For no good reason, I’m using quarks to analyse Formula 1 races this season.

Up

Vitaly Petrov – up, up and away, that is. That was a quite astonishing off-track excursion for Petrov, and an even more astonishing way to literally jump back onto the track, dislodging the steering column in the process. Hope he’s not injured.

Down

I’m less convinced by David Coulthard as a commentator this week. Mainly, I admit, because of his insistence on referring to Heidfeld as Heidfield. A trip to the BBC Pronunciation Unit is in order.

Charm

Everyone loves Kamui Kobayashi, overtaking machine – whether assisted by KERS, DRS, both or neither. His back and forth with Schumacher, in particular, really was a lot of fun.

Strange

How did Jenson Button end up 2nd? That really took me by surprise. I thought I was paying attention, but maybe there was just too much going on – particularly in the closing stages – to keep an eye on every driver’s progress through the field.

Top

Ah, bless Nick Heidfeld. He had a storming start from 6th on the grid to 2nd, dropped down to 5th after the first stops, but came back to finish 3rd, holding off Mark Webber on fresher tyres at the end. Well done, Sporadically Quick Nick!

Bottom

It’s hard to decide whether Mark Webber or Lewis Hamilton had a worse race. They did, at least, both finish in the points. Webber’s problems stemmed from the start, where he dropped from 3rd to 10th, apparently due to a lack of KERS, but worked his way back to 4th. Hamilton, on the other hand, was looking good for a podium, but struggled with tyres towards the end, and a smack up the arse from Alonso didn’t help matters. He wasn’t exactly chuffed with 7th.

UPDATE: Again with the post race penalties! Let’s hope it doesn’t become a habit this season. Anyway, both Alonso and Hamilton got 20 second penalties for their clash, the former for causing the accident, the latter for more than one change of direction. Alonso’s final position is unchanged; Hamilton drops to 8th.