F1-Blog

The Turkish GP again did not disappoint. We had all sorts of drama in the race, both on and off the track.

The Ferrari’s where surprisingly not as far ahead of the McLaren’s as we thought they would be, and the BMW-Sauber’s where miles off the pace. So it seems to have all moved at the top.

The race started with the McLaren cars on the harder tyre compounds and the Ferrari’s running the softer option tyres.

The first corner saw Lewis get the jump on Heikki, and took the second spot, whilst Heikki and Kimi had a small coming together, causing Heikki to pit for a puncture.

At the back of the field Fisichella was far too hot into the first corner, and out braked himself, launching the Force India over the Williams of Nakajima, causing a retirement for both drivers, and a couple of laps under the safety car to clean up the mess.

The race settled into a nice rhythm, with Massa leading by just a second or two over Lewis, and Kimi and Robert a little further back, as the two leaders were constantly quicker than the rest of the pack.

First to pit was the Renault of Fernando, showing that the Q3 pace, was down to light load’s in the car, but more of a surprise was that Lewis pitted shortly after, this showed that the McLaren team were running a very strange three stop race strategy. It turns out that Bridgestone were so worried about rear tyre wear on the MP4-23 that they forced the team to run three stops on race day.

This forced Lewis to drive out of his skin, and he caught and then overtook Massa in the lead, and then proceeded to romp off into the distance. Unfortunately for the Brit though, he could not make up the 25 seconds required to actually challenge for the win, even though the McLaren was clearly the most hooked up car on the track at that moment in time.

He did however manage to come in and go out on his third stop, and stay ahead of Kimi, but then seemed to struggle on the soft option compound tyres in the McLaren, and could not catch Massa, and in fact was struggling to keep Kimi at bay.

Further back, the BMW-Sauber of Robert Kubica was certainly not in the same league as either the McLaren of Ferrari’s this weekend, and as such they finished fourth and fifth.

Fernando showed that the Renault is certainly improving, and took sixth spot with a trouble free race, behind him was Mark Webber in the Red Bull with a strong performance from the Australian.

Nico brought the sole Williams in for the last point, and beat the factory Toyota drivers who finished down in tenth and thirteenth with a poor race day, after both showing pace in Qualifying.

Jenson again out paced his more experienced team mate and took eleventh, with Rubens finishing fourteenth on his 257th race.

Heikki brought his McLaren in twelfth after his problems at the start of the race, and showed that he is not afraid to pass the opposition, in fact if the team had have fuelled the McLaren to the end of the race, and not forced him to stop with seven laps remaining he would have made the points positions, a good strong recovery drive.

So we now head to Monaco, where historically the McLaren’s are stronger than the Ferrari’s, as they usually are at the Canadian race that follows.

So can McLaren take the fight to the Ferrari’s on the tracks that usually suit the cars, or can Ferrari bring a car that likes the tight twisty Monaco, and the bumps and humps in Canada. The season is only getting better.

The Bahrain GP had a few revelations and showed some issues, so it made for an interesting race from the technical side, as well as a decent race from a racing point of view.

Let’s get onto the disappointing day for McLaren. Not only was their car completely off the pace all weekend, but their Star driver made a complete hash of it, and the team had to rely on the new boy to score points.

Lewis Hamilton had a terrible day, from the start he bogged down his McLaren, forcing Heikki to take a detour around him, this put him tenth, behind Fernando Alonso in his Renault. Then to add insult to the injury he ran into the back of the Renault, destroying both his and Fernando’s race as he destroyed his nose, and took a huge chip out of Fernando’s rear wing (see pic left).

To be fair to Fernando he raced on, and did a decent job considering the damage to the car, it may only look like a small piece missing, but he will have had a huge loss of rear downforce, as well as vibrations and the nagging thought that the whole assembly could collapse at any moment, this race showed the Spaniard’s fighting spirit and Title holding worth.

Up front the Ferrari’s were showing there raw pace, Massa was pulling away, and Kimi had put a move on the Pole sitter Robert Kubica to claim the second spot from the BMW Sauber.

The BMW sat with the Ferrari for a time, showing that the pace in Qualifying was not a one off, and to the team’s credit they did not even pit that early, coming in on lap 17, only four laps before his team mate. This showed that the team is certainly heading in the right direction, and I am sure if they can keep it up over the European season, then they will be able to take their maiden race win this year. With the team claiming 11 points for third and fourth spots in the race they go into the European races on the top of the constructors table.

Toyota also deserve mention, or more specifically Jarno Trulli. It seems that without the disruptive Ralf at the team, Jarno has stepped up to the team leader job well. He has constantly out paced his younger team mate, and scored points regularly, usually as the ‘best of the rest’ driver behind the McLaren/Ferrari/BMW’s. In fact the Toyota for the last couple of races has been on the same pace as the McLaren cars, showing they too have moved along a good way, and if development stays apace could also be challenging for regular podium slots this year. Timo Glock drove a trouble free race for the most part, and managed a ninth spot finish.

I must mention Heikki, who took the fifth spot with a great trouble free race. Considering the performance advantage that both the BMW and Ferrari teams had over McLaren, he did well. He drove his own race and stayed out of trouble, and because of that took home some much needed points for the team. Lewis eventually finished in thirteenth spot, but if you watch the on board footage you will see why he made little progress after his bump with the Renault. The car looked a complete handful, with the back end not doing what it should in almost every corner. The damage to the nose was obviously not the only damage the car had taken, it was probably down to damaged barge boards on the side of the car, and more than likely damage on the tray underneath the McLaren.

Mark Webber again brought the Red Bull home in the points, taking the seventh spot, with an off the pace Nico Rosberg taking the final point paying position for Williams.

It’s strange that the Williams seems to be suffering the same performance losses as the McLaren car, perhaps there is something similar in the design philosophy that the two teams have not quite got right yet, both cars went well at Australia, but both teams have been struggling since, strange.

I would put money on both coming back though when we hit Spain in three weeks time.

I must mention Giancarlo Fisichella as well in the Force India, he has certainly brought something back to the old Jordan team, the car and team seem a lot more settled since his return, and he performed well in both the race and qualifying. It would be nice to see the team start to make their way up the grid.

Rubens drove well in the Honda, hounding Fernando Alonso for most of the race, showing that the team is certainly starting to get a handle on their performance troubles of last year.

The European season starts next, and with all the teams testing and developing new aero upgrades it should be interesting. Talk of a very strange Ferrari nose has been making it’s way, as well as some odd things seen on the Toyota and McLaren cars. So let’s hope the 3 weeks are used well by the teams, and they all come out racing in Europe.

This could turn out to be one of the closest and most interesting seasons so far, at the moment it’s Ferrari, BMW, McLaren and a little further back Toyota, but don’t expect it to stay that way all year. We are on for a cracker!

‘I’m uploading the ITV-F1 stream of the highlight’s. This has all the bumps and bangs, including the Timo Glock accident.

For those that want the DivX version, download it here

Oh well, suppose it was only a matter of time, the FOM have asked for the video to be removed, so I have. Appologies.

I just wish the FOM would put a decent video subset up of their own, and it would not come to this, after all we ARE in the 21st century nowadays.

FOM Sort your life out, the F1 is a highly watched sport, with a high interest level in it. I am sure you can monetise video content on your site if you were to do it (properly, not that lame attempt you currently have). After all I’m sure there is more than one sponsor that would fund it for you. Give the fans what they want! After all we are what makes you all of your money!

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.

First off apologies to my regular readers on the lack of postings recently, real life has been dragging me away, but enough of that an on with the qualifying session.

The Turkish GP is a track where everyone including Ferrari thought they would do well, and as it turns out they have, but probably not as well as they were hoping for.

Massa takes the pole position, but it’s behind him where things get interesting.

Q1 was interesting for two reasons, 1 Ralf Schumacher again struggled a lot more than his team mate in the Toyota, even after both cars had been showing good pace in practice sessions, and Anthony Davidson made his car look way and above what it should have done, and made it through easily into Q2.

Q2 again showed that Anthony was quicker than he should be, he showed great character, pushing the SA as hard as it is possible in the famous corner 8. He was only just not able to get through to Q3, setting a time of 1m 28.002s, posting better times than both of the Red Bull drivers.

Q3 showed that none of the teams are on the same level as the Ferrari’s and McLaren’s with the four cars posting far better times (about half a second) than the drivers on the third row.

Lewis showed that the practice session times where he has been constantly faster than his team mate where in fact accurate and takes the second slot on the grid. Kimi seemed to struggle with front end balance at some points, so perhaps has gone for a race setup rather than a qualifying one, and slots in third, with Fernando Alonso dropping in fourth, with his fastest lap set on the harder tyre compound.

 Another interesting point is that Heikki again out qualified his team mate in the Renault’s, showing his raw pace is certainly there, if only they would give him a fast car.

So the grid looks like this

1 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:27.329
2 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.373
3 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:27.546
4 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.574
5 Robert Kubica BMW 1:27.722
6 Nick Heidfeld BMW 1:28.037
7 Heikki Kovalainen Renault 1:28.491
8 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:28.501
9 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:28.740
10 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:29.322
11 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda
12 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault
13 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault
14 Rubens Barrichello Honda
15 Jenson Button Honda
16 Alexander Wurz Williams-Toyota
17 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Ferrari
18 Ralf Schumacher Toyota
19 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda
20 Sebastian Vettel STR-Ferrari
21 Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari
22 Sakon Yamamoto Spyker-Ferrari

McLaren Mercedes dominated at this weekends Monaco GP. Alonso and Lewis came home 1-2 in a dominant showing from the Grove based team.

The two McLaren’s lead from the start, and never looked like being surpassed all race. The Ferrari of Massa could not hang with the two silver cars, and made the race easy for the two at the front. Lewis had a few extra laps of fuel in the car, but struggled to maintain the race perfect pace of Alonso in the opening part of the race, and therefore could not capitalise on his longer first run.

Behind the two McLaren’s, Massa’s Ferrari showed that the struggling pace of the team was not just merely a practice and qualifying issue. Massa struggled to keep up with Lewis in the first section of the race, and after the first stop the Ferrari team resorted to trying the super soft tyres, in an attempt to give the Ferrari a little more pace. This did not work, and Massa could just not live with the pace of the front runners.

Fisichella brought his Renault home in fourth spot, after the car showed a boost in performance. Whether this is a trait of the car running in the high downforce configuration, or if it’s a genuine boost in performance for the team we will only tell when the car goes to the North American tracks.

The BMW team showed it still is a competitive team, even if they showed small signs of reliability and performance slowdowns. Robert Kubica brought his BMW in to fifth place (with a gearbox or drivetrain issue), his German team mate Nick Heidfeld brought the second BMW in sixth.

The Williams team looked a little more sorted this weekend as well. The car seemed to handle a little better, and looked to have the pace, at least in a high downforce configuration. Alex Wurz drove to seventh for the team.

The last spot in the points was the Ferrari of Kimi Raikkonen. He drove through from the back of the grid for the place, however it was no Michael drive, probably because the car was not as good this year.

So then, Lewis has still not managed to take his first win, however he is still joint top of the drivers championship alongside his team mate.

The American tracks are next on the calendar. Two more new tracks for Lewis. Can he show his talent and take his MP4-22 to the top of the podium. Time will tell, however, this weekend at least he was bettered by Alonso, showing Lewis that he is a two times World Champion for a reason.

Filipe Massa has taken another great pole in Spain. The Ferrari team showed there true colour’s in qualifying after sandbagging all weekend.

The Spanish were happy though as Alonso popped his McLaren onto the second spot of the grid, just a few hundredths of a second behind Massa.

Kimi Raikkonen dropped the second Ferrari into third, with the second McLaren of young Lewis Hamilton popping into the fourth spot.

It seems that the fuel strategy between the teams has been split amongst the drivers. Massa and Alonso seem to have short fueled with Raikkonen and Hamilton going slightly longer.

Behind the front four are the BMW of Robert Kubica and the Toyota of Jarno Trulli. Jarno is the surprise of the group in the top 10, Toyota have been slow all weekend.

Fourth row has the second BMW of Nick Heidfeld and the Renault of Heikki Kovalainen.

Fifth row has the much improved Red Bull of David Coulthard and the second Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella.

The race should be interesting. Will Lewis try a fourth to first move again? will the short filled front two pay because of it, or will they pull away?

The Qualification session went well again for young Brit Lewis Hamilton. Lewis has been the fastest car over the whole weekend so far, and managed to put his car on the front row of the grid in second place, even though his lap was a little scruffy.

Kimi Raikkonen and Filipe Massa seemed to be sandbagging all weekend, Massa came out quick on the Q3 session, and claimed the pole spot. The second Ferrari managed the third spot on the grid.

It seems the second McLaren was not on the pace of his team mate all season. Strange considering that Alonso has won the race for the last two seasons.

The race should be good tomorrow, the McLaren’s have both been quick off the line this season so far, and if they manage to get the jump on the Ferrari’s then they should dictate the race. It looks like Ferrari are trying to run light with Massa, hoping to dictate from the front.

The race will be interesting, will Massa hold his pole spot off the line? or will Lewis get the jump and claim his first F1 race win?

Time will tell.

1. Filipe Massa
2. Lewis Hamilton
3. Kimi Raikkonen
4. Fernando Alonso
5. Nick Heidfeld
6. Robert Kubica
7. Giancarlo Fisichella
8. Mark Webber
9. Jarno Trulli
10. Nico Rosberg
11. Alexander Wurz
12. Heikki Kovalainen
13. Anthony Davidson
14. Ralf Schumacher
15. Rubens Barichello
16. Jenson Button
17. Takuma Sato
18. Antonio Luizzi
19. Scott Speed
20. Adrian Sutil
21. David Coulthard
22. Christijan Albers

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.

BMW - As was expected from the BMW team, they have produced a good, quick car. This showed with Nick Heidfeld qualifying in third with 1:26.556. It was not a one off quick run though, as his rookie team mate Robert Kubica managed to run a 1:27.347 to grab the fifth spot on the grid.

The team could certainly be the ‘fly in the ointment’ for the race, and probably this season.

Renault - What can only be described as a bad day for the Renault team. Giancarlo Fisichella managed to claim sixth spot with a 1:27.634, that puts the fastest Renault over one and a half seconds slower than the Ferrari of Kimi.

Heikki Kovalainen did not do well either, after initial speculation about his speed he dropped out of qualifying in the second session, and will start from 13th.

Red Bull - Mark Webber seemed to go quite well in the Red Bull. The car seemed fairly well hooked up, and as such claimed the seventh spot on the grid in the dying moments of Q3 with a time of 1:27.934. His older team partner David Coulthard seemed to struggle with the cars balance and was one of the drivers not to make it through to the Q2 session, David will start 19th.

Toyota - The Toyotas were possibly the shock cars of the qualifying session. Both of the cars have looked off pace all weekend so far.

Both Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli pulled of a fine display of what can be achieved. Ralf managed a 1:28.692, and Jarno a 1:28.871 to claim 8th and 9th on the grid.

Jarno even dragged a jack down the pit lane in Q2.

Super Aguri - The Honda works team cannot be pleased at their Super Aguri ‘junior’ teams results. Both of the SA cars showed good pace. New boy Anthony Davidson managed to put his car on the 11th spot on the grid.

Takuma Sato was the real surprise encounter of the Q3 session. He managed to get through to the Q3 session to grab the 10th spot, a feat that neither of the works Honda cars achieved.

Williams - The Williams team will have mixed emotions about how they performed. The team will be happy that the cars were reliable and were not massively off the pace.

Nico Rosberg will start in 12th, but his time in Q2 was only a second or so behind the fastest man in that session.

Alexander Wurz showed he needs a little more practice in the race team, he starts 15th with a time around half a second behind his young team mate.

Honda - The Honda team knew that they were in trouble coming into this race weekend, how much they were struggling though, had not been made clear.

The Hondas have struggled all winter season, and showed in qualifying that the raft of aero parts that the team brought with them this weekend have not worked. Jenson Button struggled, forced and dragged his car through into the Q2 session, but could not make the car anywhere near fast enough to get through from that stage. Jenson will start 14th on the grid. Team mate Rubens Barichello will start from 17th after not even getting through to Q2.

Scuderia Toro Rosso - The STR team were expected to be on the pace this season. The Adrian Newey chassis is the same as the Red Bull team run, the engine is a Ferrari one, so what happened?

Scott Speed will start in 18th, while Vitantonio Liuzzi will start on the second last row in 20th.

Spyker - The Spyker team will start from the back of the grid in their first full season. The team will get better, it has hired some good staff, now has a serious backer, and two young and capable drivers.

So with the qualifying over it’s down to the race, how much fuel are the cars running? What tyre strategies are the teams to use? And who is the quickest car and driver combo in 2007’s F1 season?

Today was the last day of testing at Bahrain, and the last official day of testing for the teams before the opening race in Australia.

Massa was once again the fastest man on the track, he lapped in an incredible 1m29.989s to set the fastest time all week with the new aero package on the car.

Renault had a bit of a hit and miss day. Heikki showed that the team have certainly started to find pace in the car by lapping the second fastest time with a 1m30.384s and Fisi doing a 1m30.498s. That however was not the whole story as both cars had failures that caused less track time than the team were hoping for.

Kimi was running the revised aero package from Massa’s car in the afternoon and managed to get himself into fourth spot.

The McLaren cars both seemed a little off the pace of previous days, Alonso managed fifth and de la Rossa managed seventh.

Barrichello in the Honda showed a better turn of speed as well recording a best time of 1m31.067s to claim sixth spot, however Button only managed fourteenth.

The surprise of the day though was the speed of Scott Speed. He managed a 1m31.500s to claim the eighth spot and showed that the Toro Rosso team seem to have a better handle on the new Adrian Newey car than their A team brothers. Could this indicate that the car was initially designed with the Ferrari V8 in mind instead of the Renault one? Time will tell if that is the case.