A grand insight

Skillful use of the team radio transmissions by Formula One management's excellent TV producers give us rare insight into an important dimension of Grand Prix racing - the characters of the racers.

Lewis Hamilton's desire to win was clear when he cried, "come on guys, we just lost a position!" after a slow stop dropped him behind Sebastian Vettel at the Turkish Grand Prix last month. "Do you want me to race these guys or look after the car?" was his exasperated response when asked to take care of the brakes on his McLaren-Mercedes at Monaco (the team monitoring their condition by computer link from the pits). Hamilton's immediate and aggressive counter-attack of teammate Jenson Button (and postrace demeanor) in Turkey were explained when we heard he had asked, "if I slow down, will he overtake me?" No, they said - but Jenson did. Oops.

In Sunday's European Grand Prix Mark Webber was lucky to escape a horrific crash. At more than 300kmh the Australian ran into the back of the slower Lotus of Heikki Kovaleinen, which he was attempting to pass after making a strategic early pit stop. "I was defending and he drove into me," we heard Kovaleinen explain to his team. What was the Finn thinking? Webber's Red Bull car was three seconds per lap faster than the Lotus around the Valencia circuit. This was ego-driven idiocy of the magnitude demonstrated in May by Virgin Racing's Lucas Di Grassi when holding up Fernando Alonso's pitlane-starting Ferrari at Monaco. Did the usually affable Heikki think he would impress the world by holding-up Webber?