F1-Blog

Australia a full runthrough

After having a few hours nap, then watching the GP again as it was repeated, then napping. I thought it about time to do my full race synopsis.

The race for various reasons has to be one of the best in the resent past, and I have had quite a few comments from ‘non F1′ friends and colleges stating that they enjoyed the race, and as a result would take more interest in the rest of the season. So from that front, I have to say well done FIA at forcing the standard engine unit on the F1 world.

The race will obviously be remembered for three reasons. First and foremost, it was the race that Lewis dominated, and made look his own. We saw very little of Hamilton during the race footage, and that was because for the most part he had an easy race. He was challenged a little at the start by Robert Kubicca, but besides that drove a mature, well paced race to take the top step of the podium.

The next big point to take out of the day is Ferrari’s very poor performance. Kimi had issues with his car as early as Friday, with the team changing the fuel pump out for him, the same issue then cropped up again on the Saturday Q1 session, with Kimi not able to continue. Then again we saw Kimi’s car stop on track during the race. We also saw Felipe Massa making some huge mistakes, and being involved in a big bump that took David Coulthard off. We then saw Felipe’s car pack up as well later on.

Now that would be bad enough for Ferrari, however they supply their engines to the Toro Rosso team as well, and neither of those cars finished either, with Sebastian Bordaise having an engine let go quite publicly towards the end of the race.

It was not just Ferrari that had a dismal race though, with just 5 cars finishing on the lead lap, and only 6 physically finishing the race, it was certainly a car breaker. Some of this was down to the incidents, however the temperature trackside got to 40 degrees celcius at some point’s, and this obviously caused some of the issues for the cars.

That having been said, I would put the first corner incident down to the traction control ban, as it was interesting to see the differences in start speeds that the various cars got. The incident saw the first safety car of the race, and had us saying goodbye to Giancarlo, Jenson, Vettel, Mark Webber and Davidson, with Filipe having to pit for a new nose for his Ferrari after loosing it all by himself, and putting the front of the car into the outside barrier.

The restart saw Kimi trying to charge through the field, having kept out of the tangle at the first corner he was already well up the order in eighth, but got caught up behind Rubens Barrichello and had to site behind him until lap 19.

Jarno’s Toyota was the first real retirement, he cam in to pit and had to retire due to a mass electrical failure. It was a pity as he was driving a strong race, and showed that the Toyota team have certainly taken a step up this year.

 

The next big accident was between Felipe and DC. Felipe tried down the inside of David into turn one, the brit obviously not seeing the Ferrari turned in and the tangle brought out the second safety car of the day, and ended David’s race.

Barrichello had to pit whilst the Pit lane was closed as he was running on fumes, which earnt him a 10 second stop and go, he also managed to run over his fuel hose mechanic when the Lolipop man let him go too early. But to add insult to injury, he left the pit lane whilst the red light’s were on, eventualy excludding him from the final results.

Kimi who was running long on fuel decided to stay out, and not use the Safety Car period to pit for a top up and new tyres, and after the race got back upto full speed, Kimi was challenging Heiki for his place. Heiki eventually got out of the way of a far too fast Kimi as they went into turn 3. Kimi overcooked it and ended up recovering from the sand, and ruining what seemed a decent days racing from the Finn. It was not the only mistake from Kimi though, at almost the exact same place, Kimi put a wheel on the grass and spun again, ending any chance of decent points in the race.

The third safety car was brought out for Timo Glock who had a big accident in the Toyota. He ran wide coming out of a corner and decided to take to the grass to get back onto the track, as it turned out this was a bad idea, he went over one of the service roads and hit a small grass bank on the side of it. This launched the car into the air, with it disintegrating around him when it landed.

A very winded Glock eventually climbed out of the car to make his way back to the garages.

On the restart Robert Kubicca and Kazuki Nakajima had a coming together, which saw the BMW retire with damage to the rear of the car.

The race then settled down a little, and we saw Lewis pull out another lead on the chasing pack. It did not last long though, as Kimi’s Ferrari packed up on lap 54, and then we saw Bordaise who had been having a great run in fourth had his Ferrari powerplant go pop as well with just two laps left to run in his first F1 race.

The last few laps saw a great battle between Heikki and Fernando, with Heikki managing to overtake the Renault into the last chicane before the start finish straight, he then somehow managed to engage his pit lane limiter for a few moment instead of changing up, this allowed Fernando back past to take the spot.

So we had an unexpected podium. Yes we expected Lewis to be there or thereabouts, but we expected Heikki or the Ferrari pair to be joining him, as it turns out it was Heidfeld and Rosberg that joined the Brit for the Champaign.

With an opener like that, and less than a week before we kick off again in Malaysia it’s going to be a struggle for teams to put right any issues this race showed up.

Ferrari must be working overtime back at Italy to get the issues they have uncovered sorted and flow out before this weekend’s race. It will certainly be a tough season this year, as we have more races than ever, with more fly away destinations than ever before it will be tough to keep the development and reliability in check.

 

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts
1	22	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	58	1:34:50.616	1	10
2	3	Nick Heidfeld	BMW	58	+5.4 secs	5	8
3	7	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	58	+8.1 secs	7	6
4	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	58	+17.1 secs	11	5
5	23	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	58	+18.0 secs	3	4
6	8	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	57	+1 Lap	13	3
7	14	Sebastien Bourdais	STR-Ferrari	55	+3 Laps	17	2
8	1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	53	Engine	15	1
Ret	4	Robert Kubica	BMW	47	Accident	2
Ret	12	Timo Glock	Toyota	43	Accident	18
Ret	18	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	32	Transmission	19
Ret	6	Nelsinho Piquet	Renault	30	Accident damage	20
Ret	2	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	29	Engine	4
Ret	9	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	25	Accident	8
Ret	11	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	19	Electrical	6
Ret	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	8	Hydraulics	22
Ret	10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	0	Accident	14
Ret	16	Jenson Button	Honda	0	Accident	12
Ret	19	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	0	Accident	21
Ret	15	Sebastian Vettel	STR-Ferrari	0	Accident	9
Ret	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	0	Accident	16
DSQ	17	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	58	+52.4 secs	10