• Time to clean out the shed. Been grappling with either Coppermine 1.4 or 1.5 RC. I think 1.4 is going to win on the plugin support. #
• So bloody tired it’s not funny. Even less funny is that I’m having to babysit a couple of web servers which are being a PITA. #

• Excellent race, and I largely got my predictions right. However, listening to the F1 Forum now and the Red Bull situation is very murky. #
• Just come off a long Warcraft raid against LK Heroic. Looks like a pretty brutal affair, and going to occupy a fair chunk of time. #
• The whole Red Bull situation looks bad – Vettel is obviously the favoured son, and Webber is being hung out to dry. #

Stunning race. Four cars nose-to-tail for the majority of the race? That’s not Formula One.

Well, it was yesterday. And then all the political intrigue you could want when two of them took each other out of the lead, in a rash move which was borderline predictable. I said in the preview that both Hamilton and Vettel had been rattled by their team mates, and were more likely to do something aggressive when the time came. Well, both did – but Vettel and Webber took each other out, and Hamilton and Button banged wheels after five corners of splendid duelling. The latter however got away with it, whilst the former have caused something of a headache for Red Bull.

First, kudos to Jenson Button. I had feared he would be nobbled off the line, but in this case he was blocked more by Hamilton’s poor start and this allowed Schumacher to jump him. The aggressive angle Button set his car up on the grid more than gave away his intentions, and he didn’t pull any punches to the first corner – neither however did he bang wheels with Schumacher on the outside. Instead, memories of 2009 were soon to the fore as he was all over the back of the Mercedes and executed an irresistable move at the end of the lap. Job done.

McLaren weren’t the sharpest at pit stop time. Hamilton should have jumped Webber but didn’t, and you do get the feeling that McLaren are missing a trick when it comes to these stages of the race. Button closed up a good two seconds or so through the pit stops, and Hamilton should have been able to pull out those two seconds on Webber, but McLaren served notice with a big neon sign of his pit stop and Red Bull covered it with plenty of time to spare. As it all worked out, it was two Red Bull’s and two McLaren’s post stops and that looked to be the running order.

Then lap 40, and Vettel was suddenly leagues faster than Webber up the hill to turn 12. And then they were both off, Vettel terminally and Webber fortunate just to lose a large part of his front wing. Vettel’s move was one of a desparate man, a get-out-of-the-way-or-we-crash banzai move. Unfortunately, Webber was never going to do that after a similar incident earlier in the year. In my preview, I said Button needed to lay down a marker. Webber did the same – the most minimal room imaginable and very little quarter.

Vettel could have made the move work – there was space down the inside, but instead he tried to bully more track from his team mate and ran into the side of him. This is beyond argument. Webber went straight and true. Vettel moved right and locked wheels. Game over – and like Australia 2009, you could feel it was coming. Webber is very like Kubica, and whilst I’d put good money on Webber not making the situation worse, he certainly wasn’t going to make it go away by yielding the place and giving a fixed smile after the race.

This just left the McLaren’s to run to the finish – except they were marginal on fuel, and Hamilton more so. Button had been saving a little more by hanging back in the four-way fight for 20-odd laps and when Lewis backed off a little too much on the run up the hill to Turn12, Button got a run on Hamilton. Difference was here that both gave each other just enough room in a duel which lasted five corners, and ended with a rim to rim touch – it appeared – in Turn 1. Hamilton saved the place, just. It was by far the most exciting move this year and showed utter skill on both drivers.

The minor placings were pretty much as predicted. The two Mercedes, with Schumacher holding the advantage through much of the space, Kubica’s Renault punching above his weight ahead of both the Ferrari’s of Massa and Alonso and a Sutil’s Force India in 9th. Attrition of Vettel gifted a final place to Kobayashi.

Right, balls on the chopping block time.

I think the podium is already decided, it’s simply what order of Webber, Hamilton and Vettel. I have more than a mild feeling that Vettel will be over-aggressive, and I wouldn’t rule out some lost wings into the first corner – for whatever reason, Webber has him rattled. Button has also unsettled Hamilton, not in terms of outright speed but in terms of results and race victories, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Lewis go for the corner at any cost. If the Red Bulls get into Turn 8 first, I doubt the McLaren will be able to close up enough in the rest of the lap to make the overtaking move stick. Hamilton desperately wants to win – and I believe at the expense of any reasonable consideration.

The sub-podium places will be between the usual suspects. I hope Button shows a more of a tougher edge at the start, as he’s getting predictably muscled out of the way on marginal situations. He needs to lay down a marker that he’s not always going to back out of the throttle, even if that means some bent bodywork and loss of points. He can’t continue to bleed positions at any time it’s a 50/50. The Ferrari’s don’t look that fast, so you’d have to say that on pure speed merit fourth down will be Button, the two Mercedes, the two Ferrari’s and Kubica somewhere around 7th/8th/9th, and a Force India appearing in 10th.

Before the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest commenced, I said that even if we* had an act which blew used 50 Euro notes out of their backside – and urinated the Elixir of Life for good measure – we’d end up stone cold last, or as near to it as made no odds.

Unsurprisingly, we did finish stone cold last.

And you have to say that the song wasn’t last place, dig-your-own-grave material. It was vacuous and tepid and we were never talking a winning performance, but it was demonstrably better than some of the bilge on offer from our more outlandish continental companions.

The issue, however, is that the good old United Kingdom is the hated man in Europe and the contest – for us at least – long since stopped being about the music. We’re on the periphery of the party, glass of wine in hand, trying not to look like Billy No-Mates, but the rest of the guests want nothing to do with us.

* “We” in this context is coming from someone who avoided watching the tripe of the Song for Europe, or whatever the damned thing is called, like the plague. Still, it’s cheap and easy ratings for the BBC.

Just under a year since the arm of my hard drive crashed into the platters, I’ve resurrected the site.

Not that installing WordPress is particularly hard you understand, but since everything got trashed – recovering other things took priority with the somewhat limited time I had available.

That and when I had the time, I could think of better things to do – like caress my beloved Edition 30 Golf GTI which I acquired back at the end of November. And found it really, really can’t handle snow in January.

So, welcome back to my corner of the internet. I doubt many people will read it, I rather doubt I’ll update it all that much, but it beats a paper diary. And I’ve never been much good with those either.