F1-Blog

The Spanish GP turned out to be a bit of an interesting beast. Yes the racing was not amazing (as it rarely is at the Circuit de Catalunya), but from a technical and strategy standpoint it was a very interesting mix.

The first European GP of the year is always where strange things turn up, not only in the car designs, but in the changes to where the teams perceived performance.

This year is no different, going into the race everyone was saying that the Ferrari’s with their new nose design would run off and hide all weekend, this was shock number one, they didn’t, in fact the other teams where a lot closer than we thought they would be.

The Renault’s were the next shock, looking pacey all weekend, then Fernando getting second spot on the grid. Everyone dismissed this, saying Fernando was doing a glory run on low fuel for his fans, it turned out he was not as light as people thought, pitting only two laps ahead of the Ferrari’s.

Then we have McLaren, everyone thought they were going to be playing catch up all weekend, but after working out fuel differences it seems that they were not far off the Ferrari qualifying pace, if at all, and it seems they just misjudged the amount of fuel the other teams would run in Q3 as they went the longest of the front running teams in the first stint. The cars did not look as planted as the Ferrari’s, but then Lewis like his car setup to be loose, so not really a big issue.

Almost all teams however brought changes to their cars, Honda being the most visible with the dumbo wings nose design, reminiscent to what we got a glimpse of last year.

So with the off track stuff dealt with, let’s get onto the race.

It started well for the Ferrari’s, with Massa getting the jump on Alonso’s Renault, and went into the first corner in second spot. It was also a good start for Lewis Hamilton, jumping ahead of Robert Kubicca up the inside into turn one, giving him fourth spot behind the Renault and two Ferrari’s.

Everyone seemed to squeeze through turn one unscathed, but the carnage did not hold up for long, Adrian Sutil caused a short stint for the safety car when he tried an adventurous undertake at turn four touching David Coulthard’s car and spinning out, Sebastian Vettel was the unlucky driver to collect Sutil, destroying both drivers chances.

After the race resumed it seemed to be a rather status quo affair, with nobody seeming to be able to get better than 2 seconds behind the car in front. This is a problem at this track, as the high levels of downforce required completely hinder close quarters running.

There were a few scraps up and down the field, with Nelson Piquet having an off in his Renault, putting him back to 18th spot. He then went and added insult to injury, when trying to overtake Sebastien Bourdais with a run up the inside of the French driver he managed to take both cars out of the race. It seems Bourdais just did not see him coming, and the result was two more cars retiring. The earlier off from Piquet also took Anthony Davidson out of the race, as the gravel that was brought back onto the track managed to get through the Super Aguri’s radiator protection, and cause a leak that ended the Brit’s race.

The front runner Pitstops started on lap 16, when Fernando brought his Renault in for it’s first stop, later than a lot of people had predicted, it seems he was not running quite as light as some expected, as Felipe Massa only lasted another three laps, then we had Kimi coming in on lap 22, with Lewis on Lap 23, showing that the McLaren should have been further up the grid if it had run a more aggressive strategy in Q3.

While all the stop were happening, Heikki was leading the race, and before he could make his stop for fuel, he suffered a massive accident at turn nine, when his front left wheel failed on entry to the 140mph corner. The wheel failure allowed the tyre to instantly deflate, and Heikki had no chance to slow the car down before skipping through the gravel and hitting the tyre barrier. The worrying thing was that the McLaren had managed to go underneath the tyre wall, the modern ‘conveyor belt’ design is supposed to stop the cars going underneath.

The marshals did a fine job pulling Heikki’s car out, and getting him to the medical centre quickly. But the damage to the car was very telling, with the car picked up to be carted off, you could actually see the floor underneath the drivers cell from above. Heikki is ok though, some bruising and concussion, but nothing broken.

However, as this all happened during most of the midfield teams scheduled pit stop sessions, there was carnage, with Nick Heidfeld having to pit whilst the pit lane was closed, giving him a 10 second drive through penalty when the safety car session was over. Rubens Barichelo also had another pit lane incident, he seemed to catch the nose of the Honda when he left his pit garage, and had to tour a complete lap with the nose wing stuck under the floor of the nose, damaging many of the aero parts in that section of the car. This forced the Honda out of the race, as it was deemed too damaged to continue by the team.

The race continued through all the teams second stops, with only retirements to be interested in. Fernando’s Renault lump let go on him in a big way, forcing him to retire from his home GP.

The Toyota lump in Nico Rosberg’s Williams also let go on the pit straight, forcing him to retire as well.

David Coulthard was again the target of another driver, Timo Glock tried a manoeuvre on the Brit, and was far too fast, clipping the rear wheel of the Red Bull, this caused a deflation of the tyre and forced both cars to pit for repairs. A stewards investigation deemed it a racing incident, but it ruined the race for both drivers.

All the retirements and accidents did mean that drivers who have not yet scored managed to get of the mark this race. Most notably Honda’s Jenson Button who finished sixth.

The race was all but over at the start though, as the track is notoriously difficult to overtake at, and with Kimi winning it made it eight in a row for pole starters winning. Hopefully the new aero and slicks next year will negate this a bit.

The second of our 2008 fly away opening races is upon us, just one week after the Australian GP.

This one is again a difficult, hot race, and cars that had heat issues last week will probably have more of the same.

Sepang is also a challenging circuit for the engines, even if the heat is not too bad as it has a very high percentage of full throttle around the 3.444 miles (5.543km) circuit. It seems that this might be the last of the daytime races, as the organisers have put in to be allowed to run at night from 2009.

This will be the tenth time the teams have been around the track, and it’s always an interesting race as there are a fair few overtaking opportunities  to be had if the drivers are brave enough.

The track used to be dominated by the Schumacher brothers, with Michael winning three times and Ralf having won in 2002 driving for Williams (BMW). Since then Fernando has won twice at the track and his then team mate Giancarlo Fisichella won the 2006 race in the Renault.

Don’t expect the Renault’s to win it this year though, as the team still have some work to do to become competitive at the front again, so it would look from the stat’s that the win should goto a Ferrari (4 wins), but I think I will hedge a bet on one of the McLaren’s (2 Wins) this time round.

The McLaren cars start strong this race, they had a technically trouble free race at Australia in the high heat, so it seems that the team’s cooling strategy for the Mercedes engine is a good one. Ferrari will be wanting to make amends for their dreadful showing last week though, and have new engines in both cars, so as long as they can make them last Kimi and Filipe will no doubt be strong.

BMW and Williams are the two dark outsiders, BMW showed exemplary pace last week, and have certainly taken a step towards the front, with drivers to match, Nick Heidfeld has taken the team lead role well, and his level headed driving earned him the second spot last week, that is matched perfectly with the fast and exciting driving style of Robert Kubicca, so expect the team to be there or thereabouts.

Williams is a little more difficult to judge, Nico Rosberg has taken to the role of team leader, and settled down into a good, fast, dependable driver. Kazuki Nakajima however is still an unknown. Yes he has some pedigree, but I wonder if it’s perhaps a year too soon for the Japanese driver in F1.

The Red Bull team are probably going to look good, as may the Toyota team, however it is still uncertain if Timo Glock will be racing, as he is said to still be having issues after his big shunt last week. If he does not drive, then the third driver Kamui Kobayashi will take the seat for the race, and he is a complete unknown, however has shown turns of speed in his Formula Renault days.

Remember that ITV-F1.com is showing all of the sessions live, so make sure your up at 2am and 6am on Friday for the Practice sessions.

Google Earth View of Sepang Circuit

Stats :

Fastest Lap : 1:36.701 - Lewis Hamilton
Pole Time : 1:35.043 - Filipe Massa
Most Wins : 4 by John McDonald

There has been a lot of talk recently that BMW Sauber have been sand bagging during testing, and as of yet we have not seen the actual test times for the car. People have said that when they have been testing with the other teams that they ran high fuel runs, whereas the other teams were running on mixed/low fuel runs alongside.

Sand Bagging (or not showing your hand) is common place in F1 testing, and the top teams (McLaren / Ferrari) have got it down to an artform. If you look at the testing times, and equate them to the Australia times for the last 5 years or so you will see that none of the top teams actually showed their true pace in winter.

Some of this pace discrepancy is down to the work done between the last test, and the first race where new aero parts are honed and changed due to the data that has been collected during test. But sometimes it’s down to the mindgames that the teams attempt on each other.

So that leads us to ask, Who has been sand bagging, and by how much?

Lets look at the team that’s kicked off this debate, BMW Sauber. Are they sand bagging? Well yes, they are, but how much is yet to be seen. I very much doubt that they have the race pace of either the McLaren or the Ferrari, having said that, they may well be quick in qualification trim on light fuel.

McLaren have been well known to sand bag during testing, so expect them to be quicker than the off season has them, they also did not suffer too badly on breakdowns during the testing, so expect them to be quick, especially during launch from the start and pits. I would expect them to have the upper hand (at least in the season openers) over Ferrari during qualification as they understand their car more than Ferrari who have come back to a slightly shorter wheelbase.

Ferrari have moved their 2007 design over to their 2008 one quite well, the car has certainly been quick, however the shortening of the wheelbase from last years title winning car may bring them some issues during setup for the race as they cannot rely on their data from last year. Expect that issue to be overcome quickly though as they have talented drivers and engineers on their books. I do however expect them to have the race pace over McLaren for the first few races at least.

Toyota are an interesting one, it’s a team that in theory should be the one the others are chasing. They have shown very good pace during low fuel runs at the testing sessions, but have certainly been middle of the pack when the car is loaded up. This may just be down to the team trying to understand the new aero package, or it could be an inherent issue with the aero where it does not handle well with fuel on board, then again they could have been sand bagging during test. I expect it’s a mixture of all the above, so expect Toyota to show in the point on a regular basis now. They have obviously been sharing information with Williams on more than just the engine, now I’m not saying that Williams have helped with the Aero, but I’m sure that some of the underpinnings of the two cars are very similar.

Williams, in there dominating years they used to be the masters of sand bagging, and I’m sure the brains at Williams have still got that skill. The car has shown good pace in testing, and always run top 8 times at the tracks so expect them to take a step up this year and constantly challenge in the good points places. Time will tell if they are starting to come back to form.

Renault I don’t think have sorted all the issues they had with the car last year, and even if Fernando can bring them 0.6 of a second it’s not enough to get back to the front. That said I think they have turned the corner and will still be thereabouts at times. They are also good at keeping their cards covered, so expect the pace to be up a little from what has been shown in testing.

Red Bull are a strange one, the new Adrian Newey car is certainly the first one that can have his name stamped through it, but it’s been a hot and cold test for them. They have had issues though, a couple of car failures, a spell with Coulthard injured, then a spell with them towards the top of the timesheets. If Adrian was focused during the creation of the car, and the drivers can deliver then I think they could do quite well this year. But it’s all down to if the car can hold together or not, a lot of Adrians designs have suffered from reliability issues when they are first used, so hopefully they are sorted.

So looking forward to the weekend, and sticking my neck out, what will the result be? I think that Kimi will take the top step, with Lewis and Massa taking the next two, but I also expect the McLarens to start from the front of the grid.

Whatever happens, it’s going to be great to get back to real racing, bring on Sunday!

Massa made it two in a row at Turkey this weekend, by beating both of the McLaren’s and his team mate.

He actually made it look fairly easy in the end, Kimi got close a couple of times, but really didn’t seem to have the edge over his Brazilian team mate.

The race was quite a boring one as a result, with the only real action taking part on lap 43 with Hamilton’s front right tyre exploding, and him having to nurse the car back to the pits for a change. He did a good job and did not damage too much of his car, and still finished 5th.

The Turkish people did not turn out in the numbers that they have in previous years either, perhaps they thought F1 was dead now there is no Schumi to go and watch?

Kimi drove a decent race, managing to get into second spot before the first corner, as it seemed the Ferrari’s were capable of running the softer tyres on the longer stints, giving both of the scarlet cars a slight advantage off the start line.

Alonso grabbed third spot for the McLaren team, with fourth going to Heidfeld in the BMW, proving that not only is the car keeping up with the front runners in development (i.e. they are not loosing ground, but likewise unable to gain any), but also that BMW have decided the right way in keeping both him and Kubica in race seats for 2008.

Kovalainen had another good showing in the Renault, making his more illustrious team mate look bad, with Nico Rosberg brought the Williams in for 7th spot, with the last points spot going to Robert Kubica in the second BMW.

The Toyota’s after having a decent pre-race pace (ignoring Ralf’s mess of Qualifying that is), had a bit of a bad day. Jarno was tagged in the first corner by Fisi, putting him last, Ralf also had a hit and miss race, showing pace at times, then none at others, very odd from a driver that needs a seat for next year (and will doubtfully be at Toyota, with the name of Timo Glock being banded around for his seat).

So all in all not a particularly great race. It was nice to see the performance advancements from the ‘holiday’ break, but it’s also proved that neither of the top two teams have any advantage over the other.

It should be close for the drivers title though at the end of the year, and that always adds excitement to the last races.

Lewis Hamilton has taken the pole position for the British GP with a stunning last minute lap.

The Ferrari’s have looked quick all weekend up until Qualifying where they seemed to be sandbagging a little bit in Q1 and Q2.

Alonso was the first to set a time in the Q3 session, with a 1:20.410 looking like a decent time with fuel on board.

Massa and Raikkonen however came out all guns blazing in Q3, and took the fight to the McLaren’s, Massa siting in second, Raikkonen in third and Hamilton in fourth.

With just seconds to go Alonso raised the bar on the three cars behind him by setting a 1:20.147, next over the line was Massa with a 1:20.265. Raikkonen was then the next man through, setting the fastest time with a great lap of 1:20.099, even if he ran wide in front of the Woodcote stands.

It was however the last of the front runners that set the pole time. Lewis Hamilton came through with a staggering lap. He was behind Kimi in the split times through Sector 1, however Sector 2 and 3 were awesome, Lewis went over the line to set a 1:19.997, the only man in Q3 to break into the 1:19’s.

Special mention to the Toyota boys (especially Ralf Schumacher who put the car on 6th spot).

So then can Lewis take the race tomorrow? It will not be an easy race for any of the teams, both the Ferrari’s look quick, as do the McLaren’s.

With a little luck we can have the first Brit on the top step of the podium since David Coulthard in 2000.

Should be a good race.

Kimi Raikkonen has shown that he still has it in him to win a GP by taking a strong win in at the last Magny-Cours race in France.

The win happened because Kimi had more fuel on-board and managed to make it count by overtaking his Ferrari team mate Fillipe Massa during the second round of pit stops.

Third place was taken by the young Brit Lewis Hamilton, who ran a 3 stop strategy, as was his team mate, although Fernando Alonso was switched to a 2 stop race after the first stops. Lewis for the first time, was mugged off the line, and never seemed to be able to make a move on the Ferrari’s at any point in the day. After all 8 podiums from 8 starts is not a bad record.

Race of the day Robert Kubica managed to bring his BMW Sauber in for 4th spot, after a hard race in the second stint with Lewis Hamilton. The second BMW Sauber of Nick Heidfeld made finished in the fifth spot, with a close run battle between Giancarlo Fisichella and Fernando Alonso finishing 6th and 7th.

Jenson Button and the Honda team grabbed their first points of the season, with an 8th place finish for the Brit. The Honda certainly is starting to look better, but still has a way to go to keep up with the front runners.

Besides that there was very little real action, the camera’s followed the Fernando Heidfeld battle for most of the race, as it was the most interesting race on the track. There were a couple of issues at the start, Anthony Davidson ran into the back of Toni Liuzzi and span them both out. There was also an incident at the hairpin, where Jarno Trulli ran into the back of Heikki Kovalainen, ending the race for the Toyota driver, and ruining the day for the Renault one.

The best pass of the day has to go to Fernando whilst overtaking the BMW Sauber of Heidfeld. This was a good pass as Fernando made it somewhere that a pass is not really possible (through one of the quick chicanes).

So Lewis now leads the championship by 14 points from Fernando, and the two Ferrari’s have shown that the new aero changes, along with engine work (to the extent allowed) has brought them back into the challenge.

Silverstone should be a good race.

1 6 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 70 Winner 3 10
2 5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 70 +2.4 secs 1 8
3 2 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 70 +32.1 secs 2 6
4 10 Robert Kubica BMW 70 +41.7 secs 4 5
5 9 Nick Heidfeld BMW 70 +48.8 secs 7 4
6 3 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 70 +52.2 secs 5 3
7 1 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes 70 +56.5 secs 10 2
8 7 Jenson Button Honda 70 +58.8 secs 12 1
9 16 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 70 +68.5 secs 9 
10 11 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 69 +1 Lap 11 
11 8 Rubens Barrichello Honda 69 +1 Lap 13 
12 15 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 69 +1 Lap 14 
13 14 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 69 +1 Lap 16 
14 17 Alexander Wurz Williams-Toyota 69 +1 Lap 18 
15 4 Heikki Kovalainen Renault 69 +1 Lap 6 
16 22 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 68 +2 Laps 22 
17 20 Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari 68 +2 Laps 21 
Ret 19 Scott Speed STR-Ferrari 55 +15 Laps 15 
Ret 21 Christijan Albers Spyker-Ferrari 28 +42 Laps 20 
Ret 23 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 1 +69 Laps 19 
Ret 12 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1 +69 Laps 7 
Ret 18 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Ferrari 0 Accident 17

A good afternoon's racing for another first time winner, Filipe Massa.

"It's like a dream come true," he said. "I've worked so hard during my career for this moment. It's amazing. Looking back to everything I'd done in my life to get here, there are lots of emotions.

"I did a very good start and had a very good first lap. The car was well balanced during whole race.

"Every single part of the race the car was responding in a fantastic way and I could just keep the gap and not drive too aggressive."

The surprise however is not that Massa won, but how Michael Schumacher made a mistake and ended up third.

The problems started for Schumi Saturday in qualifying, he made a mistake on his first flying lap at the first corner, and had to put a banker lap in on his second and last run, forcing him to start behind the Brazilian.

This was then impacted early on in the race when a safety car was brought out when Tonio Liuzzi spun at corner 1, the teams all decided to pit, with the two Ferrari's lining up behind each other, this allowed Alonso to get out ahead of the seven times world champion.

The start of the race was an untidy affair as well, with Giancarlo Fisichella spining so to avoid Alonso at the first corner, and in the process taking out some of the field, Heidfeld and Fisi needed new nose cones, and Kimi Raikkonen was forced to retire after the incident due to damage caused to the car after a rear tyre deflated.

Alonso managed to gain enough space behind him to Schumacher, this allowed him to  come out ahead of the Ferrari after the pit stops, even though the Ferrari was carrying more fuel and ran longer, it was however close, and Michael was now right on the tail of the Spaniard.

Schumacher tried all he could to overtake the Renault, that seemed to be struggling in the slow corners with blistered rear tyres, however critically, Michael's aero package through the mighty turn 8 has not been good all weekend, and today was no different, all the time he made up in the first part of the lap, was lost in that one section of corners, and Michael could then not get close enough to Alonso to put a move on him.

Whilst this was going on, Filipe was holding his distance in front of the dueling pair, just in case his team leader managed to overtake Alonso, as if he did then there would obviously be some form of issue with his car that allowed Michael to overtake.

Luckily for him though, the Renault ace drove a great final few laps, holding of the Ferrari allowing Massa to take his first win.

Jenson drove what he described as a 'boring' race finishing fourth, the car just not pacey enough to keep up with the Renault and Ferrari's, Pedro de la Rossa finished in a great fifth place, after battling hard all race.

One of the best drives though was Giancarlo Fisichella, clawing back from the rear of the back to finish in 6th, with the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher coming in seventh, and Barrichelo finishing in the last points place.

The result gives Alonso the edge on the championship. He is now 12 point's ahead of Michael, with four races remaining.

It's going to be a great end to the season, especially with the next race at Ferrari's home track, and Ferrari announcing next years line-up.

It's going to be a cracking end to the season.

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Massa is still hopeful of a drive in the race seat of Scuddera Ferrari. This however looks like it will hinge on the decision of Michael Schumacher, as it's almost set that Kimi will join the team.

If Michael decides to stay in his current seat alongside Kimi, then it seems that Massa's only chance of a seat in the Scarlet car is if he reprises his role as tester.

That may actually turn out to be a good decision, as he will almost certainly get upgraded to the driver role when Michael decides to call it a day.

Massa's contract is due for renewal at the end of the year, and there seems to be very little options available to him if he want's a competitive race seat.

However do the team internally think that Michael will make way for the new boys? Kimi and Massa racing at Ferrari would make a good combination, and the fact that Massa has certainly got better over the season would show it to be a good decision at the Italian team.

Ferrari is due to unveil it's 2007 driver lineup at it's home Grand Prix at Monza next month, so we will know for sure then.