F1-Blog

Malaysia Preview

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.

Goodbye F1, Hello new F1

It was a sad day for the F1 paddock on Sunday. So many goodbyes, to long and well established names.

Michael Schumacher drove a fine last race, coming through from the back of the pack to finish fourth, and Jenson Button did well, finishing third after starting fourteenth.

However there are more goodbyes than that of the great Michael. Yes Michael is leaving, and we will all be sad to see what is possibly the greatest driver of recent history (some would argue ever) leave the sport, but we have even bigger and more historic names leaving as well. Possibly the biggest of which is the mighty Cosworth.

Cosworth have not managed to find a team that will run their engine next year. This is a bad state of affairs, as Cosworth used to be the greatest. It shows how ingrained Cosworth were that all of the major drivers that can be thought off have won with a Cosworth in the back of their car. I'm sure that Cosworth will manage to struggle through and we will see them again in the back of an F1 car, it is after all where they deserve to be.

We are also loosing the Tobacco companies, the familiar liveries of Marlboro, Mild Seven and Lucky Strike will be leaving the sport. These are some of the strongest supporters of the sport throughout it's history, and it will be a sad to think that there will be no possibility of ever seeing the glorious liveries of the JPS Lotus and the likes again

The final goodbye we have is to Michelin. The French tyre giant will bow out at the end of the season due to the FIA instigating a one tyre manufacturer policy. Whether this is a good decision or not is still to be seen. A lot of the advancements that have come to F1 in the recent past is due to the tyre war. And it will be a shame not to see a challenger from Europe for tyre superiority. Perhaps we will see them return at some point, or even better them and Dunlop return, as it has been too long since Dunlop was involved in the sport.

The race turned out to be a good end to a good racing season. The first issues for Ferrari and Michael happened during qualifying. Due to the fact that all of the engine suppliers had to use the engine that would be used for the next 3 years, there where some niggles with a few of the teams.

Ferrari had an issue with Massa's car early on in the session, which was fixed. However Michael's car developed an issue during session three of qualifying, and the team could not fix it before the end of the session, this relegated him to the tenth spot on the grid as he did not set a time in session three.

Button in the Honda also had issues, his were with the traction control systems, on his run in session one the TC system was not coming on at all, forcing him to control wheel spin manually and not allowing him to power out of the corners. In session two they thought the issue had been resolved, however the TC had dropped into failsafe mode, this too did not allow him to power out of the corners, and relegated him to starting fourteenth.

The weather on Sunday came to the Bridgestone cars, with the track temperature increasing it meant that they where even quicker, whilst it seemed that Michelin and their teams had been conservative on there choices.

The start of the race was not without incident, and it seemed that Michael was on a mission in his last race, and started his run through the field, he made easy work of the two BMW Sauber cars and had started his run. The front however stayed the same, with Massa followed by Raikkonen, Trulli and Alonso.

However it was not all happy in the Williams camp as Nico Rosberg tail ended his team mate Mark Webber into the first corner. Mark managed to limp around to the pit's where he retired with damaged rear suspension caused by the impact.

Nico however caused the story of the race. Whilst returning to the pit's his front suspension gave out while he was traveling at 130Mph and Nico spun off into the barriers coming onto the main straight.

The safety car was called out while the debris from the crash was cleared up. Racing resumed with Massa pulling away from Kimi. Michael however was getting into his stride, overtaking both his brother Ralf in the Toyota, and his old team mate Rubens Barrichello in the Honda.

Next car to overtake was Giancarlo Fisichella's Renault. Michael got close to him in the final corner, and managed to draft him into the Senna S's, taking the Renault on the outside into the left hander. All however did not go well, as Michael was turning into the right hander of the S's his car violently lost control, with Michael just managing to hold onto the lurid slide. It was however obvious to see that one of his rear tyres was deflating rapidly. It seems he had picked up a shard of debris from the Rosberg incident causing a deflation. Michael limped round the rest of lap eight to the pits, and change tyres. This however put him at the back of the field, and close to being lapped by his team mate.

Whilst this was happening, both of the Toyota cars slowed, pitted and retired from the race. It seems there was a design or manufacturing flaw with the rear suspension. A pity really as Trulli was doing well in third spot at the time.

Cars started to pit, and after the stops Alonso and Button seemed to be the winners. Alonso managed to overtake Kimi, and Button managed to get in behind Kimi in fourth.

Michael however was determined to show that just because he was retiring, he was not past it. By half distance he had clawed his way back up to eighth place. He came up behind the BMW Sauber of Robert Kubica, and made the pass into the Senna S's look easy. Michael then set off up the road to pass Barrichello for sixth place.

The second round of pitstops allowed Michael to catch and pass Barrichello. Michael was now chasing down Fisichella for fifth place. It seemed that Fisichella was paying more attention to the fast approaching Michael, and not on the fast approaching corner. Because of this he left his braking into the Senna's far too late, and ran wide.

With three laps of his final GP left, he managed to catch and pass his successor at Ferrari, Kimi Raikkonen into the Senna's, giving him fourth place. Even though Michael tried to catch Button, he could just not seem to take enough time of the Englishman, which meant he ended his career in fourth spot, although certainly deserved the driver of the day award.

Another notable performance was had from both Takuma Sato, and his Honda powered Super Aguri. He managed the teams best finish yet, coming home in tenth place ahead of a Red Bull, a Toro Rosso and a Spyker-Midlands. 

Alonso took his second World Championship in a row, and managed to seal the Constructors title for Renault with his finish. How he will get on in the new atmosphere at McLaren is to be seen, but with a competitive car he may go on to set some records of his own, as after all even this second title would have been the youngest title winner, if he had not already have won it the year before.

So we say goodbye to the old F1, and say hello to a new interesting F1, without the shadow of Michael over everyone. With some luck the new talent in the paddock can now shine brightly. The likes of Kimi and Alonso are already well proven. But we have the new wave of young and definitely talented drivers coming through, Kubica has already shown his abilities, and Alonso is the youngest ever World Champion. But we have the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Heikki Kovalainen and Nelson Piquet Jr coming into the sport. I think F1 is in very good hands for the future.

Results

Bridgestone quick at home

It seems that the Bridgestone tyres where certainly the rubber to have in Japan today.

The qualifying session ended with the first four spots on the grid for tomorrows race are held by the Japanese tyre giant.

This is certainly bad news for the Renault's and Alonso in particular. However the Ferrari's where pushed hard during the third session by one of the other home teams Toyota. This caused both of the Ferrari cars going out to set the fastest times at the end of the session, this however worked against Michael as Fillipe managed to pip the German to the pole position.

The Renault team are the fastest of the Michelin tyre runners starting from fifth and sixth on the grid behind the two Toyota's and the two Ferrari cars.

The shock of the session was the lack in pace from the McLaren cars, both of the cars did not make it through to 3rd qualifying.

Heikki makes the big time

Heikki Kovalainen has been announced as the second driver alongside Giancarlo Fisichella at Renault next year.

The other news from the Renault team is that Flavio Briatore will also stay on as team boss.

Heikki is the second of the 'young guns' to come up from the GP2 series to F1, with Nico Rosberg being the first to make the leap.

The only team's that now need announce their 2007 line-up is the Ferrari and McLaren teams. The thought's and rumor is that Schumacher is to retire at the end of this season. This would make sense as it was believed that Kimi had a contract with both Renault and Ferrari with a clause in the Renault contract that allowed him to void it if the Ferrari drive came up. And with Renault now announcing their drivers, it looks like Kimi will be Ferrari bound to race alongside Filipe Massa.

SchUm’ S of A

Michael and Filipe pick up the first one two for the Ferrari team this season in a dominant display of power.

The Ferrari team where obviously helped by a very good Bridgestone tyre, as the other Bridsgestone runners of the Toyota team also put in a sterling display, with some unfortunate bad luck for Ralph as a wheel bearing failed with only 11 laps remaining.

The race was not without incident, with only 9 cars finishing. The McLaren cars seemed to have caused a massive accident at turn two when Juan Pablo ran into the back of team mate Kimi. This caused Scott Speed, Jenson Button and Nick Heidfeld to have incidents and retire, Heidfeld actually rolled his car 3 times over, he got out unhurt and quite upbeat despite it all, he remarked “it’s the first time I’ve rolled in a car!”

Christian Klien, Mark Webber and Franck Montagny had an incident at the first corner as well that caused them all to retire as well; These incidents brought out the safety car for 5 laps, this helped Jarno Trulli, who started from the pit's  catch the rest of the pack, and as he was on a one stop strategy allowed him to finish in fourth, with possibly the best drive of the day.

The restart saw Massa with a turn of pace driving away from Michael Schumacher, with Rubens Barrichello, Ralf Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve close behind the 7 times world champion.

However  Villeneuve was forced to retire on lap 23 with suspected hydraulics failure, a pity really as the BMW Sauber looked to have good race pace. The pit stops saw the Ferrari’s trade places at the top, Schumacher had a great in lap with Massa having a very poor out lap, this allowed Schumacher to take control of the race and never looked to be challenged for the lead at any point. He showed that the Ferrari’s had pace well above their running, setting the fastest lap of 1:12.719.

The shock of the race, and the weekend as a whole, was the apparent trouble of Fernando Alonso. The world champion struggled to get on the pace of the Ferrari’s or even that of his team mate all weekend. He was clearly struggling with understear  in qualifying, and then heard to say that the car was oversteering during the race. The Renault however seemed to be at least on the ‘also ran’ pace in the hands of his team mate Giancarlo Fisichella.

Another notable finish was the Toro Rosso of Liuzzu, who picked up the team's first point. This is not the Minardi Team's first point, however it is the first points for the team under it's new brand.