After the streets of Valencia hosted their second Grand Prix, there was no time for respite before the gaggle moved up to a good old fashioned track with a great pedigree.
Spa-Francorchamps in the Ardennes Forest is a hilly and challenging course, with a deep ingrained sense of history. Many drivers past and present spent the weekend eulogising it as their favourite circuit, and the undulating Eau Rouge section taken at maximum speed was exciting enough to give the viewer an adrenalin rush, just from the on-board camera.
Former winner David Coulthard was wearing a very dapper jacket in the paddock whilst Jake indulged him, allowing him once again to reflect on past glories. The coverage was no more than four minutes old when Eddie Jordan was given his grumpy head to dismiss McLaren’s investment in computer strategy as a complete waste of time. “If you want to save money, get rid of them.”
Luca Badoer’s antics last week had led to a general feeling of pity from the rest of the Formula One world. In qualifying, he was ridiculed by the commentary team for taking his foot off the accelerator on his way up the Eau Rouge. He then secured what is becoming a customary twentieth spot on the grid before spinning off the track on his in-lap and smacking his rear end into the barriers.
The rumour is that Giancarlo Fisichella will be rescued from Force India and parachuted into the Ferrari team before the next race. If that’s true, then it’s a pretty strong indicator that Kimi Raikkonen is on his way out of the team at the end of this season, with Fisichella partnering the recovered Felipe Massa.
Fisichella was questioned before practice, but under lukewarm questioning from Jake and Eddie, he refused to confirm anything, although he was easily coaxed into saying that driving for Ferrari was a childhood dream.
As if to throw down the challenge to the Italian team, Fisichella finished top of the pile during qualifying. Force India have not threatened the front row all season but Fisi was inspired, and Ferrari will have taken note as they watched Badoer’s car being lifted from the track.
Like Valencia, the grid line-up was peculiar. Bearing very little resemblance to the World Championship standings, the first shock was the premature departure of both Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button. They qualified twelfth and fourteenth respectively. Spurning their opportunity to maximise, the Red Bull drivers also struggled, with Vettel and Webber qualifying eighth and ninth.
Behind Fisichella, the top slots were taken by other lesser lights of the paddock. Trulli’s Toyota was third, whilst BMW had a successful session with Heidfeld and Kubica finishing third and fifth. The only championship contender near the front was Rubens Barrichello who qualified fourth and would have slept well on Saturday night, confident that he would further eat into his team mate’s lead.
Since I rekindled my interest in F1 this year, I've remained puzzled about the various tyre choices available to the teams. It's evidently crucial to the relative performance of the cars, but my knowledge was poor.
As if directly addressing my confusion, David Coulthard voiced a charming little VT package underscored with some whimsical guitar music and punctuated by a sequence of computer generated tyres bouncing down the Spa track.
The relative merits were explained of the four different types of slicks, the intermediates and the wets. I now have a better knowledge, but am still mystified as to why it really needs to be so complex.
When we moved on to the grid walk, Martin Brundle seemed somehow subdued. Last week in Valencia, he had ostentatiously elbowed a female Australian journalist aside in his quest for an interview with Timo Glock. I suspect he had received a slapped wrist because he was much more restrained, although Trulli, Heidfeld and Barrichello all gave him some time. This despite the fact he was wearing a black leather jacket which I suspect he won during his time in sports cars in the early nineties.
As the race started, the first lap was a complete disaster for Brawn. Barrichello's anti-stall kicked in at the start line, with Raikkonen screaming past him. By the time they exited turn one, Barrichello was last, and Raikkonen was second, chasing Fisichella hard.
At turn four, with the traffic still very tight, Sebastian Grosjean bumped the back of Jenson Button, both spun off the track, and subsequently took out Lewis Hamilton and Jaime Alguersuari. With the World Champion and the Championship leader out of the race, the safety car came out and everyone took a breath.
As soon as the safety car pulled off, Raikkonen snatched the lead from Fisichella - his probable team mate in the next race – as Barrichello started a charge through the field, overtaking Raikkonen’s current team mate, the hapless Luca Badoer.
The pattern of the race at the front end remained fairly static with Raikkonen just ahead of Fisichella. The Force India gave the appearance of being faster than the Ferrari, but Raikkonen’s KERS meant that Fisi just couldn’t get past him. Eventually, the Finn won his first race since he last gave a damn, and Fisichella came in a couple of seconds behind him.
The smart money is on them being team mates by the time they line up for the next qualifying session at Monza in a fortnight.
Vettel managed to drag himself up to third place, but couldn’t overtake Rubens Barrichello for second place in the championship table. The Brazilian rescued seventh place and two valuable points from his disastrous start.
Showing posts with label Rubens Barrichello. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rubens Barrichello. Show all posts
Monday, 31 August 2009
Sunday, 26 July 2009
Hungarian Grand Prix
Twenty four hours after qualifying, the grid was a little preoccupied with Felipe Massa’s injury. As the session finished yesterday, I was under the impression he was just a little shaken, but in truth, the outcome was worse than first thought. It was, however, far far better than it could have been.
As the drivers assembled on the grid, Massa was still in Intensive Care at a local hospital. The spring which fell off Rubens Barrichello’s car had hit Massa’s helmet above the left eye at around 120mph. The helmet stayed intact but the visor crumbled and Massa had a cut above his left eye, “bone damage” to the skull, and “brain concussion.”
With that in mind, there was a slightly sober feel to the grid as the party started. For his grid walk, Martin Brundle had Eddie Jordan alongside him. The dynamic didn’t really work as Jordan was far too busy talking to ask any questions. Brundle eventually gave up being polite and walked off, microphone in hand, leaving Jordan trailing behind him, still talking.
At the end of yesterday’s qualifying session, Massa’s accident had distracted from the fact that the timing system had gone down leading to the drivers scratching their heads and exchanging times to establish the pecking order. By the time the official results were announced, Mark Webber had to be pulled out of the shower to attend a press conference.
Speaking of Webber, after his first Grand Prix victory in Germany last time, the BBC had pre-recorded a film which featured Jake Humphrey cycling in the woods with Mark Webber. Bearing in mind that this is how he smashed up his leg over the winter, the beeb were taking a bit of a risk. I had visions of Humphrey ploughing into Webber’s bike and taking them both over a precipice. If it happened, they cut it out.
With the grid having such a diverse range of cars at the front, the start was crucial, and Alonso followed up his victory in qualifying with a terrific start. Behind him, though, Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton battled through the first two corners to take up the chase. Sebastian Vettel, sitting on the front row on the grid, was seventh after the first two turns – a poor start followed by a bump in the crowd from Raikkonen on the first corner.
After a very fast first few laps, the lighter Alonso started to lose pace. Lewis Hamilton, who had overtaken Webber to seize second, was scorching towards him. On a short strategy, Alonso came in before Hamilton could catch him. Unfortunately, replays showed that the hapless mechanic on the right front tyre had not properly tightened the wheelnut. As Alonso went out, his wheel already looked wobbly, and within a minute, his tyre was bouncing off down the track.
A few laps later, Vettel seemed to suffer a similar problem to Barrichello’s in qualifying, something in his rear suspension failing. Afterwards, he would blame it on the bump from Raikkonen at the start. Whatever caused it, a pit stop failed to put it right and, within twenty laps, the two front row starters were out of the race.
Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton had snatched the lead after Alonso’s retirement and held it firmly. His first grand prix win since last year demonstrated that the changes McLaren made to their car had been very effective. The near-hysterical clip of his reaction on the in-car radio said everything about how pleased he was.
It was unexpected but it was no fluke. He was consistently the fastest driver on the course, the pit-stops worked perfectly, and he was never under any pressure.
Likewise, Brawn’s deteriorating performance can no longer be put down to misfortune. He may be leading the Championship, but Jenson Button only finished seventh, and Rubens Barrichello scuttled in tenth. It worked in their favour today that Hamilton and Raikkonen as it kept Mark Webber in third. The threat from Red Bull is very real and, with seven races still to go, this championship is far from over.
Related Articles:
Qualifying – Hungarian Grand Prix Qualifying, 25th July 2009.
Last Grand Prix – German Grand Prix, 12th July 2009.
As the drivers assembled on the grid, Massa was still in Intensive Care at a local hospital. The spring which fell off Rubens Barrichello’s car had hit Massa’s helmet above the left eye at around 120mph. The helmet stayed intact but the visor crumbled and Massa had a cut above his left eye, “bone damage” to the skull, and “brain concussion.”
With that in mind, there was a slightly sober feel to the grid as the party started. For his grid walk, Martin Brundle had Eddie Jordan alongside him. The dynamic didn’t really work as Jordan was far too busy talking to ask any questions. Brundle eventually gave up being polite and walked off, microphone in hand, leaving Jordan trailing behind him, still talking.
At the end of yesterday’s qualifying session, Massa’s accident had distracted from the fact that the timing system had gone down leading to the drivers scratching their heads and exchanging times to establish the pecking order. By the time the official results were announced, Mark Webber had to be pulled out of the shower to attend a press conference.
Speaking of Webber, after his first Grand Prix victory in Germany last time, the BBC had pre-recorded a film which featured Jake Humphrey cycling in the woods with Mark Webber. Bearing in mind that this is how he smashed up his leg over the winter, the beeb were taking a bit of a risk. I had visions of Humphrey ploughing into Webber’s bike and taking them both over a precipice. If it happened, they cut it out.
With the grid having such a diverse range of cars at the front, the start was crucial, and Alonso followed up his victory in qualifying with a terrific start. Behind him, though, Mark Webber and Lewis Hamilton battled through the first two corners to take up the chase. Sebastian Vettel, sitting on the front row on the grid, was seventh after the first two turns – a poor start followed by a bump in the crowd from Raikkonen on the first corner.
After a very fast first few laps, the lighter Alonso started to lose pace. Lewis Hamilton, who had overtaken Webber to seize second, was scorching towards him. On a short strategy, Alonso came in before Hamilton could catch him. Unfortunately, replays showed that the hapless mechanic on the right front tyre had not properly tightened the wheelnut. As Alonso went out, his wheel already looked wobbly, and within a minute, his tyre was bouncing off down the track.
A few laps later, Vettel seemed to suffer a similar problem to Barrichello’s in qualifying, something in his rear suspension failing. Afterwards, he would blame it on the bump from Raikkonen at the start. Whatever caused it, a pit stop failed to put it right and, within twenty laps, the two front row starters were out of the race.
Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton had snatched the lead after Alonso’s retirement and held it firmly. His first grand prix win since last year demonstrated that the changes McLaren made to their car had been very effective. The near-hysterical clip of his reaction on the in-car radio said everything about how pleased he was.
It was unexpected but it was no fluke. He was consistently the fastest driver on the course, the pit-stops worked perfectly, and he was never under any pressure.
Likewise, Brawn’s deteriorating performance can no longer be put down to misfortune. He may be leading the Championship, but Jenson Button only finished seventh, and Rubens Barrichello scuttled in tenth. It worked in their favour today that Hamilton and Raikkonen as it kept Mark Webber in third. The threat from Red Bull is very real and, with seven races still to go, this championship is far from over.
Related Articles:
Qualifying – Hungarian Grand Prix Qualifying, 25th July 2009.
Last Grand Prix – German Grand Prix, 12th July 2009.
Saturday, 25 July 2009
Hungarian Grand Prix Qualifying
There was a peculiar choice of features from the BBC before qualifying as they first devoted an extraordinary amount of airtime to Jarno Trulli’s charity, then showed us what looked like an expensively made film from Finland.
Trulli’s noble endeavour to raise money for the victims of the horrendous earthquake in his home region of Abruzzo is worthy of praise, and he has clearly been doing some great work to raise funds, and bring hope to the people still living in tented villages. However, the fifteen minute feature seemed a little excessive – I wonder how hard he had to lobby the BBC to get that sort of exposure.
Next up was a film showing Heike Kovalainen riding his skidoo across the snowy wastes of his native Finland. Then we cut to a Nordic log cabin and Jonathan Legard interviewing the driver around a wood fire. It all seemed a little over the top to discover that the young fella was committed to winning and focused on one race at a time.
As we returned to Hungary, where there’s a race happening this weekend, the team were in the Red Bull garage. David Coulthard has clearly been taking lessons from Martin Brundle, and took a microphone around the garage, poking it under the noses of the startled backroom team.
Of course, he was driving for that team less than a year ago, and he is still on the Red Bull payroll as a consultant – whatever that means – so he has amazing access. Still it was odd that, ten minutes before the first qualifying session started, the team were happy for him to wander around distracting him.
The Hungaroring near Budapest was described this week by Murray Walker as “Monaco without the houses.” This is an elegant way of saying it’s bloody impossible to overtake, thus making qualifying more crucial than usual.
In the first qualifying session, the cars danced around the track like Kovalainen skidoo on a frozen lake. Grip was clearly an issue and several drivers found themselves going wide on corners.
Since the last race, Torro Rosso carried through on their threat to sack Sebastian Bourdais, bringing in nineteen-year-old Jaime Alguersuari. Extraordinarily, due to the ban on in-season testing, he had never driven a Formula One car before today. The other drivers muttered that it was unsafe to have him thrown straight into a Grand Prix. I suspect they are just bitter at Alguersuari’s direct route to success – like veteran stand-up comics slogging off young comedians with a Channel 4 series because they haven’t “played the clubs.”
Torro Rosso get their new boy out early so he could drive himself into some kind of comfort. Unfortunately, he was tracking only eighteenth in qualifying when he went out for a second run. Moments later, the car was rolling to a halt with an apparent mechanical fault, bringing out the yellow flag, and condemning Alguersuari to the back row in his first Grand Prix – about the same as Bourdais. But I’m sure he’ll improve.
Incidentally, poor old Bourdais is taking legal action against the team for firing him. I don’t envy him a court case where his former employers try to legally prove he is incompetent. That’s not going to be a fun few days is it?
The whispers gathering around the Renault team was that Nelson Piquet could be next to get the boot. This weekend, he has been given all the upgrades that his teammate Fernando Alonso has had for several races, but the implied arrangement was that he needed to use them to perform or he would be out.
He came storming through the first session, out-qualifying Alonso and finishing fifth. However, in the second session, normal service was resumed, Piquet finishing fifteenth, where he will start the race. Flavio Briatore, his team boss, has previously fired drivers mid-season, and Piquet will need a great race tomorrow if he wants to avoid signing on next week.
With the last couple of races seeing Red Bull overhauling Brawn’s early-season supremacy, there was a school of thought before this weekend that the higher temperatures in Hungary would lead to Brawn restoring their dominance. However, the evidence of qualifying disproved that notion.
Neither Brawn driver looked particularly comfortable and Rubens Barrichello actually failed to make it into the final qualifying session.
It has been a difficult fortnight for Rubens. After a frustrating race in Germany, where team tactics arguably cost him several places, he reacted angrily (and very publicly) straight after the race. Still in his race gear, and with the anger evident on his face, he told reporters, “It was a good show from the team of how to lose a race. I did all I had to do, I was first to the first corner. They made me lose it.”
Since then, he has apologised to Ross Brawn and the rest of the team, but he is clearly not a man in the zone. As today’s qualifying showed, the difference between success and failure is measured in tenths of a second – if Barrichello is not 100% settled, then his performance will suffer.
There was an ominous period in between the second and third qualifying sessions, as the second had been effectively ended by the yellow flag which followed Felipe Massa driving his car directly into the tyre wall.
He appeared to have driven directly off the track and into the wall with no effort to turn his wheel. The speculation on potential car problems was wild, but the mystery began to unfold when Barrichello came out and explained his lack of performance in Q2 by saying that his rear suspension had felt odd and he had lost grip.
Replays showed that a small metal tube had fallen away from Barrichello’s car, thus slowing him down, but had then bounced up and struck Massa on the side of the helmet, knocking him senseless for a few moments, during which time he left the tarmac and came to an abrupt halt in the tyres.
Massa took no further part in qualifying but, by the end of the session, reports suggested he was nothing worse than shaken up. With him relegated to tenth, and Barrichello even further back, the results of qualifying gave us a diverse grid.
On the front row, Fernando Alonso put the boot into Piquet by winning his first pole since he was world champion. Red Bull maintained their presence at the front with Vettel in second, and Webber in third. Lewis Hamilton recorded his best qualifying position of the season with a fourth place start, and poor old Jenson Button was seventh.
Related Articles:
Last Race – German Grand Prix. 12th July 2009
Last Qualifying – German Grand Prix Qualifying. 11th July 2009
Trulli’s noble endeavour to raise money for the victims of the horrendous earthquake in his home region of Abruzzo is worthy of praise, and he has clearly been doing some great work to raise funds, and bring hope to the people still living in tented villages. However, the fifteen minute feature seemed a little excessive – I wonder how hard he had to lobby the BBC to get that sort of exposure.
Next up was a film showing Heike Kovalainen riding his skidoo across the snowy wastes of his native Finland. Then we cut to a Nordic log cabin and Jonathan Legard interviewing the driver around a wood fire. It all seemed a little over the top to discover that the young fella was committed to winning and focused on one race at a time.
As we returned to Hungary, where there’s a race happening this weekend, the team were in the Red Bull garage. David Coulthard has clearly been taking lessons from Martin Brundle, and took a microphone around the garage, poking it under the noses of the startled backroom team.
Of course, he was driving for that team less than a year ago, and he is still on the Red Bull payroll as a consultant – whatever that means – so he has amazing access. Still it was odd that, ten minutes before the first qualifying session started, the team were happy for him to wander around distracting him.
The Hungaroring near Budapest was described this week by Murray Walker as “Monaco without the houses.” This is an elegant way of saying it’s bloody impossible to overtake, thus making qualifying more crucial than usual.
In the first qualifying session, the cars danced around the track like Kovalainen skidoo on a frozen lake. Grip was clearly an issue and several drivers found themselves going wide on corners.
Since the last race, Torro Rosso carried through on their threat to sack Sebastian Bourdais, bringing in nineteen-year-old Jaime Alguersuari. Extraordinarily, due to the ban on in-season testing, he had never driven a Formula One car before today. The other drivers muttered that it was unsafe to have him thrown straight into a Grand Prix. I suspect they are just bitter at Alguersuari’s direct route to success – like veteran stand-up comics slogging off young comedians with a Channel 4 series because they haven’t “played the clubs.”
Torro Rosso get their new boy out early so he could drive himself into some kind of comfort. Unfortunately, he was tracking only eighteenth in qualifying when he went out for a second run. Moments later, the car was rolling to a halt with an apparent mechanical fault, bringing out the yellow flag, and condemning Alguersuari to the back row in his first Grand Prix – about the same as Bourdais. But I’m sure he’ll improve.
Incidentally, poor old Bourdais is taking legal action against the team for firing him. I don’t envy him a court case where his former employers try to legally prove he is incompetent. That’s not going to be a fun few days is it?
The whispers gathering around the Renault team was that Nelson Piquet could be next to get the boot. This weekend, he has been given all the upgrades that his teammate Fernando Alonso has had for several races, but the implied arrangement was that he needed to use them to perform or he would be out.
He came storming through the first session, out-qualifying Alonso and finishing fifth. However, in the second session, normal service was resumed, Piquet finishing fifteenth, where he will start the race. Flavio Briatore, his team boss, has previously fired drivers mid-season, and Piquet will need a great race tomorrow if he wants to avoid signing on next week.
With the last couple of races seeing Red Bull overhauling Brawn’s early-season supremacy, there was a school of thought before this weekend that the higher temperatures in Hungary would lead to Brawn restoring their dominance. However, the evidence of qualifying disproved that notion.
Neither Brawn driver looked particularly comfortable and Rubens Barrichello actually failed to make it into the final qualifying session.
It has been a difficult fortnight for Rubens. After a frustrating race in Germany, where team tactics arguably cost him several places, he reacted angrily (and very publicly) straight after the race. Still in his race gear, and with the anger evident on his face, he told reporters, “It was a good show from the team of how to lose a race. I did all I had to do, I was first to the first corner. They made me lose it.”
Since then, he has apologised to Ross Brawn and the rest of the team, but he is clearly not a man in the zone. As today’s qualifying showed, the difference between success and failure is measured in tenths of a second – if Barrichello is not 100% settled, then his performance will suffer.
There was an ominous period in between the second and third qualifying sessions, as the second had been effectively ended by the yellow flag which followed Felipe Massa driving his car directly into the tyre wall.
He appeared to have driven directly off the track and into the wall with no effort to turn his wheel. The speculation on potential car problems was wild, but the mystery began to unfold when Barrichello came out and explained his lack of performance in Q2 by saying that his rear suspension had felt odd and he had lost grip.
Replays showed that a small metal tube had fallen away from Barrichello’s car, thus slowing him down, but had then bounced up and struck Massa on the side of the helmet, knocking him senseless for a few moments, during which time he left the tarmac and came to an abrupt halt in the tyres.
Massa took no further part in qualifying but, by the end of the session, reports suggested he was nothing worse than shaken up. With him relegated to tenth, and Barrichello even further back, the results of qualifying gave us a diverse grid.
On the front row, Fernando Alonso put the boot into Piquet by winning his first pole since he was world champion. Red Bull maintained their presence at the front with Vettel in second, and Webber in third. Lewis Hamilton recorded his best qualifying position of the season with a fourth place start, and poor old Jenson Button was seventh.
Related Articles:
Last Race – German Grand Prix. 12th July 2009
Last Qualifying – German Grand Prix Qualifying. 11th July 2009
Sunday, 12 July 2009
German Grand Prix
Before today’s race, Mark Webber was the star of the show. Despite being a top driver for several years, he has never quite managed to win a race yet. Nor, until yesterday, had he managed a pole position. A personable chap, and the head of the unofficial drivers’ union, he appears to be popular with the other grid regulars. Despite the presence of the two Brits near the front of the grid, there was an almost tangible desire to see him win the race.
As much as Silverstone last time, the Nurburgring is drenched in Grand Prix history, and the BBC used its substantial archive to showcase a retrospective of the track, incorporating the Fangio footage alongside some clips of Nazi parades at the track, all underscored with some Wagner. When it comes to avoiding clichés, we should probably be happy that they didn’t have David Coulthard in lederhosen.
We had the mandatory reference to the “original Nurburgring” which, I must admit, does sound amazing. It was originally a fourteen mile circuit around the mountains of the Eifel Forest which would be a horrendous challenge for the driver, but probably a bigger challenge for the broadcasters.
If you consider how many cameras are studded around the average Grand Prix circuit, it would probably take every lens in Germany to adequately cover fourteen miles. That’s why we keep seeing the same clip of Fangio going round the same corner – they only had one camera back in the fifties.
This is the ancestral home of German Formula One, it now fights Hockenheim for supremacy and has just started an arrangement whereby they will alternate the venue for the German Grand Prix.
Before the race, we had a tetchy interview with Michael Schumacher, with Jake gracelessly bringing up an old incident where Schumacher and David Coulthard had collided on the track and almost come to blows in the pits. We also had Martin Brundle, whose grid walk was most notable for his threat, thankfully unfulfilled, of showing us the drivers’ trackside toilets.
Finally, there was a young German boy band fellow knocking out the German National Anthem like it was a love song – it was like when they get Mariah Carey to do The Star Spangled Banner. Embarrassing and demeaning to everyone involve, but also a little creepy to hear “Deutschland, Deutschland. Uber alles,” rendered with such affectation.
As usual, the start of the race was where the action was. With a hairpin turn at the end of the start straight, it was always likely to produce a bottleneck. Lewis Hamilton made use of his KERS system to pull from fifth on the grid to be first going into the corner. Unfortunately for him, he hit the corner way too fast, overshot, recovered poorly, and emerged from the situation in last place, and with a puncture. After such pre-race optimism, his race was over before the end of the first lap.
Alongside Jenson Button at the entrance to turn one, Webber defended his pole position from the threat of the advancing Rubens Barrichello with a lunge to the right which, in the view of the stewards, was dangerous. Not only that, but it was also unsuccessful so Barrichello had already led Webber for the first few laps of the race, when Webber was given a drive-through penalty.
Unfortunately for Barrichello, this advantage was outweighed by getting stuck behind Felipe Massa after his pit stop. The Red Bull team got the tactics right and Webber worked his way beck to first place, eventually taking his first Grand Prix victory, with Vettel second.
The two drivers who failed to finish this race could, for very different reasons, be coming to the end of their F1 careers.
Despite a good result for one Ferrari driver, with Felipe Massa finishing third – only their second podium of the season – Kimi Raikkonen failed to finish. What’s more, he has continued to display his complete disregard for his employers by announcing he will compete at the Rally of Finland at the end of July.
After the Hungarian Grand Prix on the 26th July, there is a four week break until the exciting street circuit in Valencia hosts the European Grand Prix, so it's to be expected that the drivers will take a small mid-season break. However, I'm not sure Ferrari will be overjoyed to hear Raikkonen is spending his free time screeching around the icy forests of Finland.
It's really quite extraordinary that there is no contractual clause preventing him from doing it. I seem to recall Michael Schumacher had it written into his Ferrari contract that he would be allowed to play football during the winter break. Surely Kimi doesn't have a "rallying clause" in his contract?
The other non-finisher was Torro Rosso’s Sebastian Bourdais. He had qualified slowest, a full second down even on the hapless Timo Glock. Even before qualifying, there was dark talk of him being elbowed aside should he fail to impress this weekend. If that talk is true then we might have seen the Frenchman in his last Grand Prix.
Before the race, the BBC very deliberately interviewed Torro Rosso’s test driver Jaime Alguersuari. By the time we decamp to Budapest, he might be on the grid.
As much as Silverstone last time, the Nurburgring is drenched in Grand Prix history, and the BBC used its substantial archive to showcase a retrospective of the track, incorporating the Fangio footage alongside some clips of Nazi parades at the track, all underscored with some Wagner. When it comes to avoiding clichés, we should probably be happy that they didn’t have David Coulthard in lederhosen.
We had the mandatory reference to the “original Nurburgring” which, I must admit, does sound amazing. It was originally a fourteen mile circuit around the mountains of the Eifel Forest which would be a horrendous challenge for the driver, but probably a bigger challenge for the broadcasters.
If you consider how many cameras are studded around the average Grand Prix circuit, it would probably take every lens in Germany to adequately cover fourteen miles. That’s why we keep seeing the same clip of Fangio going round the same corner – they only had one camera back in the fifties.
This is the ancestral home of German Formula One, it now fights Hockenheim for supremacy and has just started an arrangement whereby they will alternate the venue for the German Grand Prix.
Before the race, we had a tetchy interview with Michael Schumacher, with Jake gracelessly bringing up an old incident where Schumacher and David Coulthard had collided on the track and almost come to blows in the pits. We also had Martin Brundle, whose grid walk was most notable for his threat, thankfully unfulfilled, of showing us the drivers’ trackside toilets.
Finally, there was a young German boy band fellow knocking out the German National Anthem like it was a love song – it was like when they get Mariah Carey to do The Star Spangled Banner. Embarrassing and demeaning to everyone involve, but also a little creepy to hear “Deutschland, Deutschland. Uber alles,” rendered with such affectation.
As usual, the start of the race was where the action was. With a hairpin turn at the end of the start straight, it was always likely to produce a bottleneck. Lewis Hamilton made use of his KERS system to pull from fifth on the grid to be first going into the corner. Unfortunately for him, he hit the corner way too fast, overshot, recovered poorly, and emerged from the situation in last place, and with a puncture. After such pre-race optimism, his race was over before the end of the first lap.
Alongside Jenson Button at the entrance to turn one, Webber defended his pole position from the threat of the advancing Rubens Barrichello with a lunge to the right which, in the view of the stewards, was dangerous. Not only that, but it was also unsuccessful so Barrichello had already led Webber for the first few laps of the race, when Webber was given a drive-through penalty.
Unfortunately for Barrichello, this advantage was outweighed by getting stuck behind Felipe Massa after his pit stop. The Red Bull team got the tactics right and Webber worked his way beck to first place, eventually taking his first Grand Prix victory, with Vettel second.
The two drivers who failed to finish this race could, for very different reasons, be coming to the end of their F1 careers.
Despite a good result for one Ferrari driver, with Felipe Massa finishing third – only their second podium of the season – Kimi Raikkonen failed to finish. What’s more, he has continued to display his complete disregard for his employers by announcing he will compete at the Rally of Finland at the end of July.
After the Hungarian Grand Prix on the 26th July, there is a four week break until the exciting street circuit in Valencia hosts the European Grand Prix, so it's to be expected that the drivers will take a small mid-season break. However, I'm not sure Ferrari will be overjoyed to hear Raikkonen is spending his free time screeching around the icy forests of Finland.
It's really quite extraordinary that there is no contractual clause preventing him from doing it. I seem to recall Michael Schumacher had it written into his Ferrari contract that he would be allowed to play football during the winter break. Surely Kimi doesn't have a "rallying clause" in his contract?
The other non-finisher was Torro Rosso’s Sebastian Bourdais. He had qualified slowest, a full second down even on the hapless Timo Glock. Even before qualifying, there was dark talk of him being elbowed aside should he fail to impress this weekend. If that talk is true then we might have seen the Frenchman in his last Grand Prix.
Before the race, the BBC very deliberately interviewed Torro Rosso’s test driver Jaime Alguersuari. By the time we decamp to Budapest, he might be on the grid.
Saturday, 11 July 2009
German Grand Prix Qualifying
With a three week interval since Silverstone, it was inevitable that the politics of Formula One would take centre stage. A few days after the British Grand Prix, Bernie Ecclestone waded into the fray, tipping the balance towards the teams and effectively ending Max Mosley’s long reign as President of the FIA.
The teams, under the umbrella of the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA), made it very clear that they had no desire to breakaway, but that they felt unable to continue under Mosley’s autocratic leadership style. By giving a name to the problem, they explicitly gave Ecclestone an exit strategy.
After a meeting in Paris on 24th June, it was all over. Mosley emerged proclaiming that a deal had been struck with which all parties were happy – he played the whole thing as a triumph for his own negotiating skills, despite the evidence of the previous three months.
Then the bombshell. He would step down as FIA President at the end of his current term in October. Ecclestone had wielded the knife and, no matter how much he protested that it had always been his intention to stand down, Mosley was covered in blood.
When the detail of the deal was examined, it was nothing more than a non-specific expression of intent to reduce costs. Mosley’s hard and fast budget cap was dead, and lying beside him in the gutter.
Over the next few days the debate moved on to who would replace Mosley, and whether they would have sufficient independence and fortitude to regulate the teams. The pendulum had swung, and, although peace was breaking out, there was still some jockeying for position to be done.
Clearly stung by the humiliation, Mosley last week publicly accused FOTA of “dancing on my grave.” Crucially, he also claimed that he was, “under pressure now from all over the world to stand for re-election.” Painting himself as the reluctant speaker, he threw the cat among the pigeons with his implied threat to renege on his retirement decision.
On Wednesday night, the eight FOTA teams once more walked out of a meeting with Mosley, threatening to withdraw their 2010 registrations. Once again, the breakaway threat was in the air.
As the BBC coverage started, a pre-packed report on all the above shenanigans introduced Ari Vatenen as a potential rival to Max Mosley. Vatenen is a former World Rally Champion, which lends him credibility, and is well respected within the sport. In an attempt to raise his profile, he appeared on camera to meet Jake and the boys. Eddie Jordan was asked to interrogate him, and employed his usual incisive line of questioning: “Ari, we’ve known each other for a long time. I’m delighted to see you here. If you were President of the FIA, what would you stand for?”
After Vatenen presented his manifesto without a single challenging question, there was a great little film of Mark Webber meeting the Australian Cricket Team, over in Europe for The Ashes. Ricky Ponting, who is the chippiest of Australians when surrounded by Poms, seemed to get on well with Webber, and they obviously each knew a lot about the other’s sport.
The best moment was when Brett Lee enquired about Webber’s continuing recuperation from a compound fracture of the tibia and fibula with a chirpy, “How’s the leg going mate?” Got to love Australians.
On the track, qualifying was splendidly disrupted by rain. There’s always something exciting about rain at the Grand Prix, especially when it comes and goes during a session.
There’s always one surprise casualty in the first session of qualifying and, this time, it wasn’t Lewis Hamilton. Toyota’s Timo Glock managed to screw up every single hot lap he attempted. Missing a chicane during one lap, then sliding off the track in the next, he ended up racing round in the last minute, needing to improve his time, and, as spots of rain started to appear, the game was up. He will start the race from nineteenth.
Speaking of Lewis Hamilton, Eddie Jordan was actually talking up his chances before qualifying. His strong performance in earlier practice and some much publicised upgrades to the car prompted Jordan to predict a top three result in qualifying. Right on cue, Mercedes bigwig Norbert Haug appeared to make him look foolish, and intoning that this would be a little optimistic. There is controversy though within the team, as Hamilton has got all the upgrades, but his teammate Heikki Kovalainen has not. He is, we are told by Martin Brundle, “silently unhappy.”
The second session started in the rain, with everyone desperate to get out and put in a good lap. The first lap saw Nakajima, Massa, and Hamilton all go off the track, and everyone abandon their plans, coming in for intermediate rain tyres. As the water started to lash the track, they all started again – much more exciting for the blogger, if a little more frustrating for the drivers.
As the rain abated then fell again, Rubens Barrichello combined impeccable timing with good fortune and recorded a lap on dry tyres at just the right moment to take first place by two seconds. Less lucky was Fernando Alonso, who put dry tyres on just in time for the rain to fall again and was rewarded with a spin on his last attempt to qualify.
The final session appeared to restore normal service as the rain stayed off, the track dried out, and the familiar battle between Red Bull and Brawn for pole position was resumed. The driver on pole changed six times in the last minute but it ended Webber, Barrichello, Button, Vettel.
Interesting to see the Brawns performing well against Red Bull because, before qualifying, Ross Brawn had appeared to talk down his team’s chances. With much talk of tyre temperatures and weight distribution, there was an unmistakable pessimism in his voice.
Lewis Hamilton came in fifth which, whilst not quite as good as Eddie Jordan predicted, is no mean feat. It would seem that those upgrades really are making a difference.
Related Articles:
Previous Grand Prix – British Grand Prix
Previous Qualifying Session – British Grand Prix Qualifying
The teams, under the umbrella of the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA), made it very clear that they had no desire to breakaway, but that they felt unable to continue under Mosley’s autocratic leadership style. By giving a name to the problem, they explicitly gave Ecclestone an exit strategy.
After a meeting in Paris on 24th June, it was all over. Mosley emerged proclaiming that a deal had been struck with which all parties were happy – he played the whole thing as a triumph for his own negotiating skills, despite the evidence of the previous three months.
Then the bombshell. He would step down as FIA President at the end of his current term in October. Ecclestone had wielded the knife and, no matter how much he protested that it had always been his intention to stand down, Mosley was covered in blood.
When the detail of the deal was examined, it was nothing more than a non-specific expression of intent to reduce costs. Mosley’s hard and fast budget cap was dead, and lying beside him in the gutter.
Over the next few days the debate moved on to who would replace Mosley, and whether they would have sufficient independence and fortitude to regulate the teams. The pendulum had swung, and, although peace was breaking out, there was still some jockeying for position to be done.
Clearly stung by the humiliation, Mosley last week publicly accused FOTA of “dancing on my grave.” Crucially, he also claimed that he was, “under pressure now from all over the world to stand for re-election.” Painting himself as the reluctant speaker, he threw the cat among the pigeons with his implied threat to renege on his retirement decision.
On Wednesday night, the eight FOTA teams once more walked out of a meeting with Mosley, threatening to withdraw their 2010 registrations. Once again, the breakaway threat was in the air.
As the BBC coverage started, a pre-packed report on all the above shenanigans introduced Ari Vatenen as a potential rival to Max Mosley. Vatenen is a former World Rally Champion, which lends him credibility, and is well respected within the sport. In an attempt to raise his profile, he appeared on camera to meet Jake and the boys. Eddie Jordan was asked to interrogate him, and employed his usual incisive line of questioning: “Ari, we’ve known each other for a long time. I’m delighted to see you here. If you were President of the FIA, what would you stand for?”
After Vatenen presented his manifesto without a single challenging question, there was a great little film of Mark Webber meeting the Australian Cricket Team, over in Europe for The Ashes. Ricky Ponting, who is the chippiest of Australians when surrounded by Poms, seemed to get on well with Webber, and they obviously each knew a lot about the other’s sport.
The best moment was when Brett Lee enquired about Webber’s continuing recuperation from a compound fracture of the tibia and fibula with a chirpy, “How’s the leg going mate?” Got to love Australians.
On the track, qualifying was splendidly disrupted by rain. There’s always something exciting about rain at the Grand Prix, especially when it comes and goes during a session.
There’s always one surprise casualty in the first session of qualifying and, this time, it wasn’t Lewis Hamilton. Toyota’s Timo Glock managed to screw up every single hot lap he attempted. Missing a chicane during one lap, then sliding off the track in the next, he ended up racing round in the last minute, needing to improve his time, and, as spots of rain started to appear, the game was up. He will start the race from nineteenth.
Speaking of Lewis Hamilton, Eddie Jordan was actually talking up his chances before qualifying. His strong performance in earlier practice and some much publicised upgrades to the car prompted Jordan to predict a top three result in qualifying. Right on cue, Mercedes bigwig Norbert Haug appeared to make him look foolish, and intoning that this would be a little optimistic. There is controversy though within the team, as Hamilton has got all the upgrades, but his teammate Heikki Kovalainen has not. He is, we are told by Martin Brundle, “silently unhappy.”
The second session started in the rain, with everyone desperate to get out and put in a good lap. The first lap saw Nakajima, Massa, and Hamilton all go off the track, and everyone abandon their plans, coming in for intermediate rain tyres. As the water started to lash the track, they all started again – much more exciting for the blogger, if a little more frustrating for the drivers.
As the rain abated then fell again, Rubens Barrichello combined impeccable timing with good fortune and recorded a lap on dry tyres at just the right moment to take first place by two seconds. Less lucky was Fernando Alonso, who put dry tyres on just in time for the rain to fall again and was rewarded with a spin on his last attempt to qualify.
The final session appeared to restore normal service as the rain stayed off, the track dried out, and the familiar battle between Red Bull and Brawn for pole position was resumed. The driver on pole changed six times in the last minute but it ended Webber, Barrichello, Button, Vettel.
Interesting to see the Brawns performing well against Red Bull because, before qualifying, Ross Brawn had appeared to talk down his team’s chances. With much talk of tyre temperatures and weight distribution, there was an unmistakable pessimism in his voice.
Lewis Hamilton came in fifth which, whilst not quite as good as Eddie Jordan predicted, is no mean feat. It would seem that those upgrades really are making a difference.
Related Articles:
Previous Grand Prix – British Grand Prix
Previous Qualifying Session – British Grand Prix Qualifying
Sunday, 21 June 2009
British Grand Prix
For reasons that are not particularly important, I found myself on the road during the build-up to today's Grand Prix. When this has happened in the past, I have harnessed the power of Sky Plus and observed radio silence until I have got myself up to date. Today, however, as we were in the car for a couple of hours, I decided to listen to the pre-race nonsense and the race commentary on BBC Radio Five Live.
As it's our home Grand Prix, the BBC had pulled out all the stops and sent Eleanor Oldroyd onto the pit lane, from where she would anchor the afternoon's broadcast. I like Oldroyd – she has experience and ability, and is very well regarded – but she sounded a little overwhelmed as she mingled with the drivers and the celebrities, and presumably avoided Martin Brundle.
I lost count of the times she told us about the accreditation she had which allowed her access to "the paddock, the garages, the very grid itself." I appreciate that this is her first time down there, but when compared to the insouciant Brundle, she came over as a bit of a giddy schoolgirl.
The odd thing about Five Live’s coverage is that they are also paying lip service to other sports so, unlike the television coverage, there were occasional distracting trips to Lord’s to catch up on the women’s cricket.
When the race started, David Croft did a very good job of relating the action and keeping the audience updated with what was going on. When you consider the fantastic amount of data swirling across the screen, not to mention the action itself, it is no mean feat to keep a listener informed. I was impressed.
As was predicted during yesterday's qualifying session, this was a race dominated by Red Bull. More specifically, their young driver Sebastian Vettel bestrode the weekend with a complete performance that invited comparisons with Michael Schumacher.
Starting from pole position, he got to turn one ahead of Rubens Barrichello and led all the way to the chequered flag. His teammate Mark Webber finished second, fifteen seconds back, although he might have given Vettel more of a challenge had he not been held up by Barrichello for the first twenty laps. By the end of the race, a further twenty-six seconds separated Webber from Barrichello in third place.
Jenson Button started poorly and found himself stuck behind the heavier car of Jarno Trulli. He eventually pulled himself to a sixth pace finish but was never in contention. Despite Barrichello’s performance, there has definitely been a transfer of dominant status from Brawn to Red Bull this weekend. What will be interesting now will be Brawn’s ability to react, and, if that fails, whether or not Button has done enough in the first half of the season to hold off the challenge of Vettel.
McLaren's bad run continued as Lewis Hamilton could only finish sixteenth, and Heikki Kovalainen failed to get to the end of the race. The BBC seemed desperate to make the point that, despite the relative failure of the two British drivers, the Silverstone crowd were indefatigable. Praise was given for the standing ovation afforded to the brilliant Vettel as he completed his lap of honour.
I find this more than a little patronising, albeit unsurprising from the BBC. They expect British fans to support British sportspeople to the total exclusion of any appreciation of sporting excellence. This belief is betrayed across their sporting broadcasting – from World Cup football, where half-time of a Spain-Italy game is seen as a good opportunity to have a report from England’s training camp; to the woefully jingoistic Olympic coverage where British medal performances are looped endlessly across the network, and other astounding performances are ignored because they have no impact on our sceptred isle.
Much discussion also, across the BBC, of the imminent departure of the British Grand Prix from the historical site of Silverstone. Next year’s race is due to happen at Donington, but Ecclestone yesterday revealed that Silverstone was on stand-by, should the extensive (and expensive) renovations at Donington fail to be completed on time. The fact that he has acknowledged this so publicly suggests that his faith in Donington is on the wane. Last year, when he made the decision to move to Donington, he said very clearly that there would be no British Grand Prix if Donington weren’t ready on time.
This is a perfect example of the fluid relationship that Formula One’s bosses have with decisions. There are no such things as definites in this game. That’s why I don’t think there will be a breakaway championship next year. The teams have clearly decided that they want a bigger share of the money and are flexing their muscles, but ultimately, everyone will be better off together.
The British Grand Prix this year was a pretty one-sided affair, but from my perspective, it was a novelty. Despite my enjoyment of the radio experience, I do feel somewhat empty without getting my fix of Brundle doorstepping Chief Engineers and Heads of State. In fact, by the end of the race, I had made it to a television and enjoyed the usual back-slapping of the post-race interviews.
I observed with some interest Rubens Barrichello grinning from beneath a goatee beard. Am I the only one that thinks this gives him a disturbing similarity to David Brent?
As it's our home Grand Prix, the BBC had pulled out all the stops and sent Eleanor Oldroyd onto the pit lane, from where she would anchor the afternoon's broadcast. I like Oldroyd – she has experience and ability, and is very well regarded – but she sounded a little overwhelmed as she mingled with the drivers and the celebrities, and presumably avoided Martin Brundle.
I lost count of the times she told us about the accreditation she had which allowed her access to "the paddock, the garages, the very grid itself." I appreciate that this is her first time down there, but when compared to the insouciant Brundle, she came over as a bit of a giddy schoolgirl.
The odd thing about Five Live’s coverage is that they are also paying lip service to other sports so, unlike the television coverage, there were occasional distracting trips to Lord’s to catch up on the women’s cricket.
When the race started, David Croft did a very good job of relating the action and keeping the audience updated with what was going on. When you consider the fantastic amount of data swirling across the screen, not to mention the action itself, it is no mean feat to keep a listener informed. I was impressed.
As was predicted during yesterday's qualifying session, this was a race dominated by Red Bull. More specifically, their young driver Sebastian Vettel bestrode the weekend with a complete performance that invited comparisons with Michael Schumacher.
Starting from pole position, he got to turn one ahead of Rubens Barrichello and led all the way to the chequered flag. His teammate Mark Webber finished second, fifteen seconds back, although he might have given Vettel more of a challenge had he not been held up by Barrichello for the first twenty laps. By the end of the race, a further twenty-six seconds separated Webber from Barrichello in third place.
Jenson Button started poorly and found himself stuck behind the heavier car of Jarno Trulli. He eventually pulled himself to a sixth pace finish but was never in contention. Despite Barrichello’s performance, there has definitely been a transfer of dominant status from Brawn to Red Bull this weekend. What will be interesting now will be Brawn’s ability to react, and, if that fails, whether or not Button has done enough in the first half of the season to hold off the challenge of Vettel.
McLaren's bad run continued as Lewis Hamilton could only finish sixteenth, and Heikki Kovalainen failed to get to the end of the race. The BBC seemed desperate to make the point that, despite the relative failure of the two British drivers, the Silverstone crowd were indefatigable. Praise was given for the standing ovation afforded to the brilliant Vettel as he completed his lap of honour.
I find this more than a little patronising, albeit unsurprising from the BBC. They expect British fans to support British sportspeople to the total exclusion of any appreciation of sporting excellence. This belief is betrayed across their sporting broadcasting – from World Cup football, where half-time of a Spain-Italy game is seen as a good opportunity to have a report from England’s training camp; to the woefully jingoistic Olympic coverage where British medal performances are looped endlessly across the network, and other astounding performances are ignored because they have no impact on our sceptred isle.
Much discussion also, across the BBC, of the imminent departure of the British Grand Prix from the historical site of Silverstone. Next year’s race is due to happen at Donington, but Ecclestone yesterday revealed that Silverstone was on stand-by, should the extensive (and expensive) renovations at Donington fail to be completed on time. The fact that he has acknowledged this so publicly suggests that his faith in Donington is on the wane. Last year, when he made the decision to move to Donington, he said very clearly that there would be no British Grand Prix if Donington weren’t ready on time.
This is a perfect example of the fluid relationship that Formula One’s bosses have with decisions. There are no such things as definites in this game. That’s why I don’t think there will be a breakaway championship next year. The teams have clearly decided that they want a bigger share of the money and are flexing their muscles, but ultimately, everyone will be better off together.
The British Grand Prix this year was a pretty one-sided affair, but from my perspective, it was a novelty. Despite my enjoyment of the radio experience, I do feel somewhat empty without getting my fix of Brundle doorstepping Chief Engineers and Heads of State. In fact, by the end of the race, I had made it to a television and enjoyed the usual back-slapping of the post-race interviews.
I observed with some interest Rubens Barrichello grinning from beneath a goatee beard. Am I the only one that thinks this gives him a disturbing similarity to David Brent?
Saturday, 20 June 2009
British Grand Prix Qualifying
The politics of this sport are starting to get out of hand – “meltdown” appears to be the word de jour. Over the last few weeks, it has seemed that every time the teams try to make a conciliatory gesture towards the FIA, its President Max Mosley dug his heels in even deeper and refused to budge. Finally this week, the teams called his bluff in spectacular style.
I wonder if Mosley takes this approach when negotiating with sado-masochistic prostitutes. "I will be paying £1000 for the full whipping service but there will be absolutely no Nazi symbolism. You prostitutes are perfectly at liberty to pursue your own Nazi sex games, but, if you are participating in my dungeon, then there are rules to which you must adhere." Very strict rules I presume.
Anyway, I digress. The point is that, after Williams defected from the official line of the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) line and signed up for 2010, the other teams followed, albeit with the condition that they might withdraw if they were unhappy with the final regulations.
Of course this meant that they had not really signed up at all, and Mosley insisted that all teams give an unconditional assurance that they will race next year by Friday – coincidentally the first day of practice at Silverstone.
In response, five of the most militant teams – McLaren, Renault, Brawn, Toyota and BMW – initially went over Mosley's head and wrote to the FIA Senate (I swear I'm not making this up), asking them to calm down their man. Last weekend, the President of Ferrari Luca di Montezemolo ostentatiously appeared at Le Mans last weekend, acting as official starter of the Twenty-Four Hour Race and, by his presence, dropping a broad hint that there could be life beyond F1 for Ferrari.
Mosley reiterated his position on the £40m budget-cap, offering a conciliatory “stepping-stone” budget of £86m in 2010. On Thursday, in response to this lack of movement, FOTA dropped their bombshell by announcing their plans to set up their own rival series of races. Eight teams – all of the current grid except Force India and Williams (who have signed up unconditionally for 2010) – have withdrawn their conditional entries, and are now moving forward with their separatist plans.
The general feeling within the sport appears to be that the warring factions will eventually be brought together, but plenty of opportunities for compromise have already been spurned, and the opinion is forming that only Bernie Ecclestone has the influence to bring things together.
Ignoring the imminent meltdown of their sport, the BBC kicked off with some expensively shot VT of Jake Humphrey and Eddie Jordan in a hot air balloon, overflying Silverstone. Jordan let it slip that his kids had gone to nearby Stowe school – I’ll bet they loved him there. I mean, he’s not real money is he? The don’t really like his sort – he’s Irish, mouthy, oikish and steadfastly refuses to call himself Edward. They probably blame his kids for the Swine Flu outbreak.
Jake has had a busy week – as well as his hot air balloon experience, he also took Jenson Button around the Silverstone track in a 4x4. Like an excited child, Jake managed to put the car onto the grass, much to Button’s evident terror. I don’t know how much the BBC are paying for their F1 coverage, but I hope their insurance covers the claim that would follow their presenter driving the World Championship leader into a tyre wall.
Finally, we got a microphone under the nose of Bernie Ecclestone. The man gives the most bizarre interview. He greets every question with a combination of straight-bat bemusement, and surreal pauses. Eventually he warmed up, with a little help from a fulminating Eddie Jordan, insisting that Bernie should “bang heads together.”
For what its worth, I reckon he will do just that. Money talks, and he’s the one that hands it out.
On the track, Brundle seemed to hint that Brawn could be on the rack this weekend – the feeling was that the other teams had done a lot of hard work to make up the gap over the last few weeks and the challenge to their dominance would be strong.
The evidence of the qualifying session seemed to back that up as the Brawn cars struggled in the early sessions, whilst Red Bull in particular, looked very strong. We are told they are using a new nose cone and rear diffuser. Whatever it was, it did the trick, as Sebastian Vettel won his second consecutive pole position.
Rubens Barrichello kept up the Brawn end though by finishing on the front row. Mark Webber took the other Red Bull to third, but Jenson Button could only manage sixth. The Williams cars, the scabs of the paddock, did very well too, challenging in each session and, in the end, Nakajima and Rosberg finished fifth and seventh respectively.
At the other end of the grid, Lewis Hamilton once again failed to get out of the first qualifying session. He was a little unlucky as an Adrian Sutil crash effectively curtailed the session whilst he was on his qualifying lap, but he was in that position because his earlier effort had been so poor. His team mate Heikki Kovalainen could only manage thirteenth on the grid, so the conclusion is not that Hamilton has suddenly become a bad driver, but that the McLaren has suddenly become a bad car. On board camera footage showed both drivers struggling to keep the car on the road through corners.
Ferrari were still off the pace with Felipe Massa failing to make the top ten, and Kimi Raikkonen finishing ninth.
I wonder if Mosley takes this approach when negotiating with sado-masochistic prostitutes. "I will be paying £1000 for the full whipping service but there will be absolutely no Nazi symbolism. You prostitutes are perfectly at liberty to pursue your own Nazi sex games, but, if you are participating in my dungeon, then there are rules to which you must adhere." Very strict rules I presume.
Anyway, I digress. The point is that, after Williams defected from the official line of the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA) line and signed up for 2010, the other teams followed, albeit with the condition that they might withdraw if they were unhappy with the final regulations.
Of course this meant that they had not really signed up at all, and Mosley insisted that all teams give an unconditional assurance that they will race next year by Friday – coincidentally the first day of practice at Silverstone.
In response, five of the most militant teams – McLaren, Renault, Brawn, Toyota and BMW – initially went over Mosley's head and wrote to the FIA Senate (I swear I'm not making this up), asking them to calm down their man. Last weekend, the President of Ferrari Luca di Montezemolo ostentatiously appeared at Le Mans last weekend, acting as official starter of the Twenty-Four Hour Race and, by his presence, dropping a broad hint that there could be life beyond F1 for Ferrari.
Mosley reiterated his position on the £40m budget-cap, offering a conciliatory “stepping-stone” budget of £86m in 2010. On Thursday, in response to this lack of movement, FOTA dropped their bombshell by announcing their plans to set up their own rival series of races. Eight teams – all of the current grid except Force India and Williams (who have signed up unconditionally for 2010) – have withdrawn their conditional entries, and are now moving forward with their separatist plans.
The general feeling within the sport appears to be that the warring factions will eventually be brought together, but plenty of opportunities for compromise have already been spurned, and the opinion is forming that only Bernie Ecclestone has the influence to bring things together.
Ignoring the imminent meltdown of their sport, the BBC kicked off with some expensively shot VT of Jake Humphrey and Eddie Jordan in a hot air balloon, overflying Silverstone. Jordan let it slip that his kids had gone to nearby Stowe school – I’ll bet they loved him there. I mean, he’s not real money is he? The don’t really like his sort – he’s Irish, mouthy, oikish and steadfastly refuses to call himself Edward. They probably blame his kids for the Swine Flu outbreak.
Jake has had a busy week – as well as his hot air balloon experience, he also took Jenson Button around the Silverstone track in a 4x4. Like an excited child, Jake managed to put the car onto the grass, much to Button’s evident terror. I don’t know how much the BBC are paying for their F1 coverage, but I hope their insurance covers the claim that would follow their presenter driving the World Championship leader into a tyre wall.
Finally, we got a microphone under the nose of Bernie Ecclestone. The man gives the most bizarre interview. He greets every question with a combination of straight-bat bemusement, and surreal pauses. Eventually he warmed up, with a little help from a fulminating Eddie Jordan, insisting that Bernie should “bang heads together.”
For what its worth, I reckon he will do just that. Money talks, and he’s the one that hands it out.
On the track, Brundle seemed to hint that Brawn could be on the rack this weekend – the feeling was that the other teams had done a lot of hard work to make up the gap over the last few weeks and the challenge to their dominance would be strong.
The evidence of the qualifying session seemed to back that up as the Brawn cars struggled in the early sessions, whilst Red Bull in particular, looked very strong. We are told they are using a new nose cone and rear diffuser. Whatever it was, it did the trick, as Sebastian Vettel won his second consecutive pole position.
Rubens Barrichello kept up the Brawn end though by finishing on the front row. Mark Webber took the other Red Bull to third, but Jenson Button could only manage sixth. The Williams cars, the scabs of the paddock, did very well too, challenging in each session and, in the end, Nakajima and Rosberg finished fifth and seventh respectively.
At the other end of the grid, Lewis Hamilton once again failed to get out of the first qualifying session. He was a little unlucky as an Adrian Sutil crash effectively curtailed the session whilst he was on his qualifying lap, but he was in that position because his earlier effort had been so poor. His team mate Heikki Kovalainen could only manage thirteenth on the grid, so the conclusion is not that Hamilton has suddenly become a bad driver, but that the McLaren has suddenly become a bad car. On board camera footage showed both drivers struggling to keep the car on the road through corners.
Ferrari were still off the pace with Felipe Massa failing to make the top ten, and Kimi Raikkonen finishing ninth.
Sunday, 7 June 2009
Turkish Grand Prix
The fuss made about Turn Eight was extraordinary. The facts are that it is a seven second hurl around a constant turn which puts the driver’s neck under pressure of 5g and is physically the toughest corner in the year. Obviously, that’s hard work, but from the BBC coverage, you would be forgiven for thinking that the track was designed by Darth Vader. Following yesterday’s gym-based neck exercises with Lewis Hamilton, today the evil corner was invoked in just about every pre-race interview. The angle of drivers’ helmets as they went round was analysed at some length.
Out in the pit lane, Jake was a little skittish as this is an anticlockwise course meaning that, like an American tourist on Oxford Street, he was almost killed on several occasions.
He quickly handed over to Brundle for his pit walk. Seeking to add a little housewife’s favourite glamour, he took Coulthard with him this week and, sure enough, the big man seemed to open a few doors with no-one refusing to speak to them this week. Even Naomi Campbell was persuaded to give her half-baked, monosyllabic, ignorant opinion.
Jenson Button gave the appearance of being incredibly relaxed. It is extraordinary really that any of the drivers are willing to chat with media and VIPs so soon before the race, but Button was (literally) chilling in his ice vest and laughing and joking – the relaxed air of a winner.
I would have expected the BBC to have had Eddie Jordan interviewing the Turkish Prime Minister and asking him pointed questions about the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Sadly though, Eddie sycophantic interview of the week didn’t happen today.
At the start, Rubens Barrichello got moving about as fast as my grandmother and lost about ten places, whilst Sebastian Vettel went wide on the exit of turn ten during the first lap to give Jenson Button the lead. Button subsequently started to set record laps and it seemed that another procession was on the cards.
After the first pit stops, however, Vettel came back at him, lapping three quarters of a second faster, catching him, and then crawling over the back end of Button’s Brawn but he couldn’t get past and, when he pitted for a second time, he left the race wide open for Button.
The real drama of the race came with Jenson’s team mate, Barrichello. Having had such a terrible start, he dropped to thirteenth then went kamikaze, bumping Sutil and falling to seventeenth, then bumping Piquet and having to go into the pits for a new front wing. I would have been quite happy to watch Barrichello all day rampaging his way around the back markers. Eventually, as he tussled for fourteenth place, the fact that he had lost seventh gear became too much to bear, and he discreetly withdrew.
Also there was a great tussle down the field between Lewis Hamilton and Nelson Piquet. Nelsinho, as Jake insists on calling him is having a very bad season. Apart from his burdensome name, he has crashed more times than he’s finished, he’s continuously performed badly in qualifying and he has scored no points. Compared to team mate Fernando Alonso’s eleven points, he is coming under increasing pressure to perform.
To make matters worse, he works for Flavio Briatore – the Renault team boss is not afraid to criticise his drivers in public, and not averse to sacking them half way through a season. Having been overtaken by Hamilton, he ultimately finished sixteenth of eighteen finishers. It’s hard to see where the first point will come from.
The next race is in two weeks at Silverstone. Button will be hoping to add to the six Grands Prix he has under his belt this year by winning his home race. Expect there to be much speculation over the Donington future of the race, and, I am hoping, the return to form of Eddie Jordan.
Out in the pit lane, Jake was a little skittish as this is an anticlockwise course meaning that, like an American tourist on Oxford Street, he was almost killed on several occasions.
He quickly handed over to Brundle for his pit walk. Seeking to add a little housewife’s favourite glamour, he took Coulthard with him this week and, sure enough, the big man seemed to open a few doors with no-one refusing to speak to them this week. Even Naomi Campbell was persuaded to give her half-baked, monosyllabic, ignorant opinion.
Jenson Button gave the appearance of being incredibly relaxed. It is extraordinary really that any of the drivers are willing to chat with media and VIPs so soon before the race, but Button was (literally) chilling in his ice vest and laughing and joking – the relaxed air of a winner.
I would have expected the BBC to have had Eddie Jordan interviewing the Turkish Prime Minister and asking him pointed questions about the Armenian Genocide of 1915. Sadly though, Eddie sycophantic interview of the week didn’t happen today.
At the start, Rubens Barrichello got moving about as fast as my grandmother and lost about ten places, whilst Sebastian Vettel went wide on the exit of turn ten during the first lap to give Jenson Button the lead. Button subsequently started to set record laps and it seemed that another procession was on the cards.
After the first pit stops, however, Vettel came back at him, lapping three quarters of a second faster, catching him, and then crawling over the back end of Button’s Brawn but he couldn’t get past and, when he pitted for a second time, he left the race wide open for Button.
The real drama of the race came with Jenson’s team mate, Barrichello. Having had such a terrible start, he dropped to thirteenth then went kamikaze, bumping Sutil and falling to seventeenth, then bumping Piquet and having to go into the pits for a new front wing. I would have been quite happy to watch Barrichello all day rampaging his way around the back markers. Eventually, as he tussled for fourteenth place, the fact that he had lost seventh gear became too much to bear, and he discreetly withdrew.
Also there was a great tussle down the field between Lewis Hamilton and Nelson Piquet. Nelsinho, as Jake insists on calling him is having a very bad season. Apart from his burdensome name, he has crashed more times than he’s finished, he’s continuously performed badly in qualifying and he has scored no points. Compared to team mate Fernando Alonso’s eleven points, he is coming under increasing pressure to perform.
To make matters worse, he works for Flavio Briatore – the Renault team boss is not afraid to criticise his drivers in public, and not averse to sacking them half way through a season. Having been overtaken by Hamilton, he ultimately finished sixteenth of eighteen finishers. It’s hard to see where the first point will come from.
The next race is in two weeks at Silverstone. Button will be hoping to add to the six Grands Prix he has under his belt this year by winning his home race. Expect there to be much speculation over the Donington future of the race, and, I am hoping, the return to form of Eddie Jordan.
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Turkish GP Qualifying
Since Monte Carlo, the teams have been trying to show some solidarity against Max Mosley. Their exclusive little club, FOTA, had universally rallied around Ferrari’s militant position in opposition to Mosley’s proposed budget cap. Unfortunately, the façade crumbled when Frank Williams broke ranks and signed up for the 2010 season, in direct opposition to the agreed FOTA line.
I realise that FOTA is hardly the National Union of Mineworkers, but a scab is a scab, and Williams were promptly chucked out of FOTA. The damage was done though, and the other teams went on to sign up for 2010, albeit conditional on the negotiations which still continue.
Mosley has received ten applications from new teams to compete under new budget cap rules so, in theory at least, a championship could go ahead next year without the FOTA teams. But it would be a weak championship for being without all the big names of the grid. The danger then comes from a rival series where the FOTA teams set up an alternative championship. This is a very real possibility as this struggle for power at the top of F1 unfolds.
As the teams reconvened in Turkey, Flavio Briatore spoke in an uncharacteristically conciliatory tone. “We do not want a war,” said the Renault boss, “we want governance, the F1 Commission, a Concorde Agreement and stability. We want cost-cutting.”
Back on the track, Felipe Massa had already conceded the world championships before we reached Turkey. Admitting that Brawn were uncatchable may well be acknowledging the truth, but it would probably have been helpful to Ferrari team morale if he had kept his mouth shut, at least until after the half way point of the season. The irony of his timing was that all the pundits seemed to think the Turkish track suited Ferrari, and that they would have a good weekend.
For qualifying, Jake and the boys were safely back in pit lane, having been rescued from their Monte Carlo yacht exile. Although there was a feature with Jake in the gym being beasted by a supremely fit Lewis Hamilton.
Eddie Jordan seemed supremely confident that all would be well with the wrangling at the top of the sport, whilst Coulthard wanted to move the conversation on, and talk about how brilliant Jenson Button is.
When Q1 got started, the supremely fit Lewis Hamilton failed to get in the top fifteen for the second race in a row. The second consecutive race that he has comprehensively failed to even give himself a chance of points. I know he’s the World Champion, but he is driving around like a nervous schoolgirl in qualifying. In fairness to him, his teammate Heikki Kovalainen only managed to qualify in fourteenth so the McLaren car is performing like one of their push chairs.
In the end, the session was dominated once again by Red Bull and Brawn. Their young stars Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button qualifying first and second respectively, with their older team mates Rubens Barrichello and Mark Webber starting behind them.
By out-qualifying Button, Vettel has given himself an opportunity to really give the championship favourite a race. Turkey is a great track for racing, and I am looking forward to a good race tomorrow.
I realise that FOTA is hardly the National Union of Mineworkers, but a scab is a scab, and Williams were promptly chucked out of FOTA. The damage was done though, and the other teams went on to sign up for 2010, albeit conditional on the negotiations which still continue.
Mosley has received ten applications from new teams to compete under new budget cap rules so, in theory at least, a championship could go ahead next year without the FOTA teams. But it would be a weak championship for being without all the big names of the grid. The danger then comes from a rival series where the FOTA teams set up an alternative championship. This is a very real possibility as this struggle for power at the top of F1 unfolds.
As the teams reconvened in Turkey, Flavio Briatore spoke in an uncharacteristically conciliatory tone. “We do not want a war,” said the Renault boss, “we want governance, the F1 Commission, a Concorde Agreement and stability. We want cost-cutting.”
Back on the track, Felipe Massa had already conceded the world championships before we reached Turkey. Admitting that Brawn were uncatchable may well be acknowledging the truth, but it would probably have been helpful to Ferrari team morale if he had kept his mouth shut, at least until after the half way point of the season. The irony of his timing was that all the pundits seemed to think the Turkish track suited Ferrari, and that they would have a good weekend.
For qualifying, Jake and the boys were safely back in pit lane, having been rescued from their Monte Carlo yacht exile. Although there was a feature with Jake in the gym being beasted by a supremely fit Lewis Hamilton.
Eddie Jordan seemed supremely confident that all would be well with the wrangling at the top of the sport, whilst Coulthard wanted to move the conversation on, and talk about how brilliant Jenson Button is.
When Q1 got started, the supremely fit Lewis Hamilton failed to get in the top fifteen for the second race in a row. The second consecutive race that he has comprehensively failed to even give himself a chance of points. I know he’s the World Champion, but he is driving around like a nervous schoolgirl in qualifying. In fairness to him, his teammate Heikki Kovalainen only managed to qualify in fourteenth so the McLaren car is performing like one of their push chairs.
In the end, the session was dominated once again by Red Bull and Brawn. Their young stars Sebastian Vettel and Jenson Button qualifying first and second respectively, with their older team mates Rubens Barrichello and Mark Webber starting behind them.
By out-qualifying Button, Vettel has given himself an opportunity to really give the championship favourite a race. Turkey is a great track for racing, and I am looking forward to a good race tomorrow.
Sunday, 24 May 2009
Monaco Grand Prix
The BBC were always going to milk Monte Carlo for all it was worth and, sure enough, the coverage began with a package in which they had put Jake Humphrey in front of a green screen and superimposed him onto some archive footage of great drivers being interviewed. It was a quirky little sequence that made good use of the BBC archive, but in his efforts to make it look realistic, poor old Jake ended up nodding like a dashboard ornament.
We quickly moved onto images of Monte Carlo wealth and opulence juxtaposed with scrabbling fans fighting for a portion of mountainside from which to gawp at the race from a distance. Inadvertent social comment from the BBC – good to see.
There was an all too brief Max Mosley interview where he dropped a very broad hint that the budget cap would be in place by 2011, rather than the original plan of next year. Jake said apologetically that there wasn’t time to cover the potential breakup of the sport, so they cut quickly to a bleating interview with Nigel Mansell.
Brundle was in his element on his grid walk. Because the grid is actually a Monte Carlo street with very little room on either side, the usual engineers and hangers-on were all crushed into a smaller space. Add to that the fact that Monaco brings out the celebrities in their droves, and Brundle doorstepped the most unlikely sequence of people you are ever likely to see in a five minute timespan.
Firstly, he chatted to former driver Jacques Villeneuve, looking as happy as a kid who’d won the lottery; then he grabbed Prince Michael of Kent, a man who has won the lottery of life. Apparently the Prince’s status as patron of the RAC is enough to earn him the chance to strut around the grid – I’ll bet he isn’t camping on the side of a mountain.
From his Highness, Brundle moved onto Michael Johnson, a man who has an air of expertise when talking about anything at all. You get the impression you could ask him about the impact of the Wars of The Roses on Britain’s sixteenth century internationalism, and he would have an opinion, which he would deliver with all the authority of an Emeritus Professor of History. Next was Geri Halliwell, who was predictably chatting to the richest man in the city, Bernie Ecclestone. She seemed to phase even Brundle with her relentless banality.
The race started well for Brawn with Button holding his first position, and Barrichello overtaking Raikkonen going into the first bend. After that, it seemed to be a formality. In a great phrase from Brundle, he was toying with them like a cat with a ball of string. Barrichello lived a little more dangerously, with Raikkonen nibbling at him throughout, but another Brawn one-two was almost inevitable.
This might have been the race where Ferrari rescued their reputation. From Raikkonen’s front row qualification, they showed they were in the race and, aside from the Brawns, Raikkonen and Massa were by far the best on the track.
Another title contender Sebastian Vettel was running well until he went into the barrier in an almost identical slide to Hamilton’s in qualifying. Oddly, it wasn’t quite as funny when he did it.
We quickly moved onto images of Monte Carlo wealth and opulence juxtaposed with scrabbling fans fighting for a portion of mountainside from which to gawp at the race from a distance. Inadvertent social comment from the BBC – good to see.
There was an all too brief Max Mosley interview where he dropped a very broad hint that the budget cap would be in place by 2011, rather than the original plan of next year. Jake said apologetically that there wasn’t time to cover the potential breakup of the sport, so they cut quickly to a bleating interview with Nigel Mansell.
Brundle was in his element on his grid walk. Because the grid is actually a Monte Carlo street with very little room on either side, the usual engineers and hangers-on were all crushed into a smaller space. Add to that the fact that Monaco brings out the celebrities in their droves, and Brundle doorstepped the most unlikely sequence of people you are ever likely to see in a five minute timespan.
Firstly, he chatted to former driver Jacques Villeneuve, looking as happy as a kid who’d won the lottery; then he grabbed Prince Michael of Kent, a man who has won the lottery of life. Apparently the Prince’s status as patron of the RAC is enough to earn him the chance to strut around the grid – I’ll bet he isn’t camping on the side of a mountain.
From his Highness, Brundle moved onto Michael Johnson, a man who has an air of expertise when talking about anything at all. You get the impression you could ask him about the impact of the Wars of The Roses on Britain’s sixteenth century internationalism, and he would have an opinion, which he would deliver with all the authority of an Emeritus Professor of History. Next was Geri Halliwell, who was predictably chatting to the richest man in the city, Bernie Ecclestone. She seemed to phase even Brundle with her relentless banality.
The race started well for Brawn with Button holding his first position, and Barrichello overtaking Raikkonen going into the first bend. After that, it seemed to be a formality. In a great phrase from Brundle, he was toying with them like a cat with a ball of string. Barrichello lived a little more dangerously, with Raikkonen nibbling at him throughout, but another Brawn one-two was almost inevitable.
This might have been the race where Ferrari rescued their reputation. From Raikkonen’s front row qualification, they showed they were in the race and, aside from the Brawns, Raikkonen and Massa were by far the best on the track.
Another title contender Sebastian Vettel was running well until he went into the barrier in an almost identical slide to Hamilton’s in qualifying. Oddly, it wasn’t quite as funny when he did it.
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