F1-Blog

Lewis makes it 2 in a row

Hot on the heals of his win in Canada, Lewis Hamilton has followed other illustrious British drivers like Damon Hill, and Nigel Mansel to win two in a row after their maiden win.

Lewis qualified on the pole position, and used it to his advantage in the  first stint of the race. Fernando Alonso tried to overtake on the first lap, but could not manage it. Lewis then seemed to be the quicker driver and pulled away from his twice world champion team mate.

After the stops Fernando seemed to be the quicker McLaren, and caught Lewis up. From their he hassled his younger team mate all the way round until the second stop (he ran wide on lap 46, just before the stops).

After the second stop, Lewis managed to hold off his team mate again on the harder tyres, then it seemed with 12 laps to the end, it seemed the team called a halt to the challenge. And that is how the McLaren’s finished the race.

McLaren get the front again

The McLaren team have put both of their drivers on the front row for the American GP. Lewis Hamilton once again managed to get the best out of the McLaren at the required time giving him the pole position.

It’s not all good news for Hamilton though. His twice world champion team mate Alonso has been faster at the track all weekend, and seems to like the McLaren better than the Renault’s he used to drive at the Indianapolis track.

The Ferrari’s again seemed to struggle, with Kimi again being outpaced by his more junior team mate. They only just seemed to hold off the BMW Sauber and Renault behind them.

Nick Heidfeld once again showed that he is enjoying the improving pace in the BMW Sauber car. With his rookie temporary team mate Sebastien Vettel.

Heikki is obviously riding high on his Canadian performance. The rumors that he was on the verge of being replaced by the Renault test driver (Piquet Jnr) will be quashed if he keeps this performance up.

A day for the ‘number 2′ drivers

The number two drivers in each of the front running teams had a good day at Bahrain.

The race winner Filipe Massa managed to stop the eventual second place driver Lewis Hamilton from passing into the first corner.

Massa lead then all the way through the race, with the Ferrari proving that the car had just a little more pace than the McLaren cars.

Surprisingly however the Ferrari’s where both slower in the last stint of the race on the harder compound tyres, with Lewis Hamilton taking nearly 10 seconds out of the lead that Filipe had built up.

Raikkonen had a disappointing race, he seemed not to have the front running pace all weekend, and is obviously struggling to set the Ferrari up to his liking.

Nick Heidfeld had a good race coming in in fourth behind Kimi, with the world champion and joint championship leader Fernando Alonso bringing the second McLaren in for fifth.

Australia - Qualifying

The first qualifying session of the season has been one that we as spectators were not expecting.

Lets have a look at how well the teams went compared to their expected results.

Ferrari - It was a mixed bag for the new look Ferrari team. Kimi Raikkonen ’sandbagged’ for the first 2 parts of qualifying, making Massa and the McLaren’s look quick. He than ran a 1:26.072 in the third part of qualifying, nearly half a second quicker than his nearest rival.

Massa though stopped out on track during the Q2 session with a damaged gearbox. It seemed to happen after he took too much kerb in one of the corners.

McLaren - A good day for both of the new McLaren drivers. With a 1:26.493 Fernando Alonso lines up second on the grid, with his team mate Lewis Hamilton starting in fourth with a 1:26.755. Both drivers seem to be carrying a little more fuel than perhaps the Ferrari of Raikkonen.

If the team has played the strategy right then they will be strong runners on Sunday.

Chinese GP goes Michael’s way

Michael Schumacher has leveled the points between himself and Fernando Alonso, causing the title fight to go to the wire.

The weekend started badly for the Scuddera Ferrari team, with Filipe Massa having to take a 10 place drop due to an engine change on Friday. Then during the Saturday sessions the rain came, and the Bridgestone tyres seemed to not work at all.

It all looked bad for Michael. He pulled out an amazing lap during Quali 3 to get the 5th place on the grid. He was however behind both the Renaults and Honda cars.

Sunday morning brought more hardship for the team, as it rained again. Would the Bridgestone tyres work in race conditions? everyone though no.

The Ferrari's seemed to struggle off the grid, with Michael going back a place after lap 1. The pace man looked to be Kimi Raikkonen, who nearly took second position from the start, but had to yield in corner 2 to Jenson Button, who had got ahead of his team mate.

The first corner melee ended with Alonso showing a massive pace advantage over Fisichella then Jenson, followed by Rubens Barrichello and Kimi Raikkonen.

Raikkonen looked to be on a mission, and overtook Button before the end of the first lap, and made ground on the Renault cars.

By lap 5 Alonso had showed that his pace over the weekend was real, and had put nearly 7 seconds on his team mate, who was closely followed by Kimi.

In the background however Michael was making up for his bad start, and on lap 8 he passed his old team mate Rubens Barrichello for 5th place, and started to make inroads into the Jenson Buttons lead over him.

Lap 13 saw Kimi make a pass on Fisichella to take second place, also Michael had made up the gap to Button and overtook what seemed to be a struggling Honda. It was later heard on the radio that Button's rear tyres had gone off, and he was struggling. He pitted shortly after on lap 15, the first of the front runners to get a new set of boots.

Lap 16 saw Kimi stop for fuel, he however did not take on new tyres. Instead he was doing what most of the drivers did, wear the tread on these tyres down, so they became practically slicks.

Lap 19 and Raikkonen's car stops. It sounds like the car is stuck in the pit lane limiter mode.

Lap 21 brings Schumacher, Webber and a lap later Alonso in for a pit stop. Schumacher just takes on fuel. However the Renault team decide to change the front tyres on Alonso's car to new intermediates.

Kubbica in the BMW tries his luck on lap 24. During his pit stop the team switch him over to slick tyres. The gamble however does not pay off. Kubbica cannot seem to get enough heat into the slicks, and slithers back round to the pits to switch back to used intermediate tyres.

The gap up to Alonso has been coming down, lap on lap Fisichella and Schumacher have been eating into the world champions lead, and it's now down to 6 seconds (from 20). It looks like Alonso in the Renault is struggling with those new front's that he put on at his pit stop. The car will not turn in cleanly to any of the corners, and once in looks very unsettled. However the cars that are now practically running slicks are working a lot better. The track has dried out enough to use slicks, the trouble with switching to slicks is that they are difficult to get up to temperature. This is why the intermediates are working so well, they have worn down to slicks, and are already at temperature.

Alonso get's caught up by the two chasing drivers, and on lap 29 has to allow his team mate to pass him as he just does not have the pace to keep the other Renault behind him. The Renault team decide it would be better for Fisichella to finish first, than it would be for Michael. Coulthard and Massa also stop for there one and only fuel stop. Massa obviously deciding to go heavy after starting from the back, and DC seeming to think with the wet weather that the one stop strategy would not be as big a penalty as it would be in the dry.

Laps 32 through 40 see the whole field stop to switch over from wet to dry tyres, the track is now in the 1:41 times, and that is judges the switchover point. Rosberg is the first to switch in the Williams on lap 32, and after a couple of slithery corners get's up to pace and set's his fastest lap of the race. The other teams obviously seeing this bring their drivers in for the change. 

Alonso's pit change did not however go well. The rear right wheel bolt got cross threaded on the change. The total pit time took around 19 seconds, loosing him 12 seconds in the mistake.

Schumacher is on of the last to pit for dry tyres on lap 40, and although did have a good lead over the Renault's is now being caught by Alonso. This fact brings the German into the pits to switch over to the Bridgestone dry weather tyres. Lap 41 sees Kubbica come in for the change to dry tyres, he was unfortunate that his experiment earlier did not work.

Alonso came out 22 seconds behind Michael after the stop's. His team mate Fisichela was 7 seconds behind the Ferrari. Alonso however after the tyre change has been flying, setting fastest lap and sectors every time he passed the line.

This allows him to catch and pass his team mate on lap 48, and start to take time from the Ferrari ahead of him.

Lap 49 sees Jenson have an off track excursion, loosing the sixth place position he held to McLaren driver Pedro de la Rossa. However it seemed the reason for his off is that the rain has started to fall again at the back of the track.

Button is now the fastest man on the track, other drivers are sliding all over the race track (including Alonso). Button manages to catch and overtake Pedro de la Rossa to regain his sixth place. Button also manages to catch and overtake both team mate Barrichello and also Heidfeld after he spun. Elevating himself to fourth. De la Rossa manages to tail Button passed the other two drivers who get tied up with the tail ender Tacuma Sato, who is later disqualified for the problems he caused.

 All in all it ended up being a good day for the Ferrari team. Even though it was certainly a good drive by Michael, the race was not won by him. Instead it would be fair to say the race was lost by the Renault team, with two pit mistakes by the team. They should have left Alonso on the worn tyres, like everyone else, and then under pressure to make up time in the change to dry tyres, they made a mistake witch made the race win impossible. The points are now even at the top of the drivers standings.

We move onto Japan next, home track of Honda. With the final race in Brazil. The title fight for both Drivers and Constructors championship will go to the wire, and may end up being the closest title fight in F1 for years.