greetings chaps... all 3 of you!! It looks like I'm so early, they hadn't even put up a place for picks on Valencia yet. Oh well... maybe I'll get enough people interested with my picks ... or has everyone simply gone to sleep? I miss Julian and Snowy and am I now the only one to cheer for Fernando, the Cute?Anyway, here they are:
So we see that, going into the European G.P. in Valencia, race # 9 of a 19 race season, Red Bull Racing’s terrific advantage owing to Adrian Newey’s beautiful design has been squandered by poor leadership and planning.
The RBR team SHOULD be thirty to forty points north of McLaren; and the points they have blown this year would be manna from heaven for Ross Brawn & the Merc team, to say nothing of Modena!
I just hope that Mr. Red Bull (I can't remember how to spell Mat...) can find himself a team leader as good as his designer for next year –if there is to be a next year for the Red Bulls.
Anyway, it looks like McLaren, owing to their superior management and their terrific development work on their machine, to say nothing of the way their drivers have been meshed --And is this because Ron Dennis is no longer team leader? Remember the botch job he made of Juan Pablo Montoya’s and Fernando Alonso’s tenures-- has become the team to beat in F1. They have learned –and moved on. With the collapse of Ferrari in recent years, and with Ross and the Merc team looking to 2011 already, it looks like the Silver & Black machines from Woking will wrap up this season handily –and, unless the Teutons can come up with a giant slayer, McLaren will in coming seasons steadily eat into Ferrari’s legendary hold on F1’s record book.
That said, here’s my –sadder, but wiser—Valencia picks.
Pole: Lewis Hamilton
1. Lewis Hamilton ... as I said last race, he has assumed Michael Schumacher’s mantle, method, and most importantly, luck --and he looks well on his way to beat those seven WDC’s.
2. Jenson Button ... a champion and a great guy, but defending champion in name only
3. Mark Webber ... another driver’s driver, but this year, his best chance ever, is slipping away
4. Fernando Alonso ... the best driver on the grid. period. If Modena can build him a car, and that looks now like a very big if, he may spoil Lewis Hamilton’s dream.
5. Sebastian Vettel ... he’s young enough to recover, but it looks like he’ll forever play Mika Hakkinen to Lewis Hamilton’s Michael Schumacher
6. Nico Rosberg ... like the Webbo, he’s a driver, but he has all the luck of Kimi Raikkonen...
7. Robert Kubica ... see above
8. Michael Schumacher ... a legend, but lacking the legend’s machinery
9. Felipe Massa ... to be remembered, perhaps, along with Rubens B.
10. Vitantonio Liuzzi ... too soon to really tell, isn’t it?
I hope the race will be as good as Canada and I really hope Fernando wins
; I’d love to see him join Webber, Button and Hamilton as double winners by the half-way point...but I’m not foolish enough to bet on it. So, cheers!
Jim Watt
