It is no secret that I rate Nick Heidfeld very highly and would dearly love to see him win a GP. But this is not a fan site and I try not to let my preferences influence my view of the races. A large part of that has been restraining my urge to point out Nick's qualities at every opportunity and to go easy on my excuses for him when he has a bad race.
Nick and Kimi
But the Spanish GP produced so typical a gritty performance from the man that I can resist no longer. The last time I wrote a piece dealing with Nick exclusively was in September of last year and so I think I may be forgiven for returning to the subject once again.
The Barcelona race highlighted one of Nick's strengths that is often forgotten - his ability to defend a place against faster cars. It is not a flashy quality that establishes a driver's reputation but it becomes much more important this season as cars equipped with KERS prove to have an advantage in both attack and defense. Last Sunday, Nick gave a master class on how to keep a KERS car behind you, a lesson so relevant that other bloggers, too, have been moved to mention it.
Nick made a good start in Barcelona and was fortunate to be just ahead of the second corner accident that took out four cars. The result was that he found himself in ninth spot at the end of the first lap. Raikkonen, too, had gained several places in the beginning and he was soon on the BMW's tail, looking for a way past.
Much of the ensuing battle was shown in the television broadcast but there was only one view given of Nick's skill in holding back the Ferrari at the place where its advantage was greatest - the main straight. In that shot we saw Nick staying resolutely on the inside for the corner at the end of the straight, not attempting to block by changing direction in the slightest.
The message was clear: "You may try to pass if you wish but you will have to do so on the outside of the corner." In spite of his car advantage, Kimi was never in a position to take up the challenge and his race ended when the Ferrari gave up the ghost on lap 17, still trapped behind the BMW.
It seems obvious but I have seen other drivers give up the inside line in an attempt to block a faster car. Even the highly regarded Kimi, still touted in some quarters as the fastest of them all, has made this mistake in the past - the famous pass on him by Hamilton in Spa last year was a typical example.
In both qualifying and the race, Massa demonstrated that the Ferrari was the third quickest car in Spain; the BMW was about sixth, judging by Kubica's grid position. It may be difficult to pass in Barcelona but both Webber and Alonso showed that it was not impossible, even in cars much closer in performance than the Ferrari and BMW. The conclusion has to be that Nick is a hard man to overtake and one of the best at defense.
As I have mentioned, defending is not the most charismatic of the weapons available to the F1 driver. Indeed, it can have a negative effect on one's reputation, another exponent of the art, Jarno Trulli, being famous mainly for his invention of "the Trulli train". But there are times when it becomes supremely important, as in Gilles Villeneuve's celebrated victory in the Spanish GP of 1981 and Ayrton Senna's win at Monaco in 1993.
Of course, being able to defend is not sufficient to make a great driver. But I have written about Heidfeld's ability in other areas often enough in the past and I will not repeat myself this time. It is sufficient to point out that Villeneuve's and Senna's most famous defensive races came in seasons when they had cars that were far from the best; the BMW F1.09 is also nowhere near the class of the field this year and so Nick's defensive ability becomes doubly important to the team. And Barcelona 2009 was an excellent example of how good he really is.