Dave's random mumblings…

The momentum is building and with 10 points out of the last 12 available in the league this looks a lot like the team we expected to see at the beginning of the year.

First there was Sundays great performance at San Jose, and it really was a great performance from Seattle. Unquestionably the better side throughout the game, the first 20 minutes were some of the best end-to-end team football they’ve played this year. The effort shown in the second half when San Jose threw caution to the wind in the effort to get a point at home was very solid.

I think the biggest difference between today and a couple of months ago is the workrate and effort from the entire team. Having Osvaldo Alonso back made a huge difference to Seattle’s second effort, he played a very physical game and really controlled the midfield.

The passing was crisp, possession was controlled, and when the ball was lost a lot of effort was put into getting it back. In the past it’s not been quite as hard fought in the middle of the field.

Montero looks so good right now, the more I see him play the more I’m convinced hes going to be a very, very good player. He’s maturing and with players like Sanna Nyassi and Fernandez feeding him he’s got a chance to keep the scoring streak going.

Tonight was the second leg of the CONCACAF Champions League preliminary round game. Seattle led 1-0 from the first leg in El Salvador was all they needed to go through to the group stage. The pitch looked marginal and the rain never let up for the entire game, but once again we saw a solid team performance that got the result they needed.

This turned out to be a very entertaining game, both teams played decent football. Metaplan went ahead before half time with a well-taken goal that gave Keller no chance.

From then on Seattle clearly had a majority of the possession and were playing well enough that they were going to score sooner or later. There were a couple of close off side calls, one of which had Levesque through on goal, but Seattle looked comfortable and patient looking for the opening.

The chance fell to substitute Alvaro Fernandez. He scored his first goal in a Seattle shirt with about 15 minutes left to play. With away goals counting double Metapan needed to score twice to go through. It was not happening tonight, Seattle looked to competent to allow that to happen again this year.

So another six games this year, including with games in Mexico, Honduras and Panama over the next three months. That sounds like a fun way to spend a few days vacation this fall.

Sounders are now 7 games undefeated in all competitions (league, Open cup and Champions League), the team have moved into play off contention and seem to be hitting form at the right time.

Sunday is Houston at Quest, a team we are building a very nice rivalry and the first meeting since Seattle were bumped out of the play offs by Houston last year. Another win and three points would go a long way to securing that play off place. Going to be a fun night under the lights.

Sunday we saw one more of the signs of the impending apocalypse (Zombie apocalypse is my guess, read Max Brooks to be prepared), or perhaps Michael Schumacher is mellowing in his old age.

“You know Michael – you talk to him and he will always feel that he is right. He stopped [for] three years [but] he hasn’t changed at all. He is still the same guy.” No prizes for guessing that’s Barichello speaking.

While it’s not actually listed as one of the seven signs of this apocalypse thing, it makes way more sense than Michael admitting he may have been in the wrong on his own. I’ve done a little research this evening, and no where does it actually give the names of the four horseman, its very possible one is called Michael.

He actually admitted that perhaps he was a little over aggressive when he all but ran Rubens Barrichello off the track in Hungary Yesterday. I was watching the race and no question was the move over the top, no one has an issue with the driver defending the corner, but what Michael did was over the top.

The pass is all over Youtube if you’ve not seen it.

Schumacher said that after looking at the incident, the stewards were right, it was too much. OK, Michael has history of this, and there is certainly no love lost between those two drivers, but this was a far too aggressive move for the lead, let alone 10^th place and 1 point in the standings.

“Right after the race I was still in the heat of the action,” said Michael, “But after watching the moment again, I must say the stewards were right in their assessment: the manoeuvre against Rubens was too dangerous. I wanted to make it hard for him to pass me but I didn’t want to endanger him with my manoeuvre. If he has this feeling I am sorry, this was not my intention.”

Yep, get your Zombie fighting gear together, Michael Schumacher said sorry.

Ross Brawn (Mercedes Team principal) came to Michaels defence immediately after the face with “I don’t think for a moment Michael was trying to put Rubens in the wall, he was trying to discourage him from coming down the inside as he thought that was where he would be vulnerable. At the end of the day he gave him enough space. You can argue it was marginal, but it was tough racing.”

The stewards disagree about it being “marginal” and Michael got slapped with a 10 place qualifying penalty on the grid in Belgium, and a lot of people thought he got off easy.

As for the rest of the race, the Red Bulls were once again totally dominating in qualifying. Weber drove a great race, Vettel lost his early lead ended up third behind Massa after screwing up with the safety car out which cost him a stop-and-go penalty. It’s a long time since I’ve seen someone that unhappy to be on the podium. Vettel was not happy and this is just another weekend where Red Bull has failed to turn a great qualifying performance into an easy 1-2.

McLaren were nowhere to be seen after a disastrous weekend. Lewis Hamilton lost the world championship lead with a costly DNF when his gearbox broke. Jenson Button finished a very distant eighth in what was a rather processional race, which is typical for Hungary. It’s clear that Red Bull and to a slightly lesser extent Ferrari have a distinct equipment advantage.

There has been a lot of talk of these two teams running flexible front wings that run much closer to the ground when the car is at speed on the track giving more down force and better performance, especially on the high speed circuits. Hungary is not a high speed circuit (nor was Hockenheim last weekend) and Red Bull are clearly the best team out there. McLaren and Ferrari have a lot of work to get the initive back in what’s turned into a very close fought championship.

With 25 points for a win, there are 5 drivers heading into the final 9 races just a good weekend away from leading the championship. This is fun.

Very interesting German GP today. Not the racing, it was rather processional as is typical with the high downforce tracks.

Obviously there is one big talking point, Ferrari instituting team orders despite the idea being “banned” by the FIA. May as well make sunrise illegal, the team employs the drivers and everyone is fully aware of their place in the pecking order.

Alonso had caught and been pushing Massa hard for several laps. He told his race engineer on lap 22 “This is ridiculous.”

A couple of minute’s later Massa was told, “Fernando is faster than you, did you understand that message?” As coded messages go it’s not exactly subtle.

On Lap 49, Massa lifted on the exit of the hairpin and Alonso easily shot past the Brazilian. Massa was told “OK good lad. Just stick with him now.” after he had been passed. Massa could have handled being over taken in a more subtle way, he left no doubt that he does not agree with the decision. We will see how the politics at Ferrari deal with that over the next few weeks.

Massa was a good employee and did what he was told, he confirmed the radio conversation but later also said he had been struggling after switching to harder tires. There is little question that Alonso was quicker, but with there being so few overtaking opportunities at Hockenheim that’s irrelevant if he could not get past. As ever the onus is in the passing driver to make the move, not to be let through.

Interestingly the FIA and stewards moved with lightning speed (for the FIA) and immediately after the race Ferrari was given a $100,000 fine (not even a slap on the wrist) and referred to the World Motor Sport Council for bringing the sport into disrepute. The WMSC is the top body in the FIA and could give further sanctions against Ferrari. At this time the result from Germany stands. We will see how seriously the WMSC takes it when they meet in September.

Felipe Massa gets the last word on this for now “For sure you always want to win. We don’t have team orders. If you can’t do the race you want, you have to think about the team. I am professional, and today I showed how professional I am.”

Some thoughts on the season so far, it’s been as good as I’d hoped. The racing has generally been close; the top teams are very close. Clearly Red Bull are the team to beat on Friday and Saturday, but they have been unable to translate the qualifying performance to as many wins on Sunday afternoon as they maybe should have. Both the team and drivers seem to be prone to making mistakes during the race.

The crash between Vettel and Weber in Turkey is the prime example, there is no excuse for what happened and the more I look at it the more Vettel looks at fault. No question Sebastian Vettel is incredibly quick and is the heir to Michael Schumacher. He seems less obsessed with the details and has very clearly shown that he has what it takes to win the championship, just needs to stop making the silly mistakes and make it count when he has the front row of the grid.

The two McLarens never seemed to have the outright pace of Ferrari and Red Bull, but they came through with probably the best positions they could hope for.

Lewis Hamilton is on a rich run of form right now; the distractions over his family and management seem to have been dealt with and he is unquestionably the fastest driver out there if the car is up to it. But that’s the problem McLaren seem to be struggling compared to Red Bull and Ferrari on the higher downforce circuits. It’s going to be interesting to see what the team does about that.

He seems to have taken back the initiative from Jenson Button over the last 3 or 4 races. Button has done very well, I think most people thought he was going to get eaten for lunch by Hamilton, but that’s not been the case and he deserves a lot of credit for that strength and fortitude.

The team has been clear that the pair started off as equals but Lewis is starting to shine more now and as much as the pair insists that they are teammates, they are also massive rivals too. If Button has a ruthless side he needs to start showing it a little more if he wants to start worrying Hamilton for the championship.

There is a lot of racing left to go, but if Hamilton keeps picking up points the way he has been it’s going to be tough for anyone to catch him. I think it’s down to Vettel making full use of the equipment advantage, or Button really going at him and taking a few risks.

There are all these complaints about biased refereeing from the Sounders Nation and a couple of writers who should know better. Unfortunatly it does make the fans sound like a bunch of whiners. Yeah there have been some questionable goals, missed off side calls and a couple of important missed hand ball calls.

In return the sounders have had a couple go their way too, most notably the goal against New York. Over the course of a session the bad calls will balance themselves out.

It’s time to stop whining and blaming the refs, typically (with a couple of obvious exceptions) they have been fairly consistent within the game, even if what gets called changes game to game.

This year has not started well, only three wins so far and out the play off positions. While not in danger of loosing touch yet, the time is coming when we need to start picking up points and make a run up the table. Salt Lake showed (as did NY in 2008) that if you make it into the playoffs anything is possible.

Last year Seattle did miss the injury bug almost totally, Ljungberg missed a few games and that was really about it. This year has been an entirely different story: Nate Jaqua was the second highest scorer last year and a certain starter has yet to play a minute. Jhon Kennedy Hurtardo is out with a torn ACL, not a career ending injury anymore, but season ending certainly.

Another starter spending time on the sidelines this year was Osvaldo Alonso (quad, three games so far).

Then there are role players that have missed time. Michael Fucito (seven so far), Brad Evans (two games), Peter Vagenas (four games) and Pat Noonan (three games) have each missed significant time due to injury.

The resigning of Jeff Parke was very timely with the injury to Hurtardo. The return of Brad Evans and Nate Jaqua along with the signing of Blaze Nfuko gives some cause for optimism.

Ultimately all that really matters is to somehow get into the playoffs and hit your best form. Manage that and what happened in April and May would soon be forgotten about.

This weekend is Monaco, yeah the track is tight and in reality it’s more of a money printing exercise by F1 with a noisy interlude on Sunday afternoon to give everyone an excuse to be there.

As a fan of F1 it’s a very special place, qualifying is important and the race to Saint Devote on the first lap is incredible to watch. It’s a wonderful challenge for the driver and any race fan should have it on their “to-do” list. Not quite as atmospheric as Monza or as entertaining as Spa, but it’s a unique race in a very special place.

As a mechanic it’s a pain in the arse. The tiny rabbit hutches in the pit lane were replaced a few years ago, but they used to be big enough to storing a few things while the cars were running and that’s about it. Nearly all the work on the cars actually takes place in a garage a significant distance from the track. Despite all the issues, it’s still an event everyone looks forward to.

There is a unique atmosphere and it’s a special place with lots of tradition to go along with the Casino, multi-million dollar yachts and the royal family. The only problem is I won’t be there.

No one was quite able to touch Red Bulls in qualifying this year. All five pole positions and 8 out of the 10 front row places so far have gone to Weber and Vettel. Control the front row, stay out of trouble and you’ve a huge advantage.

Their advantage over the rest of the field appeared to have widened still further with the installation of an effective and comprehensive upgrade package at the Circuit de Catalunya. The other teams are certainly playing catch up with regard to qualifying. The Red Bull race reliability has not been the best; Vettel had brake problems last weekend that cost him dearly. This is a circuit that’s incredibly hard on cars in general and brakes specifically.

Jenson Button had a poor race in Spain, he won at Monaco last year and said this week “I think the Monaco result is extremely tough to call, there are a lot of very competitive drivers so there is a good chance of a slightly unpredictable race.”

Lewis Hamilton was running a rather comfortable second to Webber in Spain when a tyre deflation caused him to crash on the penultimate lap. Hamilton also has the usual high hopes for Monaco.

Hamilton said “Qualifying will be more important than ever. While we’re still working hard to improve our qualifying pace, Monaco is a place where the input of the driver is more important than at any other track, so I’m pretty confident that we’ll be able to do a good job.”

McLaren has won fifteen times in Monaco, so far this year the car seems reliable, if they do well in qualifying and be consistent in the race there is the opportunity to make it 16 and either makes Buttons lead on the championship a little more secure or put Hamilton right back in the thick of the race.

It’s 9 years since Ferrari won here, however Alonso has won twice here. His Ferrari was second in Spain and he’s constantly been among the best qualifiers so far this year. Maybe it’s his weekend.

Monaco is always unpredictable, and that fact on top of the atmosphere, boats, parties and thong bikinis makes it a very fun race to watch. Nelson Piquet never won the race, he said “It’s like trying to cycle round your living room”, but added “a win here was worth two anywhere else”.

Maybe next year…