Unfortunately my day job is taking up far too much of my precious time at the moment!
Anyway, I thought now that we are already four races into the season I would share my thoughts on how things are going so far and take a look at how my 2010 predictions are panning out.
We've had boring Bahrain, amazing Australia, marvellous Malaysia and a captivating China so far. The common magic ingredient in the last three races has been rain.
Unfortunately I think we may revert back to boring again at Barcelona as it is unlikely to rain there..... as, wait for it, the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain! (groan).
My 2010 predictions are holding up quite well.
The BBC's Jake Humphrey is still as irritating now as he was in 2009 although he does seem to have toned down the EJ, DC nonsense a bit thank God. Perhaps someone smacked him around the head a few times with a baseball bat until he saw the error of his ways?
There have already been the obligatory complaints about alleged technical infringements including McLaren's rear wing and Red Bull's supposed ride height control but nothing on the scale of last year's double diffusers saga last year.
Relations between Massa and Alonso are already said to be strained although this is of course flatly denied by Ferrari. They were not helped when Alonso craftily overtook Massa on the entry to the pit lane in China. I don't remember even Schumacher having the nerve to pull a stroke like that on a driver from another team let alone a team mate. This one will run and run over the season.
My prediction that Schumacher would win a race this year is looking shaky so far although there are still plenty of races left to run. The Mercedes car is OK as evidenced by Rosberg's results, so the problem clearly lies with Schumacher himself. I still have a hunch that he will pull off a win maybe at Monaco where outright pace is only part of the story or maybe in Korea, a new track where everyone is on a level playing field.
Button is doing better than I thought he would at McLaren and is currently well matched with Hamilton. Last season Button started well but faded in the second half of the season. I still think he will lose his title but it will be a close run thing.
It is still a bit early to say who will be the best rookie driver of the year. Alguersuari seems to have got his act together in the last couple of races after a lacklustre 2009. Hulkenburg has not been overly impressive to date but will get better as the season progresses.
Lastly, my prediction that Lotus will be top of the new teams seems to be on track.
By they way, if you are a Twitter user, you can follow Mike Gascoyne, he posts regular updates from the pit wall during GP weekends which give an interesting insider's view of the on track action. (You can of course also follow me on Twitter too by clicking the icon in the side bar)
If you have enjoyed reading this post, please feel free to leave a comment - they are always welcome.
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1 comment:
yep - a lot of surprises this year especially Button.
I think Schumacher will certainly come into his own later in the season, people expect too much. That Wiley German will improve steadily as time goes on.
I dread some of the more boring European tracks killing off the buzz that the last three have given us, but there is still plenty of action to come I think.
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