F1 News
- June 12, 2006
British GP Recap
The Fosters British Grand Prix got off to a bad start for the Brit’s with the qualifying nightmare from Jenson Button and the Honda team on Saturday. Things went downhill from there for Button.
However the Grand Prix itself was quite interesting from a number of front’s.
Fernando Alonso and his Renault car crushed the opposition yesterday, in a powerful display of dominance, that I cannot see anyone being able to better this year.
What outlines this is the statistics from the race. If you watch the Renault onboard during its run through the fast opening corners (Cops, Maggots, Becketts and Chapel) the car is very planted, and the drivers barely lift during the whole complex. The high speed stability in the Renault seems faultless, there was no sign of any oversteer or understeer in Fernando’s car.
However onboard with the Ferrari and McLaren cars shows a completely different story. The cars look affected by the direction changes, and the Ferrari’s especially looked to pitch on the central axis of the car substantially more than the Renault, this could be due to the tyre manufacturers being different however.
Then adversely, the Ferrari and McLarens where up to 15kph faster through some of the speed traps on the lap, showing they definitely have the stronger engine package at least in pace, if not in reliability.
If the other teams can work out what is making the Renaults so stable and solid on the chassis/aero front then they may be able to challenge for the race wins, but until then I cannot see the Fernando/Renault package being bettered on any regular basis.
So on to the race recap. The race started with a decent run up the grid for some of the mid/rear pack drivers.
The BMW Sauber cars made up places on the start, however Jaques Villenueve tangled with Juan Pablo Montoya causing damage to the McLaren drivers sidepod and flooring, ending a front running show for JPM.
Scott Speed then clipped the rear of Ralph Schumacher’s car causing him to careen into Mark Webber ending the race for all three drivers, and causing the pace car to be brought out onto the track so the cars could be recovered.
After the pace car is brought back in on lap three the first three drivers (Fernando, Kimi and Michael) race amongst themselves, trading fastest times between themselves. At some points the McLaren of Kimi looks to be the fastest car on the track, just not quite quick enough to overtake Fernando. Michael holds onto the two drivers in front of him , but does not seem to have the outright pace to challenge.
Montoya clears the Honda of Barichelo and the BMW Sauber of Heidfeld and starts to make progress towards the second Renault of Fisichela.
Button’s car decides to give up on him, there seems to be a fluid leak at the rear of his Honda. The fluid get’s onto his rear tyres and spins him off. The engine however seems to still be running and Button dig’s his car into the gravel, as the exhaust set’s fire to the fluid leaking.
Alonso set’s fastest laps as his car get’s light on fuel (1.22.114), this increases his lead over Kimi to nearly 3 seconds.
On lap 17 Trulli pit’s for fuel , this is strange as he started from the rear of the grid after an engine change and was expected to run very heavy.
Lap 18 sees Michael pit in his Ferrari, showing that the Renault was definitely the fastest car in qualifying, Kimi pit’s on lap 19 getting back out ahead of Michael.
Lap 22 sees the leader pit, with a clear lead after setting fastest lap’s in the lead up to the stop.
Heidfeld continues having not yet pitted, setting a blistering pace in the 1.22.8’s showing that the BMW Sauber cars have got genuine pace this weekend. Perhaps the BMW money is starting to show fruition. He pit’s on lap 25, however a mess up in the pit stop loose him 7 seconds and drop him out of the front running, he rejoins in 7th behind Montoya.
Montoya starts to set good times (mid 1.22’s) in his middle stint, showing that even with a damaged car he can be quick when he wants too.
Lap 41 bring Michael back into the pit’s for his second and last stop. Michael comes out of the pit’s and starts to show the Ferrari can have pace when pushed, as he set’s fastest personal times in all of the sectors. Kimi then pits after being slowed behind traffic, and rejoins the race behind Michael. The 7 times world champion proving he has not given up on F1 just yet.
Lap 44 brings the leader Fernando into the pit’s for his last stop, he is stationary for 6.8 seconds and comes back out into the lead of the race, well in front of the rest of the pack.
Fisichella starts to close in on Kimi, and the pit to car radio has Alan Permane telling him that he has 8kph advantage over the Finn, and to get his own back for the Suzuka incident. Fisichella closes to within a second but cannot overtake the Finn.
Alonso takes the chequered flag well ahead of the Ferrari powered Schumacher, with Kimi holding onto third place.
As I mentioned above, the underlying message the non Renault teams have to take away from this Grand Prix is that the Aero package the Enstone team have on their car is in some ways light years ahead of anything that they can run at the moment. Until they work out how Renault achieve it they will always be on the back foot.
Results
1. ALONSO Renault 1h25m51.927s
2. M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari +14.0s
3. RAIKKONEN McLaren +18.7s
4. FISICHELLA Renault +20.0s
5. MASSA Ferrari +31.6s
6. MONTOYA McLaren +1m04.8s
7. HEIDFELD BMW +1m11.6s
8. VILLENEUVE BMW +1m18.3s
9. ROSBERG Williams +1m19.0s
10. BARRICHELLO Honda +1 lap
11. TRULLI Toyota +1 lap
12. COULTHARD Red Bull +1 lap
13. LIUZZI Toro Rosso +1 lap
14. KLIEN Red Bull +1 lap
15. ALBERS Midland +1 lap
16. MONTEIRO Midland +2 laps
17. SATO Super Aguri +3 laps
18. MONTAGNY Super Aguri +3 laps
R. BUTTON Honda +51 laps
R. SPEED Toro Rosso +59 laps
R. R.SCHUMACHER Toyota +60 laps
R. WEBBER Williams +60 laps
Fastest lap: ALONSO 1m21.599s
