F1-Blog

For the third year in a row, Felipe Massa has popped his Ferrari onto the pole slot. He has won from first on the grid for the last two years, so looking good for the Brazilian in tomorrows race.

Heikki made a great comeback from his smash in Spain to take the second spot on the grid. Lewis took the third spot on the grid with a great lap using the hard compound tyres on his fast run, making the pace of the McLaren look good, if not quite the match of the Ferrari.

Fourth spot went to Kimi, with a Ferrari that was certainly looking a handful, especially towards the end of the lap, so the Finn may well be running a heavier car.

The BMW Sauber’s did not look as quick as they have in the previous races, with Robert Kubica taking fifth and Nick Heidfeld struggling back in ninth.

The Red Bull’s and Renault’s are showing that their pace in Spain was real, with Webber in sixth, and Fernando in seventh.

The Toyota of Trulli did not seem to come on form in the Q3 session after both Toyota’s being quick in the earlier sessions, but Trulli took the eight spot.

David Coulthard chose not to run in Q3, resulting in him saving tyres and taking the tenth spot.

With cars so closely matched, and a track that seems to work equally as well with the understeer style of Filipe and the oversteer of Lewis, as well as genuine overtaking opportunities it could be an interesting race tomorrow.

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 Ferrari’s looked good in qualifying. Both of the Scarlet cars are on the front of the grid, with Massa taking the pole spot.

The McLaren’s looked slower all qualifying session, so it seems that they may have put a little more fuel in the cars, and went for the second row, which they got. Heikki managing to take third spot, with Hamilton looking out of sorts and struggling to keep Trulli’s Toyota behind him.

Trulli is surely the shock of the session though, setting the fastest time in Q1, and then the ‘best of the rest’ for fifth spot in the final Q3 session.

The two BMW’s follow Trulli in sixth and seventh for Kubica and Heidfeld, Webber managing to take eighth, Alonso ninth and the second Toyota of Timo Glock on the tenth spot.

It was quite a dangerous session though, with Alonso and Heidfeld both trying to set times at the end of the session, with all the other cars touring very slowly in fuel saving mode back to the pit’s. There will certainly have to be some sort of ruling stopping the cars going so slowly when they have finished their own final fast lap.

So it seems that the Ferrari’s are the fastest boys around the Sepang circuit, at least over one lap, and we know that the team usually have good race pace. So can McLaren or perhaps even Trulli take the fight to them tomorrow in the race?

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

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.

Lewis popped his McLaren onto the Pole position, but the surprise is who is in second.

We already know that Kimi is starting 16th, so it was expected that the second Ferrari would be lining up next to him. That did not occur though, and it was not Lewis’s team mate Heikki either.

Nope hat’s off to BMW Sauber and Robert Kubbica for their second spot start for the first race.

Other surprises are the Honda cars, both making it into a lot higher position than last year (11th and 13th),

Both of the Toyota’s made it through to the top 10 shoot out, as did Nico Rosberg and David Coulthard and big surpise Sebastian Vettel. Mark Webber held his bad luck at his home track, with what looked like a failure of a front brake pad or disk under braking into the fast turn 12.

We look forward to what will be a cracking race tomorrow.

Times after the clickthrough.

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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!

And more to the point, should it?

This season has had it’s fair share of FIA judgments that have impacted the sport in a negative way, will the fuel irregularity be the last sting in the tail for the 2007 season?

I’m actually glad that Kimi took the title (as it currently stands), he drove well for the second half of the season, and after all the title is well overdue for the ‘Ice Man’. Yes it would have been nice to see the young Brit Hamilton triumph over the more illustrious competition, but it seemed it was not to be.

However both of the BMW’s and the Williams of Nico showed irregularities, the fuel on board the car at the stop’s was deemed to be outside of regulation 6.5.5, where the fuel has to be within 10 degrees C of the ambient track temperature. It seems however that the stewards of the course could not positively say what the ambient temperature actually was.

McLaren will take this to the FIA court of appeal, however McLaren have not got a good record with the court this year, so will they win the appeal? or is this just ’sour grapes’ on the part of the McLaren team?

Of course the appeal court may feel duty bound to let McLaren have a win this year, after dolling out one of the harshest punishments in F1 history.

Personally I think that Kimi should get to keep the title, after all he did win 6 GP’s this year, so deserves it on merit alone. After all Lewis has got plenty of time left in his career to win the title, and the McLaren will be a good car again next year, as the rules are not changing in any large way, and they have a good base to build upon with the MP22.

What do you feel? should the FIA get involved and overturn the stewards decision? Let us know in the comments.

Lewis Hamilton has for the second time in a row, pulled a marvelous lap out of the bag in the dying minutes of qualifying.

Lewis looked every bit fourth fastest all the way through the 3 sessions, then managed to hook a near perfect lap up in the last moments of Q3 to take the pole spot.

Kimi Raikkonen took the second place, with the Ferrari looking sorted in sectors 2 and 3, but a little out of sorts in the tight sector 1.

Massa sit’s his Ferrari in third spot, with Fernando popping the second McLaren into fourth.

Behind the top four is where the interest starts however. David Coulthard put’s his Red Bull on the fifth spot, and after announcing he wont be driving for Toyota in 2008, Ralf Schumacher put’s his car sixth.

The second Red Bull of Mark Webber is in seventh, followed by the two BMW cars (Heidfeld/Kubica) who’s cars just did not look their usual hooked up self.

Last but by no means least, is the Honda of Jenson Button, who drove superbly just to make it into the Q3 session. He looks to be carrying a lot of fuel for the race.

So what’s the predictions for the race? Well it should be a cracker, there is rain forecast for the circuit, as the tail end of a hurricane is passing not far from the track.

I’m looking forward to the race, and I think that if Lewis takes the championship this season, there will be a national holiday called in the UK.

Well done to all those that watched the race live. I will do a full race report later (after a nap), but for now I would like to say well done to all of the drivers, and a special thank’s to Charlie Whiting for letting the drivers race.

The championship too a big turn in the favour of Lewis Hamilton, Lewis won the race with a sublime drive, and Fernando Alonso had an accident and did not finish.

That leaves Lewis 12 points ahead of his team mate. Fernando can still win the championship, however the result makes it more difficult for Fernando to take a third title.

Mathematicaly Fernando can still win, however he needs to win the next race, and hope that Lewis does not score points.

More later after I have had a chance to have another watch of the whole race.