With the stewards having decided that Hamilton's driving behind the pace car in Fuji deserved no penalty, sanity returns to F1 and we can get back to racing. The practice sessions produced no surprises, the usual four playing musical chairs with the best times, BMW slow, as they like to be on the first day, and Toyota and Red Bull flattering to deceive. But Ferrari do not have the expected advantage, in spite of Raikkonen being top of the time sheet. Times were extremely close, a mere two tenths of a second separating the fastest and fourth best times. The intense struggle between the two warring teams will continue on Sunday, it seems.
Kimi Raikkonen
More interesting than the speed of the Red Bull duo (Webber sixth, Coulthard 8th) is the comparison with their sister team, Toro Rosso. Mid season STR were extracting a very similar performance from Adrian Newey's chassis as were Red Bull; but lately they have slipped badly while RBR have improved. Forget Vettel's speed in the wet in Japan - his 21st fastest time in practice in China is a much more accurate reflection of STR's competitiveness in the dry. While RBR battle to lead the midfield, STR try hard not to be beaten by the Spyker 'B' spec car in Sutil's hands.
Shall we blame the drivers? No, that would be unfair; it is far more likely that the STR engineers are not getting to grips with the car as effectively as RBR are doing. And that was always expected from before the beginning of the year; in fact, the surprising thing is that they managed to keep pace with the RBR in the first half of the season. Perhaps they are missing a driver who could give relevant feedback...
Renault, Honda and BMW have grouped their times rather nicely but Williams still have the problem of a very quick driver making the other look slow. There was only a second between Rosberg's and Wurz's times but that translates into the difference between ninth and sixteenth spots. Nico has been urging Sir Frank to keep Wurz as the second driver so it may well be that he understands the real value of the Austrian to the team and doesn't want to lose his set up abilities.
I believe that was always Frank's intention in elevating Wurz to race driver and that it was not expected that he provide an extra return in race results. The pressure on Wurz has come entirely from the media as they saw that he could race well but was handicapping himself by poor qualifying positions. In fact, Alex has done an excellent job in helping to develop the car and the few points he has scored have come as a bonus.
Would Williams benefit from having a second driver as quick as Nico? McLaren's experience this year has cast doubts upon the wisdom of having two number one drivers and even Ferrari's similar policy has resulted in their drivers taking points away from each other.
It all depends on which championship you want to win. And Frank has always cared more about the contructor's than the driver's, so the likelihood is that he and Wurz have agreed on a development role for him while Frank finds a paying driver to fill the second seat and back up Rosberg.
But I digress. Returning to Shanghai, it seems that a typhoon may be headed in the direction of the circuit and we might have another extremely wet race as a result. We have all been begging for rain to interfere with the processional races of this season and now it looks as though our prayers are being answered all at once. If the rain comes, along will come the controversies too, no doubt. It's an exciting business, this Formula One!
Kimi Raikkonen
More interesting than the speed of the Red Bull duo (Webber sixth, Coulthard 8th) is the comparison with their sister team, Toro Rosso. Mid season STR were extracting a very similar performance from Adrian Newey's chassis as were Red Bull; but lately they have slipped badly while RBR have improved. Forget Vettel's speed in the wet in Japan - his 21st fastest time in practice in China is a much more accurate reflection of STR's competitiveness in the dry. While RBR battle to lead the midfield, STR try hard not to be beaten by the Spyker 'B' spec car in Sutil's hands.
Shall we blame the drivers? No, that would be unfair; it is far more likely that the STR engineers are not getting to grips with the car as effectively as RBR are doing. And that was always expected from before the beginning of the year; in fact, the surprising thing is that they managed to keep pace with the RBR in the first half of the season. Perhaps they are missing a driver who could give relevant feedback...
Renault, Honda and BMW have grouped their times rather nicely but Williams still have the problem of a very quick driver making the other look slow. There was only a second between Rosberg's and Wurz's times but that translates into the difference between ninth and sixteenth spots. Nico has been urging Sir Frank to keep Wurz as the second driver so it may well be that he understands the real value of the Austrian to the team and doesn't want to lose his set up abilities.
I believe that was always Frank's intention in elevating Wurz to race driver and that it was not expected that he provide an extra return in race results. The pressure on Wurz has come entirely from the media as they saw that he could race well but was handicapping himself by poor qualifying positions. In fact, Alex has done an excellent job in helping to develop the car and the few points he has scored have come as a bonus.
Would Williams benefit from having a second driver as quick as Nico? McLaren's experience this year has cast doubts upon the wisdom of having two number one drivers and even Ferrari's similar policy has resulted in their drivers taking points away from each other.
It all depends on which championship you want to win. And Frank has always cared more about the contructor's than the driver's, so the likelihood is that he and Wurz have agreed on a development role for him while Frank finds a paying driver to fill the second seat and back up Rosberg.
But I digress. Returning to Shanghai, it seems that a typhoon may be headed in the direction of the circuit and we might have another extremely wet race as a result. We have all been begging for rain to interfere with the processional races of this season and now it looks as though our prayers are being answered all at once. If the rain comes, along will come the controversies too, no doubt. It's an exciting business, this Formula One!