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Supposedly one of the issues yesterday was tackling the fire, since as soon as the race ends, the fire crews duty is over and they had been dismissed and left the circuit. By the time they returned, the teams had already dealt with it. I guess everyone is lucky that the world of motorsport is unique in sports, and the equipment is so high tech and dangerous, that everyone in the pits has the required training to deal with such a situation. Had this happened in another sport, where danger is not as prominent, it could have been a lot worse since the fire crews had left.

Everyone involved done a brilliant job. Just watching BBC and Sky I see staff from Williams, Caterham, Force India, STR, HRT, Pirelli, Sky TV and the circuit getting involved with the rescue and fire fighting efforts. That's proper team work.

I've seen a lot of comments about the joke Pirelli tyres and how anyone can now win. But I don't think that's true.

The tyres are essentially the same as in 2011 and qualifying is important this year - teams may save tyres, but the last three races have been won from pole position.

The difference is that Red Bull, McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes, Lotus, Williams and Sauber are separated by probably 0.5s-1.0s per lap. So the tyres really changes the dynamic between these teams. Get to the front or in a good rhythm and you can control your pace. We haven't seen Force India or STR challenge, while Caterham, Marussia and HRT are at the back, a la 2011.

In 2011, you had Red Bull, McLaren way ahead, then Ferrari, then Mercedes, Renault etc. There were bigger gaps between each team. Now they're all bunched up, a bit like in 2009. We have strange years like this every now and then. What I really didn't notice was that Grosjean was a whole minute ahead of Kobayashi - how did that happen!

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

I think Maldonado is just someone who really likes these kind of tracks. He was great at Albert Park, great at Barcelona, and he'll be great at Monaco. And if you continue that list he'll be great at Singapore too.

An eerie but rather beautiful photo of Senna's Williams after the pit fire

That is amazing.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

Problem is that you instantly receive a penalty when you "cause a collision" these days. No matter why or how it happened: if you hit someone you will have to take a penalty. I remember last year at Monaco there was an incident that still bothers me today: Paul di Resta tried to pass a Toro Rosso at the hairpin, they made contact, di Resta ruined his frontwing but got the position. But only for a short while because he had to pit to get a new nose. The Toro Rosso had no damage at all and was able to continue. Di Resta however received a penalty for "causing a collision".
So whenever you will see a car hitting another one for whatever reason you can be sure there will be a penalty.

Yeah, but Schumacher didn't just hit someone, who rammed them off track

Anyway, good news from Williams with some touching words from Sir Frank
http://www.f1zone.net/news/williams-f1- ... ent/13963/

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

I hate that anyone would try to criticise the way F1 is running in 2012 because I'm so madly in love with the way the races are going this year, I'll defend it vigorously against the Schumachers and anyone else who wants to criticise it.

The drivers might not be having things their own way and to hell with them if they're not liking it, they're still paid to race these cars and maybe they just need some time to adapt to the way the sport is going and how to best work the tyres, then we'll see a return of the status quo.

But until then the show is brilliant for the fans, I've had more people come up and ask me about the races this year than ever before, including the back to back British Champions years of 2008-2009
We've had brilliant races, unexpected results, few crashes and lots of overtaking. What's not to love?

As easy as it is to criticise the tyres this year when your driver isn't performing very well, surely overall as F1 fans we'd rather see this than the 2 stop refuelling era when the only action was taking place in pit lane and everyone was easing off after the last pit stop?

I know I do.

@Codename 47

you are right that it is a great season.

But somehow I hope we won't see for the next 10 years that almost everyone can win races. Winning a race by a 'lower' team needs to stay something special, out of the ordinary.

Perez (almost) winning and Maldonado winning is great. But if this would happen every two races, it won't be that 'special' anymore.

I like the fact there are top teams, subtopteams, middle of the pack and bad teams. And if a subtopteam or middle of the pack team can win a race that is simply fantastic. It just has to be an exception.

I'm not sure if you understand what I'm trying to say, but it's nice that Barcelona now and then has to fight to get a champions league ticket, but if it would become that the more unknown teams would play champions league every year instead of Real Madrid and Barcelona, that won't be good in the end.

But it's a great year so far!

It does make sense, making the non-routine to become a routine could be bad in the long run. However, I enjoy much more the 'banalization' of winning from this year than something like 2008, when we had the most epic finale but the title contenders with some of the worst performances for drivers in such a position.

Well, I started watching Champcar in 2000 and 2001 and what attracted it to me was the sheer number of competitive teams, the amount of teams/drivers that could win on any given sunday.
Ok, that probably had more to do with the variety in tracks over there than it did anything else, but it still seemed like every race was what you would get in F1 only if it was Wet/Dry, that it was the combination that not only was quick, but also used their heads and strategy to be the best car on the day.

And yet, both those championships were won by Gil De Ferran and Penske were still the team to beat.
Over the balance of the season, as I believe it will do in F1 as well, the cream rose to the top and the right car/driver combination won in the end.

This year is fantastic for the sport, it is brilliant that all these feelgood results keep happening race after race.
Hopefully it'll strengthen these teams too as they receive more prize money and TV money etc so they can become the big teams of the future.

But when the dust has settled on the 2012 F1 World Championship, I still expect either a Red Bull, Mclaren or Ferrari to be holding the trophies, which is what you'd expect.

(Minor point to, the only thing that bugs me about this year's championship is that we might well look back on this year in the future as one of the best in history, we may not, who knows, but what will annoy me is the best racing is being produced with cars with the ugly stepped noses! Even if they're just a 1 year phase, UGH, they're going to be part of history forever!)

In the past drivers had to manage a multitude of elements due to the risk of unreliability. Engines, gearboxes, etc... Now everything is built to last so long under cost savings measures it's good that the drivers have to think about the reliability of an element of their car.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

It's why you can't compare eras. It's so hard. Back in the 1980s you had 16 races and almost guaranteed to retire from half of them. Now, it's possible to imagine a driver completing all 20 races. Physically challenging in a different way. I'm also convinced that the fact picture quality from the TV is so good makes driving seem easier than it used to be when everything was grainy. It may sound daft but I think that's the case.

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Dan Wheldon | 1978 - 2011

I'm not comparing eras, merely stating that it's good the drivers are being challenged with managing something more than just being able to drive fast.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

How was this not penalised?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqx67b ... -s-weekend

Horrible stewarding.

Yeaa, that was dangerous. He deserved more then a reprimand for that.

Schumacher obviously was pissed off. Since we haven't seen the blocking from Lewis before this particular incident it is difficult to say from our point of view why he was so furious. I think the reprimand was fair since it only happened in practice. Stewards obviously didn't want to make a bigger deal out of if.

I think it's irrelevant that it happened in practise. Should definitely get a penalty for that sort of thing, otherwise it's not enough of a deterrent for future acts of petulance.

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TBK Premier League Prediction Game Champion 2010/11

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The fact that it's practice also makes it less important that he was blocked as the session doesn't really count for anything (the actual lap time is less relevant than the feeling in the car - such as when Lewis was on a flyer at the end of FP3 that would have put him fastest, but hit traffic at the chicane and didn't get the lap time, but it didn't matter because he knew the time was in the car and it was practice so actually setting it didn't really matter) so if anything makes that kind of behaviour worse ... to react that way in a session where it doesn't really matter shows a lot of uncontrolled frustration.