Posted by ashleigh on
June 7, 2008
Canada Qualifying
Lewis Hamilton has taken his second pole position in Canada with a simply stunning lap at the end of Qualifying 3.
Lewis set a laptime 6 tenths of a second faster than Robert Kubica in the BMW-Sauber, and nearly a second faster than Kimi in the Ferrari.
Fernando Alonso had a good set of laps in the Renault to take a spot on the second row of the grid, and Felipe and Heikki are sat on the third row.
Rubens Barrichello got the Honda into the Q3 session, with Button’s car failing with a third gear issue in Q1.
Mark Webber had a good Q2, but was trying to better his time at the end of the session, unfortunately the track surface was starting to break up at the hairpin, and on the exit of turn 7, this caught him out and he bumped the nose into barrier, ending his qualifying session. He starts in tenth position as he could not participate in Q3
Posted by ashleigh on
May 27, 2008
Monaco run through
The rain soaked Monaco GP threw up a few surprises, and a few incidents. So let’s have a look at how the teams and drivers got on in the Principality.
The race started with the teams having to make a difficult choice over which tyres to have on the cars before the three minute warning, something Ferrari messed up, as they fitted Kimi’s wet tyres after the three minute siren, causing him to perform a drive through penalty.
All the teams made the same choice though, and they all started the race on the wet Bridgstone tyres. Heikki’s race weekend was ruined when a software glitch in the gear selection program stalled the McLaren on the dummy grid, and had to start from the pit lane.
Lewis got a great launch off the clean side of the track, beating Kimi’s Ferrari into the first corner, slotting in behind Massa to take the second place.
Posted by ashleigh on
May 23, 2008
Monaco Preview
The Monaco GP is the most prestigious event of the F1 season. It has history, glamour and most importantly, money.
The track is the tightest and slowest of the championship, and recently has suited the McLaren cars well, coming in with a one-two last year (Alonso, Lewis). They also hold the record for most wins at the track with 14 wins since they started competing.
From what we saw in the Turkish GP I do not expect that to change, the McLaren’s should be strong here, so expect Lewis and Heikki to do well.
The Ferrari’s wont be far behind them though, with 9 wins to the teams credit around the principality, and Massa finished third behind the two McLaren’s last year. The Ferrari team have also brought changes to the car (at least in practice), in the shape of modifications to their nose hole design, which should help them with the aero balance on the high downforce track.
Posted by ashleigh on
April 5, 2008
A Pole on Pole
Robert Kubica has started the weekend well for the BMW Sauber team by giving the team their first pole position.
Mario Theissen seemed overjoyed, and told Robert so while the driver was returning to the pits.
Behind Robert was a close battle between last years race winner Filipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton in the McLaren.
Kimi Raikkonen looked to be running longer than Filipe on fuel and popped his Ferarri into the fourth spot with Heikki Kovalainen a few hundredths behind him in fifth.
Nick Heidfeld put in his fast lap, then pulled into the pits happy with it and sat out the last few minutes of the Q3 session.
Jarno Trulli showed that the Toyota certainly has true pace this season as he was the best of the rest behind the BMW’s, Ferrari’s and McLaren’s.
The Toyota powered Williams of Nico Rosberg was the last of the drivers in the 1:33 times, and he seemed to be quite happy with his eighth place on the grid, and said that the car is better suited to this track than it was in Malaysia.
Posted by ashleigh on
March 17, 2008
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.
