to the 2009 World Champion? Besides his emphatic victory in Australia and well judged 2nd place in China, 2012 has been nothing short of disastrous. His last four races have produced one points finish, and that was a lowly 9th place in Spain. it seems that for whatever reason (car development pieces, setup direction...?) he’s lost the ability to ‘turn on’ the Pirelli tyres and Lewis is now well and truly showing him the way.


Whatever his funk, he better snap out of it fast as he’s now 43 points behind in the championship standings in 8th position.

Lewis Loves the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve
Three wins out of five races. Not a bad strike rate, not so bad at all.

No comments:

Post a Comment