Cars in Sydney

 At the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso was faster than Red Bull’s Sebastian Vettel in both Q1 and Q2 qualifying, and again after the first runs in Q3, but on his last run Vettel managed to get though in 1m 13.791s. while Alonso was just two thousandths of a second slower, on 1m 13.793s.

Unfortunately for Red Bull’s Mark Webber, he made a mistake in the first sector of his final run, he was just beaten by Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari, who will start third after a lap of 1m 14.290s. Webber is fourth on 1m 14.347s.

The McLarens shared row three, with Jenson Button getting the better of Lewis Hamilton on their final runs. Jenson Button improved to 1m 14.427s, while Hamilton got through on 1m 14.566s.

It was always likely that Alonso, Massa and Vettel would scrap it out at the first corner (Massa could get a better start due to the clean side). But there was doubt the Ferrari drivers would have wanted to do anything too aggressive since this was an important race for them to notch some points up for their team. Vettel would be hyped up due to the home race thing and we have seen he can lose his cool in these simulations like in the last race. Webber would want a good start but will also be aware he’s in front of his current two main rivals while at the same time would not want to lose points to his team mate.

It was a shame that Schumacher, who has won here 4 times could not make it into the top 10 as his fans would have been a lot happier. But with two German drivers in the top 10 and with Vettel on pole it would still be an exciting day for German F1 fans.

An it was a very exciting day in the end. With the Ferrari and Vettel fighting it out at the first corner, as did Webber and Hamilton with the latter coming off better. Button stayed out the longest for his first pit stop and that ended up being enough to get in front of Webber.

It was very controversial for Massa to have being told quite blatantly to let Alonso pass. Racing is not about this, it’s about being the fasted car and driver and not the smartest team tactics.

Vettel managed to get the final place on the podium and now shares 3rd place in the drivers championship with Webber, 21 points less than Hamilton.

There is still many more races for 2010 and now we have 3 teams who look equal at this stage so there is plenty of excitement in F1 for the remainder of the year to come.