That Schumacher fans are disappointed is because Mercedes GP got the weight distribution of their car wrong. The five contenders, meanwhile, have burnt rubber, sizzling circuits across the world and notching up 16 wins amongst themselves. Webber (220 points) and Alonso (206) have won four times each, Vettel (206) and Hamilton (192) thrice each, and Button (189) has won twice. They are separated by 31 points.

Many would point to the change in the points system itself, implemented from this season onwards, as a major reason for that. 25 points are awarded for a win now, 20 for 2nd place and 15 for 3rd. That notion is far away from the truth. If we revert to the old points system, wherein 10 points for a win and eight and six for 2nd and 3rd, this is the points’ situation we get after 16 races — Webber (88), Vettel (84), Alonso (83), Hamilton (79) and Button (77), separated by a mere 11 points.

In reality then it is reflective of the highly competitive season F1 is experiencing at present. In motorsport terms, it is better known as a vintage year, when you don’t find any one team so dominant that the championship is decided by early September. It happened in 2009 with Brawn GP and earlier in 2003 with Ferrari. This year Red Bull may have been the quickest car on track but errors on their part meant the chasing pack were able to pounce and keep tabs. The last time there were five title contenders with three races to go, was in 1981. Nelson Piquet, driving a Brabham-Ford, came out on top ahead of Carlos Reutemann (Williams), Alan Jones (Williams), Jacques Laffite (Ligier-Matra) and Alain Prost (Renault), a mere seven points separating them in the final standings.

Now, with the unknown element that is the inaugural Korean GP, the tough demands of the Brazilian GP and the spectacle of the Abu Dhabi GP, it is anybody’s guess what might happen in the next five weeks. A single mistake, a blown engine, an untimely pit-stop, rain or any untoward incident (and they do happen often) will be enough to pull out contenders from the mix. In Formula One, it is often said, ‘to finish first, first you have to finish (the race)’. The drivers might just be mulling on that for a bit, as even one point has separated champions from also-rans in the past.

Championships won by a single point:

1958 – Mike Hawthorn (Ferrari) over Stirling Moss (Vanwall)

1961 – Phil Hill (Ferrari) over Wolfgang von Trips (Ferrari)

1964 – John Surtees (Ferrari) over Graham Hill (BRM)

1976 – James Hunt (McLaren) over Niki Lauda (Ferrari)

1981 – Nelson Piquet (Brabham) over Carlos Reutemann (Williams)

1994 – Michael Schumacher (Benetton) over Damon Hill (Williams)

2007 – Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari) over Lewis Hamilton (McLaren)

2008 – Lewis Hamilton (McLaren) over Felipe Massa (Ferrari)

This article was first published in Business Standard Weekend dated 16th October 2010.

One wonders though if it will indeed be that simple. The way Red Bull Racing have gone about putting a lid on things, it suggests that they seem to be favoring Vettel. Certainly their young drivers’ program chief Helmut Marko seems to tow that line and has indeed exerted some pressure on team principal Christian Horner to talk in that manner. A very interesting piece by noted F1 commentator James Allen seemed to point towards the possibility of Horner being under pressure to support one driver over the other and we all seem to know who that is.

Webber’s immediate task is a bit easier compared to the long term problem. Right now, he can sit down with Vettel, share a can or two of icy Red Bull drinks between them and say, ‘ok maybe you should have given me more room and maybe I should have given you more room. Let us just promise to do that from here onwards.’ And for Canada, it might even work for the Red Bulls are not expected to run riot over there. There it will be down to which driver can make the most of the Montreal circuit with its long straights and restrict the damage to their chances.

However from the British GP onwards, the problem might just resurge. At Silverstone, with its flowing high speed corners, the Red Bulls are again expected to fly and, Webber and Vettel will look to start winning again. What happens then? What if Vettel wants to make a statement and Webber doesn’t want to relinquish whatever lead he may have over his teammate and possibly other drivers? Can Webber then trust his team which he suspects of siding with his competitor? Can Red Bull cope with a split garage? It is a situation not unknown in Formula One especially when the car is a championship contender and both drivers capable of winning.

The last time that happened was in 2007 when the Fernando Alonso-Lewis Hamilton partnership blew up in the face of McLaren. Ron Dennis’ radio intercept to Lewis in the Chinese GP that ‘they were racing Fernando and not Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari’ should be the stuff of legends and included in a tutorial for team principals how not to favor one driver over another. The Woking team was left clutching at straws as Raikkonen stole the championship from their hands at the last race in Brazil. Of course, isn’t it ironical that McLaren are waiting to pounce if the Red Bulls do go to the gutter this season?

However that is easier said than done. This particular race’s incidents has fueled speculation that the Red Bull garage isn’t as neutral a place as it was earlier made out to be. The official line of the team remains that both drivers were at fault in the on-track clash, but team principal Christian Horner and young drivers’ program chief Helmut Marko have inclined a bit towards blaming Mark Webber for the incident. The two have not spoken in forthright terms in this regard but have indicated that they expected Webber to move over because Vettel had his nose ahead when approaching Turn 12. It was even evident in TV replays that Horner, on the pit wall, was pining for one of the drivers to give more space to the other and it is anybody’s guess who that might be.

The question that arises now though is this: Vettel didn’t have a clear advantage over Webber going into turn, so what is their basis of forming such a judgment?

The answer to this lies in the fuel the two cars were carrying at that stage. Horner stated, after the two drivers’ debrief, that Vettel had one lap more worth of fuel than Webber and could still run his car at his prevalent race pace, while the Aussie was in conserve mode as he had used more in the initial stages of the race. Vettel achieved this while trailing Lewis Hamilton earlier in the race while Webber had to drive the wheels off his car to keep ahead of the McLaren.

In effect, this also explains why Vettel seemed to be gaining on Webber in the build up to the incident. Also, Marko says that both drivers were made aware of the situation and Vettel had to make a move when he did, for he would have lost performance in terms of fuel from Lap 41 onwards. In other words, Webber was told that he had lesser revs available than his team mate ahead of the clash and still decided not to yield easily to him.

Does that mean Mark Webber couldn’t understand the disguised ‘team order’ to let Vettel pass? Or after the mistake he made to let his younger mate through earlier in Malaysia, he wasn’t going to let him go through easily any which ways? The true story of the fuel levels and revs available to the two drivers is known only to the team and no one else. But the underlying point is this: with a car that is capable of winning the championship, Webber has put Vettel under pressure with his recent performances and this was an important race for the German to get back. Clearly the camaraderie within the team will be affected by this incident and from here on, it will be interesting to watch if Red Bull will be able to keep things calm and surge ahead like they did in the first part of the season, or will everything fall apart for a team that is not used to these high pressure situations. Furthermore if the situation doesn’t deflate between Vettel and Webber, or explodes again later on in the season, will the Aussie still be in his present team, come 2011?

The fuel level story affected another team in the race but got overshadowed by the Red Bull fiasco, and also because they benefited with their opponents’ slip-up and kept their heads to get a 1-2 result. After the Red Bulls went out of contention for the win, the McLaren pit wall relayed a disguised ‘team order’ of their own for Lewis Hamilton to save fuel and told him that Jenson Button behind would be doing the same. However, Button soon tried a move on his younger team mate which was repelled, but highlighted a second time in the race when team directions had been ignored. That the two McLarens made out of the scrap without hassles is reflective of the respect and space their two drivers still give each other. Perhaps that will also change in the near future if the Woking team will carry its momentum forward, and indeed challenge the Red Bulls for the championships from here on.

Schuamcher was handed out a drive-through penalty for his move on the last lap of the race as he overtook the Ferrari just as the safety car pulled in. Since the penalty was given after the race was over, twenty seconds are added to the driver’s time and that means Schuamcher has found himself demoted to 12th from 6th, without any championship points.

The rules until last year didn’t allow overtaking under safety car, until the cars cross the finishing line, but they have been amended for this season. They state now that once the safety car is in, overtaking is allowed between the finishing line and the safety car line as well. Under that ruling Schumacher’s move is actually legal. Then why the penalty is the question.

That is because of an amendment to the new rule stating that in case of the safety car coming in on the last lap, the cars will not be allowed overtaking as per the above mentioned new rule. The cars are meant to take the chequered flag as they were and this has been done to allow the race not to finish under safety car pretext. However this leaves the door of ambiguity open as has been highlighted by the Schumacher incident. To his credit, Alonso went off the racing line at the last corner and the German didn’t really have any place to go except stick the car ahead. What happens when there is an accident, won’t cars overtake then?

As always the FIA has made news because of rules that don’t really make much sense. In the end this comes out to be the first major blunder by the race stewarts this year. And the fact that former champion and Schumacher’s ex-rival Damon Hill was the ex-racer on the panel for Monaco, things have heated up to this extent. Even if the appeal is considered, there is no way the penalty will be taken away but probably the rules will be immediately amended for future incidents. Something that should have been done beforehand and has deprived Schumacher and his fans a chance to cherish a fine performance for a second consecutive race weekend.

The race wasn’t easy by any chance for there were as many as four safety car periods which meant re-starts again and again. But Webber maintained his pace throughout the race never looking uncomfortable. The moment that it all mattered most was at the start of the race itself where he had to mind Vettel and Kubica both. But he was quickly off, ahead of Vettel which put the slow starting Kubica into third. From then on, safety car or no safety car, the Aussie wasn’t bothered as he disappeared into the distance again and again.

For others though, safety cars mattered a lot more. Most importantly for Fernando Alonso who started his Ferrari in the pits. He started on soft tyres and got them out of the way at the first safety car when Nico Hulkenberg crashed his Williams on Lap 2. Alonso got his supersofts out of the way and got on the medium tyres, running them until the end to finish in the points. It was a heroic race from his to rescue his championship bid as he finished seventh. He could have been sixth but for a cheeky move by Michael Schumacher on the final corner of the race. The Saftey Car had again just gone in and it left about 100 meters of track to joust for between the safety car line and the finish line. Alonso went slightly off the racing line and Schumacher pulled alongside him and then overtook after he crossed the safety car line. Or atleast that is how it seemed on TV replays as the matter is still under scrutiny (at the time of writing) by race stewarts.

Their team mates though had a paler race in comparison. Felipe Massa again drove a lonely race out of sight for most parts. He made a bid on Kubica on the first corner at the start but the Pole closed the door on him. He then spent the rest of the race fighting for and finishing fourth. Seen individually it is a good result especially after a bad Spanish GP but compared to his team mate, Alonso still wins hands down. Meanwhile Nico Rosberg looked good for fourth on pit strategy. While his competitors pitted and came out behind Kamui Kobayashi’s Sauber, he built a gap to them and could have gotten out ahead had he pitted before the Japanese driver. But he left it one lap too late and lost out as Kobayashi’s Sauber stopped just before the German pitted. He finished eighth.

It was a bad day in office also for McLaren. One of their mechanics left a bung on Jenson Button’s radiator and his car overheated behind the first safety car. It meant no points for the other double race winner this season while team mate Lewis Hamilton finished fifth. At one point his race engineer asked him to look after his brakes, to which he gave an irritated response. Not sure if that went down well with the team.

Behind these drivers, the two Force Indias finished in the top ten. This is the first occasion this season that both Adrian Sutil and Tonio Liuzzi have finished in points. They made good on Williams’ loss for whom Rubens Barrichello had made a good start jumping to 6th from 9th on the grid. But he spun out causing the second safety car on Lap 32. The cause for it could very well be the loose drain cover which caused a third safety car but was later deemed safe enough.

But the battle for 14th between Karun Chandhok and Jarno Trulli ended in tears when with three laps to go, Trulli went for an audacious pass on Chandhok’s HRT and the Lotus ended up resting on the Indian driver’s car, almost taking his head off. The good thing was that both of them walked away safe but the bad part was Chandhok not finishing the race. He had done well to keep going and keeping ahead of Trulli for nearly twenty laps, and mind you, it was a high attrition race with only twelve cars running at the Chequered Flag.

In the drivers’ championship now, it is Webber and Vettel equal on points with Alonso (73) and Button (70) behind them. Webber is now a clear championship contender with only Vettel seeming to be anywhere close to his pace. The next race is the fast and free-flowing Turkish GP where Red Bull is expected to fly again and it will be a circuit where Vettel will be looking to mount a fight back before it is too late.

Red Bull were not expected to be dominant here this weekend but Webber was ahead by three-tenths off Kubica and a further four-tenths ahead of Vettel. Kubica has been quick all weekend and the team has made progress from Barcelona last week when they were not amongst the fastest six cars. Monaco’s unique circuit is of course suiting the Pole who almost made it to, well, the pole position. Vettel meanwhile ran into heavy traffic in Q3 and made it to the second row only on his last hot lap, edging Ferrari’s Felipe Massa into fourth.

The Scuderia will be having mixed feelings tonight. On the one hand they will be happy to see Massa back in form, thanks no less to supersoft tyres in use here. But on the other hand the mechanics will be busy building a new car for Fernando Alonso after he suffered a heavy shunt in third free practice, a couple of hours before qualifying. He will be starting in the pitlane, and hoping for some luck and praying for some rain.

Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button finished fifth and eighth respectively for the McLaren, sandwiching the two Mercedes GP drivers Nico Rosberg and Michael Schumacher between them. All four of them seemed unhappy with the result: Lewis because that was maximum he could draw from the car and it shows how much McLaren have concentrated on the F-duct system rather than getting more downforce; Button because he thought Massa impeded him in Q3; Schumacher was unhappy that his team mate impeded him while Rosberg was disappointed about his final runs in which he ran into traffic. Till then he thought he could challenge for pole and he was indeed quite quick in the first two sessions.

Rubens Barrichello and Vitantonio Liuzzi completed the top ten. The battle for ‘best of the rest’ is now between Williams and Force India as Renault seems to be mixing with the four big teams. Force India will be disappointed that Adrian Sutil couldn’t get into the top ten for he has traditionally done well at Monaco, both in F1 and Formula 3000. However he will be pushing for points in the race as he has the option to start on the hard tyres.

In Q1 the traffic wasn’t really as bad as talked about in the past week. The top teams were all out on track quickly and got in banker laps which meant the new teams were again trying to get in. Heikki Kovalainen in his Lotus was the only one who could have challenged to break into Q2 but he couldn’t. India’s Karun Chandhok couldn’t go quicker than his team mate Bruno Senna in this qualifying event and will start in 23rd position. It has already been established that HRT cars are going slower than GP2 cars at this circuit and so a tough race lies ahead of the duo. As concerns the rest of them, it will be a long race wherein overtaking is usually tough if it stays dry. The start will be important and Webber will not only have to watch out for Kubica but also the fast starting Vettel and Massa. With Alonso expected to try and charge from behind, an intriguing race is anticipated.

Sebastien Vettel (Red Bull) was second in the morning session with Robert Kubica a quick third behind in his Renault (full times). Later in the afternoon, there was a bit of rain but not too heavy. The drivers though did venture out as there is forecast of unpredictable weather over the weekend and therefore tried driving on the slippery circuit. Nico Rosberg was second in the afternoon for Mercedes while Vettel took third (full times).

Of course the first concern for the cars would be how fast the Red Bulls are this weekend. They will be quick indeed with their high down force but the word from Spain is that they are quicker over the fast, free flowing corners. This means that the gap at twisty Monaco might not be that large. McLaren are hoping to be even more competitive this weekend. Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button finished 7th and 8th in the morning session, while they were placed 7th and 9th in the afternoon when they couldn’t do much due to a greasy track.

But there would be firm gaze on Ferrari and Mercedes as well. Ferrari seemed third best on pace at Barcelona with Felipe Massa’s form a real worry for the team. Post race he blamed it on the tyre compounds. This weekend Bridgestone are bringing the medium and supersoft compound, the same as in Bahrain where the Scuderia seemed strong. It showed in the free practice for Massa as he finished fifth and fourth in the two sessions. It seems though Alonso can still trump him up.

Mercedes will be hoping that they make a step up here rather than down. Michael Schumacher had a good result in the last race but Nico had a torrid time. He led every one believe that it was a set up problem and not because of the longer chassis the team brought. We won’t know about that till Turkey when that chassis is raced again for the team will be racing the older, shorter chassis this weekend.

About Indian interests, well, Force India are expected to bring in more updates, and with rain predicted, it should suit Adrian Sutil a bit. But what they need are points from the other driver Tonio Liuzzi and it remains to be seen how thin patience will run with him. As far as Karun Chandhok is concerned, HRT and the rest of the back markers are expected to have a torrid race due to lack of space and their slow pace. But they will make the first session of qualifying very interesting and couple with rain, we could be in for a cracker of a race.

Despite Red Bull not running away with a huge gap at the start, it wasn’t really as close a race as F1 enthusiasts across the world would have wanted. Webber did win by more than 24 seconds from Alonso and nearly 53 seconds from Vettel, while fourth placed Michael Schumacher came home a full minute behind. But all of this wouldn’t have been possible had Webber not closed the door on his team mate and Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren at the first corner. Right at the start, he kept awake unlike in Malaysia to deny the fast starting Vettel any advantage. From there on, it was just about keeping out of trouble and that he did.

Vettel though didn’t have an easy race. He clashed with Lewis after the first round of pit stops and the British driver was able to gain a place over him. But he couldn’t secure the second place on the podium after crashing out on the penultimate lap with a seeming left front puncture. However McLaren stated that he had struck debris and this debate will rage on till Monaco next week for Lewis is known to be hard on his tyres. Meanwhile Vettel came in third due to this incident, after he had earlier dropped down to fourth behind Alonso because he had to make another pit stop.

Red Bull made that call simply because Schumacher was holding up traffic in fifth place for much of the race. They wanted to take a look at his brakes which he used up quite quickly towards the end and despite his engineer asking him to slow down, didn’t really let up in his pace. Meanwhile for the first time in four races, Schumacher finished a complete weekend ahead of his team mate Nico Rosberg who could only finish 13th. Clearly the changes have worked for the seven time champion, in particular, the weight redistribution but a podium or a win is still out of the question as Mercedes GP seem to be more than a second off pace at the moment.

Schumacher though did a fantastic job of keeping a long line of drivers behind him for a majority of the race. After Jenson Button pitted on Lap 16 and came out behind the German, he tried again and again to get past. But it was a mix of brilliant defensive racing from the former world champion that kept the current champion at bay, and of course the loss of downforce when approaching the car in front. Schumacher was so off the pace of Alonso ahead of him that Felipe Massa, Adrian Sutil and Robert Kubica all caught up, forming a train for much of the race. Rubens Barrichello drove a good race to rescue the final point after a disastrous qualifying.

Talking Indian interests, Force India again had the one drive in the points and now, are consistently scoring championship points. But again the worrisome part is Tonio Liuzzi’s form. That is okay till the rest of the competing teams around them, Renault and Williams do not have both their drivers in points. In some ways, Force India’s updates didn’t really work for them and they will be looking to draw out more for them. Meanwhile Karun Chandhok retired from the race after 27 laps due to a suspension failure as Jaime Alguersuari smashed into him. Till then, he gave a good account of his race pace.

This means Button (70) still leads Alonso (67) in the driver’s championship standings with Vettel (60) in third. The big loser is Nico Rosberg who didn’t score any points. In the constructor’s battle, Red Bull (113) have closed the gap on McLaren (119) and Ferrari (116). But what would be worrying the teams more than points is the high amount of downforce Red Bull have found in their upgrades which is the secret to their awesome pace. Monaco GP next week, with its max downforce requirements, seems to be Red Bull’s playground at the moment.

While the two Red Bull drivers were only separated by a tenth of a second, Webber’s gap over third placed Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren is 0.9 seconds (full results). That is a massive advantage in Formula One and even more shocking because all teams have brought aerodynamic updates to the race in order to close down the gap on the run away Red Bulls. Now they have to start work once again to reduce this gap, whatever the result of the race.

In the previous decade, all pole sitters have won the Spanish GP. That Webber won’t win on Sunday is subject to how he handles his team mate Vettel, who made it clear during the post-qualifying press conference (televised) that he will be going for broke. Webber will do well to remember that he was in a similar position in Malaysia where Vettel had a fast start and overtook Webber at the first corner itself, and that was the race done!

The presence of Hamilton at third and Fernando Alonso’s Ferrari at fourth could also complicate matters. Alonso has gone to an extent of conceding defeat ahead of the race, saying that it is near impossible to catch the Red Bulls. But anything is still possible as it is a long race, and there is a championship to fight for as well. Alonso might have given up on winning his home grand prix but will want to salvage as many points as possible, both for the championship and to stay ahead of his team mate Felipe Massa (9th). It was a relative quiet day for Massa and it doesn’t really bode well for the Brazilian going ahead.

Michael Schumacher meanwhile finally trumped his team mate, atleast in qualifying. The seven time champion will start sixth behind Jenson Button’s McLaren while Nico Rosberg will line up eighth behind Robert Kubica’s Renault. The top ten were completed by Kamui Kobayashi who pulled out a stunning last ditch lap in Q2 to edge out Adrian Sutil’s Force India.

In that sense, Force India don’t really seem to be comfortable with the updates they have brought here. On the other hand Sauber look to have made a step forward so possibly the battle to be ‘best of the rest’ will now begin to intensify. Force India will need both their drivers to push for points on Sunday and they might have an advantage having the option to start on hard tyres. Williams meanwhile will drop out of this battle after Rubens Barrichello couldn’t make it out of Q1 despite his car having the aero updates for the race. Nico Hulkenberg out qualified him for the first time this season but that is hardly any consolation for their car doesn’t seem to working.

Karun Chandhok qualified 23rd, just ahead of his team mate Bruno Senna. Their third driver, the more experienced Christian Klien has deemed the HRT car as not upto F1 standards so that is something to ponder over in the next few days. But that will only begin after Sunday’s race which one expects the Red Bulls to dominate. Will this race be where Webber fights back or will Vettel stamp his authority on the 2010 season?

Since this is the first race of the European season, all the teams will bring in a lot of aerodynamic changes for their challengers. This might mean that we will see progress from some of the teams on the pace front, especially by the newcomers. But at the top of the order, things are expected to remain the same more or less, except that one or two teams might just take a step forward.

One of them is expected to be McLaren who have spent this past week talking about how they want to take the next step towards the front row on Saturdays. The highest they have qualified is fourth and at Spain, for the last decade, the pole sitter has won the race. As we get dry races in the future, track position will matter a lot and so this is one step the team would want to take. Also, barring Red Bull, all the front line teams will have their F-duct in place at Barcelona so it remains to be seen if they can indeed make an improvement since their early advantage will be nullified.
The other team is Mercedes who have brought a heavily modified car to this weekend. It includes an angled front suspension that helps the weight distribution of the car and they have newly designed inlets for air intake, which is a very radical design. This also helps with the air effects on the rear wing. Michael Schumacher seemed more comfortable with the car as he finished third in both the sessions, and ahead of his team mate Nico Rosberg. But the real test will come on Saturday and Sunday.

Ferrari were busy with high fueled runs throughout the day as has been their usual practice so far. But they readily tested their F-duct and made comparisons with and without the system on board. Comments from Felipe Massa suggest that they will be finally running the system in the races. But more than that it is the duel between Fernando Alonso and Massa that will be worth keeping an eye out for!

Vettel was easily the quickest on Friday, breaking the 1:19 barrier but he is wary of the McLaren’s pace. He also believes that his car is responding well to the changes made but it matters more during the race. He looks good for pole on Saturday and will want to change what we have seen in the first four races: the pole sitter hasn’t one in any.

Talking Indian interests, Force India have also brought many aero upgrades and will be keen to close the gap on Renault. Paul di Resta continued his Friday practice progress and unless Tonio Liuzzi starts bringing in the points with Adrian Sutil, he will find it hard to hold onto his seat. Karun Chandhok sat out the morning session as HRT gave third driver Christian Klien a drive. When I spoke with Karun a couple of weeks ago, he said they will be bringing updates to Spain and Hispania can expect a step-up as well. Bruno Senna meanwhile hasn’t been happy with Klien coming in and it shows as he was the slowest of the three drivers and Chandhok the quickest.