Once in front, Alonso drove like a champion, defended his position well and increased the lead. Sometime he had to be told from pitwall that Rosberg is pretty far and he does not need to push hard. The way Alonso was using kerbs, cutting corners on this bumpy track, it was spectacular. He had a bit of scare just 10 laps to go when Adrian Sutil had a big shunt, Safety car was deployed once again and this time, Nico from P2 and Hamilton from P3 were on his back, when safety car was removed Alosno responded well and made sure he takes the chequered flag. This was his first win after he left McLaren and Renault’s first win in last 2 years.

This would be day TIFOSIs would like to forget, nothing went right after qualifying. First Massa’s car got some debris, then he had an incident in pits because of miscommunication resulting in injury to pit crew and a drive through penalty for himself. Kimi needed badly to overcome his bad form but luck was not in his favor, he was doing well at P5 and pushing for P4, but had a minor imbalance, jumped over the kerbs and hit the wall. Hamilton also drove very well, but once he knew Massa was out of points he reduced his aggression to make sure he will lead the Championship.

Magnificent View of Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore.

We cannot end the post without talking about Nico Rosberg, this is his best performation ever and its well deserved too. He drove very well and made sure was away from incidents and for last 8 laps did not allow Hamilton, who was in much faster car to overtake.  Another disappointing day for Force India, they had not been able to perform as compared to what they were doing in start of the season. They might end up not scoring any points this season. Fisichella had good chance, when he was in P3 after first safety car. But he had a long pit stop, filled the car to brim and it was very hard to balance the car.

Championship run is over for Kimi, currently Hamilton is leading from Massa by 7 points and any mistake from Hamilton can turn the Championship in favor of Massa. Constructor championship is still open, first time this season McLaren is ahead of Ferrari. Kimi and Massa had to make sure they end up in points position in remaining races to win Championship.

Race started with Hamilton and Kimi in row 2 and wet conditions. Hamilton took the advantage in the beginning and climbed up to 2 positions but Heikki drove well to keep Hamilton away. Conditions were very tricky on back of the grid with all the rubber from tracked washed out because of overnight rains. Webber lost him place in first lap itself and for rest of the race he was trying to climb up again. Heikki had a spin and Hamilton took advantage of it to get into lead.

Alonso was one of the first to pit in and surprisingly did not take a new set of tyres (still I don’t understand why) and had to struggle throughout the race after that. Kimi and Hamilton pitted together and it seemed Kimi will take the lead but a brilliant stop by McLaren ensured that Hamilton maintains the lead.  Just to get track position Kimi did not take new tyres but that strategy backfired for Ferrari.

Tricky Conditions

Honda was looking extremely bad, they did not have any grip and car was very unstable. Before the race Button had said only rain can help us, and exactly same happened but for another Honda drive, Rubens who drove brilliant to get that last place on podium. Another struggling team was Williams and nothing went right there way, Nakajima has to be content with P7.

Race start was normal without incidents, but it was Adrian Sutil’s car which stalled at dangerous position and Safety car had to be deployed. Hamilton, Kimi, Kubica, Nico, Alonso pitted at same time, but then disaster happened. Kimi and Kubica were waiting for pit light to go green and Hamilton came from behind and banged into Kimi’s car and then Rosburg banged into Hamilton’s car, that was race over for Kimi and Hamilton, Nico had to get a new nose wing and rejoined the race. [Update: Hamilton and Nico have been penalized 10 grid places for French GP]

After that it was Kubica all the way, he was driving race of his life. Heidfeld was struggling but still managed to put everyone behind, thanks to BMWs straight line pace. Alonso was as usual very aggressive and was expecting a podium but mechanical failure caused his retirement. Massa was also very aggressive and made some wonderful overtaking moves, but he was facing some fuel filling issues and had to settle for P5 behind Timo Glock.

Morale from this race is: if we take out Ferrari’s and McLaren’s out of the race (or ask them to start from behind the grid) the race is much more interesting.

Race started with a bit of hesitation by Massa and Hamilton took advantage to snatched P2 from Kimi, Alonso also took the advantage and gained 2 places by first corner itself. Meanwhile Heikki had to start from the pits and it seemed race over for him. Alonso and Hamilton had a punctured tyre as they hit the wall, but regained the positions. Alonso was very aggressive and overtook Webber but after 2 laps he tried an ambitious overtake (inner line) over Nico and had a collision, they both had to pit and joined the back of the pack. Race never seemed to be dull, every turn was exciting and every overtake maneuver was delight for fans. Massa slipped from P1 to escape route but joined in P2 behind Kubica who was driving brilliantly. Hamilton’s first tyre puncture proved to be helpful as he has taken fuel and could use that as an advantage.

Most important part of race was Adrian Sutil for Force India, he was driving brilliantly and avoiding any incidents. He had climbed to P4 when Nico had a big shunt and safety car had to be deployed. After safety car the positions were Hamilton, Kubica, Massa, Sutil and Kimi. It seemed Sutil was all set for a P4 but aggressive drive by Kimi ended his run when he crashed into Sutil’s car while coming out of tunnel. That was a sad moment and commentators described Sutil’s situation perfectly as ‘inconsolable’.

Rosburg and Alonso drove very well in bad conditions, but sadly could not finish in points. Massa’s one mistake lost him P1 and I don’t want to comment on Kimi’s mistake.

Force India’s best ever performance ]]> http://veetrag.net/f1/2008/04/bahrain-gp-review-ferrari-rules/feed/ 0 http://veetrag.net/f1/2008/03/malaysian-gp-review-unmatchable-scarlets/ http://veetrag.net/f1/2008/03/malaysian-gp-review-unmatchable-scarlets/#comments Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:30:00 +0000 veetrag http://veetrag.net/f1/?p=59 When Ferrari dominated in Qualifying people were saying they might be running light, but it was all proved wrong with superb pace on Sunday. Ferraris were the fastest, 1 second faster than any other car on track. The results were bang on target as predicted (I bet my money on KR winner, one of the BMWs and McLaren on Podium, Alonso either 5-6, problems for Williams).

The race was a real challenge for Hamilton, he is always the best starting from first row, and it was a test for him. He did fairly well but was hampered by a bad pit stop and some excellent driving by Mark Webber. But with a track like Sepang where 4 cars can go side by side and there are plenty of overtaking opportunities, it was not a good drive by Hamilton; he should have gone up to third position with the way car is performing.

It was Alonso again who was brining out 100% from his car and the way he is driving he is earning fans at faster rate than he lost last year. I am sure by end of the seasons Renault can give him a better car and he will start fighting for podium. It’s nice to see Alonso letting his driving do that talking.

Man of the Race: Mark Webber for his excellent drive and the way he defended his position from much faster Hamilton for more than 20 laps and then from Alonso in dying stages of the race.

Move of the Race: Fernando Alonso for his brilliant move in first few laps when quick Nick, DC and Alonso were side by side on long straight.

Looser of the Race: Filipe Massa for losing the brilliant chance to score some nice points, he beat Rosberg who had an extremely poor run.

PS: Covering the race live @F1 is so much fun, I am getting to interact with lot of new people.

Amidst all this, we did forget to post our race previews and analysis. Well, I am not going to write about them all here. As far as the race weekend was, it was a pretty straightforward victory for Ferrari. Kimi mentioned that there were absolutely no problems anywhere. He is set to scare Alonso/Hamilton till the end of the championships. Ferrari secure the constructors title.

I was thinking of something different. I re-read the WMSC decision statement from the FIA website. I did read it once before on Sunday. I now have a lot of questions on my mind:

1. Drivers and technicians are shown discussing about a rival car design using their corporate e-mail facility. As members of the corporate themselves, don’t they know that this is confidential information that is being discussed and they shouldn’t do it over a monitored facility?

Assume that they know. It’s easy to assume this, as they are employees of a high business, one of the best in business. Then, one of the reasons that they still did it, could be that it’s something that happes and everyone does it anyways. One of the commentators on Sunday’s race was furious over the decision handed out to McLaren saying that this is something that goes on everywhere, be it over corporate e-mail or over the paddock chats. Then why should McLaren be punished so heavily?

If this is really true, then I would say that the WMSC did a wonderful job of bringing the axe on McLaren to curb any such activity in future. But, is there any monitoring mechanism to detect this? Can anyone be sure at all?

2. Why did Stepney do it?
I guess this question is answerd to an extent. I read somewhere that he wasn’t moved up the ladder when someone else whom he thought didn’t deserve it was moved up. Fair enough for him, maybe.

3. Why did Coughlan do it? Why did Alonso & Pedro support him?
I guess this is tied to question 1; maybe this is something that happens everytime and everywhere?

4. Was Hamilton really not a part of it? No one knows the answer to this.

I’m happy, along with all the fans of the F1 world that things came to a close last weekend.

Or have they, really?

The prelude:

• There was scarlet everywhere. The grandstands, people’s clothes, even the special safety car was a Ferrari scarlet. There were Tifosi everywhere.
• The day was bright and sunny. But the spy scandal clouds loomed large over certain teams at the paddock.
• Kimi Raikkonnen pushes as hard as possible and crashes his car during practice. Massa plays a relatively conservative role till qualifying.
• The McLarens set Monza on fire all the way to find themselves on the front row of the starting grid.

The race:

• I loved Massa’s rage; despite being pushed onto the grass, he overtook Hamilton for the second spot. But wasn’t for long. Never mind. It’s part of racing.
• Mechanical failure for Massa. Tough to take on, hard to believe it could’ve happened at Monza, but still, it’s part of racing. Disappointment for the fans and the engineers too, but it’s some learning for Massa’s race engineers. Technology, testing, improvisation is all they think about. They sure would’ve been utterly disappointed, but still, it’s technology and mechanics they’re more interested in.
• Kimi, his car, his engineers and Ferrari’s strategy: I stand up to salute them. It was by far the bravest effort put up by the team. On such a tough and scorching track, going for the one-stop strategy, with heavier fuel and hard tyres on the second stint. I can’t find words to appreciate them! Look at the track; you have corners where you brake from 350 kmph! How tough it must have been on the brakes! Kimi’s done a wonderful job by taking the car in one piece across the start-finish line. The team knows they’ve done their best.
• Alonso. Look at the way he drove in the few laps before he was supposed to pit for the second time. Driven by his own instinct, further fuelled by the fact that Kimi is on a one-stop strategy, and more impeded by Hamilton behind he’s provided us some real good display of perfect racing. I hope he gets into the best team for him next year!
• BMW: going stronger by the race weekend. They should be serious competitors next year. Heidfeld is as consistent as ever. Kubica picked up in the latter half of this season.

The end:
Yeah, it’s humiliating. No Ferrari on top. McLaren 1-2 adds salt to the wound.

The future:

• Many sides are waiting with varied expectations for September 13
• Formula One fans are waiting for the treat of the season in Spa this weekend! If Monza is the “hottest” track on the calendar, Spa is not lesser! The settings, environment and the atmosphere at Spa are nonetheless fascinating. So, Spa Francorchamps it will be. In less than a week.