F1-Blog

Spain goes mad

A good day was had by the Spanish on Sunday. The fans where treated to a free breakfast at Barcelona so they could watch Danni Pedrosa win the Chinese MotoGP race, then there hero Fernando Alonso top's of an already good day by wining the F1 round at his home track.

The race had very few exiting points to it, but that did not worry the crowd watching Alonso beat Michael Schumacher. The Renault team proved they where the cream at Barcelona, and the much touted top spead of the Ferrari's did not even come into the picture.

Alonso led the race from start to finish in a faultless display of dominance. Michael had to make do with the second step of the podium, with Alosno's team mate Fisichella coming in third.

The highlights of the GP are rare but significant; Kimi Raekonen showed the ability of the new Mercedes/Ilmore engine to get off the line, making up a handful of places in a very brave move from the start. His team mate Juan Pablo Montoya beached his car and had to end his race, he blamed a failure in his traction control for the spin that caused the beaching. This is possible as it was his first race with the new engine as well, and Kimi's start proves that work has definitely gone on in the TC department. Kimi ended the race in 5th.

The Toyota's had a 'racing incident', as Ralph decided to take a lunge up the inside of Trulli destroying the  front aero package and his race prospects in the process. We are not sure if any damage was caused to the Trulli car, but he never seemed to be on the pace all day. Ralph had to retire later on had electronics issues that caused him to retire.

The Cosworth powered Williams cars proved very hum drum, they showed very little pace throughout the whole weekend.

The Honda boys had mixed results; Button had problems on Saturday in Qualifying that is yet to be explained. However, Barichelo put in a decent performance finishing 7th behind Jenson in 6th. Jenson was asked to turn his engine down to save it for Monaco (due to the 2 race engine rules).

Red bull / Toro Rosso did not show any form this weekend, the fact that the Ferrari engine in the car should give them similar levels of top end to the Ferrari's adds further wait to the rumors of the Ferrari 'moving wing' as the red bull cars got nowhere near them in the speed traps. David Couthards 200th grand prix will be one to forget with a bad weekend throughout.

BMW Sauber got one point from the weekend with Nick Heidfeld finishing in 8th place. The recently resurrected (performance wise) Jacques Villeneuve finished in a lowly 12th, however he was the last on the grid from start due to an engine change before the weekend even started.

The Toro Rosso team had it's first V10 engine casualty with Scot Speed's engine dying during the race, and Liuzzi's car suffering a hydraulics failure.

The final results
1.  ALONSO        Renault      1h26m21.759s
2.  M.SCHUMACHER  Ferrari      +18.5s
3.  FISICHELLA    Renault      +24.0s
4.  MASSA         Ferrari      +29.9s
5.  RAIKKONEN     McLaren      +56.9s
6.  BUTTON        Honda        +58.3s
7.  BARRICHELLO   Honda        +1 lap
8.  HEIDFELD      BMW          +1 lap
9.  WEBBER        Williams     +1 lap
10. TRULLI        Toyota       +1 lap
11. ROSBERG       Williams     +1 lap
12. VILLENEUVE    BMW          +1 lap
13. KLIEN         Red Bull     +1 lap
14. COULTHARD     Red Bull     +1 lap
15. LIUZZI        Toro Rosso   +3 laps
16. MONTEIRO      Midland      +3 laps
17. SATO          Super Aguri  +4 laps
R.  ALBERS        Midland      +18 laps
R.  SPEED         Toro Rosso   +19 laps
R.  R.SCHUMACHER  Toyota       +35 laps
R.  MONTOYA       McLaren      +49 laps
R.  MONTAGNY      Super Aguri  +56 laps