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Sunday was a great day for sport with the British Grand Prix and the World Cup Final.

British Grand Prix

First I will talk about the Grand Prix. It was a great grand prix with lots of overtaking, the new section seems to have create more “action”. It always helps when there is a safety car I think. I think it helped the race when Vettel had the problems and it forced him to make his way from last place all the way up to 7th. Just showed what performance the Red Bull had. However, what it also showed was that although Vettel a lot of the cars quite easily, once he got up to Sutil he struggled.

Problems

The race weekend didnt start very good for McLaren who had a new upgrade to car which didnt work. Hamilton did really well to qualify 4th but Button was in 14th. They decided to take off the upgrade for the race as it ruined the balance of the car. The other main talking point was Red Bull. They really should be miles ahead in the championship but always seem to have problems/issues. This weekend was about the front wing. They had a new wing which was on Webber’s car. However, Vettel damaged his in practice and Red Bull decided to take the wing off Webber’s car and put it on Vettels. Webber of course wasnt pleased. Christian Horner said it was a Championship decision as Vettel had more points – ages to go in season and only 10 points between them before this weekend. He also said the different wings made very little difference (then will bother changing!?!).  When Webber won at the end he said “not bad for a no.2 driver”. Horner said something like “now you can smile”. Red Bull have the best car but seem to have so many internal issues. I am not sure if its even Christian Horner who made the decisions this week – I think it was the one of the “big bosses” e.g. Helmut Marko.

BBC

It was another great race weekend for the BBC whos F1 coverage continues to show how crap ITV’s was. Of course its now helped for ITV that they have adverts but BBC has a lot longer to show the race and the pre and post race stuff. They manage to talk to great guests including this weekend Sir Stirling Moss. The online stuff is excellent too and of course its good to have the iPlayer when you miss things. I think the F1 Forum after the race on the red button is BRILLIANT. They get to talk more about the race, drivers and whats happens. They always get to talk to the drivers straight after the race and get their thoughts. This week it was great to see Rubens and Jenson in the interview together! Another excellent thing this week was the pub quiz. Nice bit from Jenson when trying to give a clue to Lewis to guess Alonso in the “name guessing game”. He said something like “you dont get on and he can’t pass safety cars” LOL. Bring on the Germany GP!

World Cup Final

So it was the world cup final also on Sunday. A couple friends popped round and we had a few beers, pizza and nachos which was all very nice.

This world cup has been an odd one. It started slow with not many goals and poor matches. (I have already blogged about this). The final itself was pretty poor especially the first half. It wasnt helped that Netherland’s gameplay seemed to just to foul Spain. Lots of fouls and just breaking up play. The worst culprits being Van Bommel and De Jong. The worst (although not 100% intentional) was a “karate kick” by De Jong on Alonso into the chest. There was a record number of cards with I think 14 yellow cards and a red. Howard Webb had a tough game – overall did well for a tough match but made a couple bad decisions. Most notably the corner near the end which he gave as a goal kick. The other was what seemed like a foul on Elia which led up to the goal – although Netherland had 2 (ish) chances to get rid of ball.

The game went into extra time and in a way I was hoping for penalties for some excitement. However, I didnt want Netherlands to win because of the way the played.

Spain over-rated??

Thats not to say Spain play the most exciting football. When Torres plays well and they have Silva on the wing its more exciting but they just pass the ball to death. A stat which proves it that they are the lowest scoring World Cup winner with just 8 goals. I think all but 3 goals was scored by Villa. Everyone seems to salivate over Spain and they are a very good time but just that exciting. Also, another bad thing about Spain is (like many other teams) the amount they dive and playact. They have so many great players and don’t need to do it. Iniesta dives about and when Heitinga got his 2nd card, I don’t think Iniesta was pulled back much at all.

Anyway…. thats the world cup over. The premier league starts in about a month so looking forward to that.