McLaren win summer development race but...

Two races into the second half of the season and a McLaren has led from start to finish. After Jensen Button romped home from pole in Spa, Lewis Hamilton repeated the trick at Monza. Button qualified second behind his team mate and a one-two looked on the cards, but a fuel supply problem ended hopes for a dream weekend in Italy.

Spa and Monza are high speed circuits, with high speed straights that suit the McLaren’s characteristics. With Lotus struggling with their much hyped double-DRS system, it is the team from Woking who have made the most of the mid-season break. Fernando Alonso continues to wring as much as is humanly possible from the Ferrari, Red Bull appear to have taken a step backwards, while Mercedes and Lotus are still unable to extract race winning pace from their cars.

However, the rocket red shirts that come out for a McLaren victory hide disappointment for Martin Whitmarsh and his colleagues. Three race wins on the spin looks impressive but the second McLaren car has finished sixth, DNF, DNF. They obviously have the car to win but through bad strategy (Button’s 6^th in Hungary), bad luck (Hamilton crashed out on the first corner of Spa) or mechanical failure (Button in Monza) the team are not capitalising as they should. Red Bull still lead the Constructors championship by 29 points, despite neither of their cars finishing Monza, and Alonso has a 37 point lead in the Drivers championship despite having what is commonly accepted to be a poor car.

With tracks like Singapore and Abu Dhabi to come, and their medium speed corners that the McLaren struggles to get to grips with, McLaren may find themselves battling for podiums and points rather than race wins. Their time is now and they need to dominate.

There is also the problem of having two number 1 drivers in the team. Button may be 78 points away from the title but he is not ready to give up, while nowadays Hamilton appears on the cusp of doing something...unwise, shall we say, every time F1 embarks on a race weekend. The two drivers have different styles, so even if Button were to forfeit his challenge to aid Hamilton it is arguable that the Brits would be unable to help each other out.

Meanwhile Felipe Massa is firmly in his place as Alonso’s guinea pig, and despite only eight points separating them Sebastien Vettel is a clear number one at Red Bull, with Mark Webber not doing too bad for a number two, as he so memorably said when winning at Silverstone back in the day.

That being said, it is enjoyable to see a team let their two drivers do what they do best – race, and race to win. McLaren have the fastest car on the grid at the moment (despite what Peter Sauber might think) and their sterling efforts over the summer indicate they can win both the Drivers and Constructors championships. However they need to avoid the DNF’s and mistakes while they are on top because their rivals will soon catch up.

Alonso beats rain to grab Pole

At a wet Hockenheim, Fernando Alonso stormed to pole for tomorrow’s German Grand Prix. Sebastien Vettel will join him on the front row, while a five place grid penalty means Mark Webber will start eighth, with Michael Schumacher and Niko Hulkenberg making it three Germans in the top 4.

Jenson Button is 6^th, Lewis Hamilton will be 7^th, and Paul Di Resta will be 9^th.

Q1 started dry but rain came down in Q2, and teams quickly moved from dry to intermediate, and finally full wet tyres. The lap times demonstrated the unpredictability that rain brings, especially when race day is set to be dry, as the teams are locked into their set up from the end of qualifying. Do they gamble with a dry set up that will make them slow in the race, or go for grid position hoping the notoriously poor weather forecasts that accompany F1 races turn out to be wrong? Or do they go for something in between?

This conundrum will give McLaren hope after another relatively poor qualifying. Hamilton and Button were at the top of the timesheets at various points before the rain came and they might fancy they have the correct setup for the race. However, with Alonso’s Ferrari again miles ahead of his team mate Felipe Massa, the odds are that the Spaniard will extend his lead at the top of the Drivers’ Championship.

The home crowd will have plenty to cheer, with a resurgent Schumacher doing well for Mercedes, and Hulkenberg securing his best ever qualifying position. Vettel will hope to win the race to the first corner and lead from the front, but the Red Bulls have had uncharacteristic reliability problems recently.

Button will be pleased to have qualified ahead of Hamilton but the McLarens are still struggling to switch on the tyres, especially in damp conditions, and are struggling for race pace. A podium would at least be a step in the right direction given their recent woes.

Maldonado (an adjusted 5^th) and Kimi Raikkonen make up the top ten, while Nico Rosberg finds himself all the way down in seventeenth. However, we have seen numerous cars storm from the back of the grid to pick up good points, and if the weather continues to be changeable we could be set for yet another exciting race this season.

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On a related note, I don't like the grid place penalty when the grid isn't automatically adjusted when published on sites like the BBC. To have people in 3rd but really in eighth and in Q3 but starting outside the top ten, it's all a bit messy. Webber did not qualify third, he is in eighth (unless others suffer penalties) so why even have him in the top 3 Drivers' press conference?

At least we saw all the cars come out for Q3 - that has to be the most disappointing and ridiculous part of F1.

Time to end KP experiment

Young pretenders ready to step up to the plate.

Kevin Pietersen has been a magnificent servant for England. The South African has taken his adopted country to heart, introduced the panache, drive and strength of character that was sorely missing from an England cricket team that was wallowing in an abyss. But now it is time to move on.

It is easier to say which batsmen have performed well in the UAE than list the men who have failed. England's middle order has not settled with the slower pitches nor the spin bowling of the Pakistan team. Ian Bell paid the price with his admission from the the One Day side, and no doubt there will be more changes in time for the tour to Sri Lanka. But its Pietersen I want to focus on, and particularly his place in the One Day team.

KP failed again today to continue his rotten form. 26 from 46 runs is not good in any form of the game, and especially disappointing when the batting lineup has been altered precisely to get the best out of one player. Pietersen's big hitting was an attempt by the England team to finally find the solution to the big hitting issue at the top of the order that first arose when Marcus Trescothick retired.

Runs were not coming at number 4, and perhaps the thought was Pietersen would either rack up a score or hit himself out. A strike rate of 57 launches a missile through that train of thought and with Craig Kieswetter, Alex Hales, Jonny Bairstow and Jos Butler waiting for their opportunities one has to wonder how longer the England management will wait for Pietersen to find his form.

Alastair Cook has shown you don't need to smash the ball out of the ground to hit big ODI scores, and with the two new balls the classic opener may find more favour over the power player. Pietersen is not comfortable batting at three never mind opening, so the argument goes if he is not worth a slot in the middle order he is not worth a place in the team.

Sure, the Surrey batsman has credit in the bank and there is obviously a class player there who can dominate the opposition and win games single-handedly but KP's One Day form has been on the wane for a while, and his Test form has also fallen apart. Perhaps the former Notts and Hampshire man has lost a little focus and the removal of one form of the game may help Pietersen get back to his best in the other.

England have many exciting players coming into the One Day picture but there is less competition in the Test team. Test batting would also give Pietersen a more relaxed arena to regain his form and more chances to get bat on ball. It's not over yet for Pietersen but he does not have many chances left and the sooner the young lions get a chance the better.