* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
- Goto:
- Go
Gallactico 18 years ago
We would have liked to typify the hysterical British press plus the subsequent FIA investigation into McLaren's so-called 'team orders' at Monaco as a storm in a cockpit.
But a cockpit is too big an arena for the triteness of it all. A storm in an air box would be more appropriate. Or a storm in a wheel nut.
So, why did the FIA bother at all?
Well, it was McLaren who stood accused, not so? And history has shown, over and over again, that the FIA will act on a sliver of an excuse to nail Ron Dennis and his boys.
When the Maccas stole a march on the rest in 1998 and 1999, Mario Illien's use of beryllium in the Mercedes V10 engines was obviously banned.
Now, beryllium has the advantages of being ultra-light, generating less friction and dispersing heat very quickly, which all add up to a more powerful engine needing less cooling.
When Adrian Newey could thus endow the MP4-13 and -14 with smaller radiators, and therefore tighter side-pods for better aero, the McLarens took off.
But, hey presto, this exotic material was too expensive, even for Ferrari.
So, the FIA had to act. Officially, beryllium was declared too toxic.
Second brake pedal
In early 1998, McLaren also used a mechanically operated system braking the inside rear wheel in a corner more than the outside wheels, to make the car turn in better.
That was banned on the grounds that it constituted three-wheel steering, whereas F1 cars are only allowed to steer via two wheels.
So, if great oversteer drivers like Montoya, Villeneuve, Peterson and Rindt got the car's tail out on the exit of corners, did that amount to four-wheel steering?
Of course not.
And by the way, McLaren didn't operate three brake pedals, as some people in their massive ignorance seem to believe, but only two.
Speaking of which: in 2000 Coulthard was excluded from the Brazilian GP when one side of his front wing exceeded the 5 mm tolerance by 2 mm, after it had been knocked askew during the race by a bumpy track.
By contrast, Ferrari retained their points three races earlier, in the Malaysian GP of 1999, when bargeboards - as fitted prior to the race - exceeded the maximum tolerance by a full centimeter.
Renault feeling the brunt
Last year, it was Renault's turn to suffer the FIA's bias, when mass dampers were banned out of the blue after having been officially declared legal by FIA chief technical delegate Charlie Whiting at every step of its inception and development for over a year.
It's not as if Charlie had woken up one morning, only to find that one of the teams had been running an illegal system that he was unaware of.
Had this been the case, he should have been fired for gross incompetence in any case.
But Charlie was even more pathetic.
He committed a cynical foul as well, by making a sudden and complete U-turn on his own rulings, simply at the behest of another - outperformed - competitor.
And what kind of a fool calls mass dampers 'aero devices'? Hidden inside the bodywork, they're not even exposed to air flow at all!
Yes, they have the effect of stabilising a car back to its optimum posture a fraction sooner, so that aero devices have more time to be as efficient as possible.
But this is exactly what conventional suspension parts do as well, not to forget about tyres.
And none of them have ever been banned as 'aero' devices, even though they're exposed to airflow rather more than mass dampers!
Down the garden path
Effectively, Whiting's sequence of decisions had led Renault down the garden path, up to the edge of the abyss, from whence Charlie used the cover of darkness to push La Regie over the cliff.
And we all know for whose benefit: the same team and driver who scored when Alonso was inexplicably docked a five-car penalty at Monza last year, for having 'blocked' Felipe Massa in qualifying.
So outrageous was Alonso's penalty, that Niki Lauda - a legendary ex-Ferrari driver, no less - advised viewers to switch their TVs off in protest.
That was until Lauda was reminded that his task was to increase viewership, and not decrease it.
In any case, one would have hoped that this nonsense - of targeting Ferrari's strongest opponents - would have stopped by now.
Monaco, alas, showed that those days are, perhaps, not yet over.
And we say 'perhaps', because it is not clear who had complained about McLaren's so-called 'team orders', if anyone did at all.
Reduced racing
If, however, it was a complaint from Ferrari, it would really have been a case of irony in overdrive, for it was Maranello themselves who had cemented the modern credo of racing up to the second stops, only to protect positions and points thereafter.
A good or a bad thing?
Well, it makes sense for team mates not to clobber each other out of the race, not so?
Which doesn't mean that they should not race each other up to the flag. Had anyone tried to tell Senna and Prost that? Or Mansell and Piquet? Or Prost and Lauda?
No.
Yet, Monaco is different. On a circuit where Mansell's mighty Williams couldn't find a way past Senna's puny McLaren in 1992, notwithstanding an advantage of 4 seconds per lap, it seems like a healthy decision to hold station, rather than attempt the impossible.
What chance did Lewis Hamilton really have to nip past Alonso, given cars that were matched to the last two-tenths of a second, over the course of a whole weekend?
What chance if Alonso himself, as well as Massa and Raikkonen, got stuck for lengthy periods behind cars that were 2 seconds a lap slower?
One can understand Hamilton's desire to race flat-out until the flag drops. It is in his blood to go balls-to-the-wall.
And the Hammer drove beautifully, daringly, exhilaratingly.
So did Alonso. What a slide, and what a catch, into the entrance to the swimming pool complex, deep into the race, just before his second pit stop!
The Circus Master
Which begs the real question of the 'Monaco team order' saga: why in heaven's name did Ron Dennis have to do the silly schoolboy thing and claim that his cars were slowed from as early as lap 10, because they were so superior?
Why, if it was clear that both Alonso and Hamilton drove on the edge and sometimes over it, up to the second stops? Who did Dennis try to fool?
Even Martin Brundle was getting nervous for McLaren's sake, calling for a halt to the bare-knuckled duel long before the team did.
Yet, Ron felt the need to brag like a spoilt brat. That, really, is what turned the aftermath of the Monaco GP into farce.
That, plus some pathetic hyperventilated sensationalism from the British press, who whipped the Queen's island into a frenzy with outrageously misleading headlines about Hamilton having been cuckolded.
Not for nothing then, huh, that both Alonso and Hammi sport long, if not bushy, side-handle bars? It's for Ron to grab onto, if he wants to reign his drivers in!
The tragic point, however, to have emerged from this whole sorry saga, was some more proof of how extremely gullible, childish and uneducated F1's fan base really is, to have been taken for a ride like this.
And guess who manipulated it into a massive promotional exercise, fuelling the frenzy with extremist talk, like having McLaren excluded from the championship?
Why, that clever old ring master himself, Mr Bernhard Charles Ecclestone.
Good on 'yer bank balance, mate. But not good for the sport.
But a cockpit is too big an arena for the triteness of it all. A storm in an air box would be more appropriate. Or a storm in a wheel nut.
So, why did the FIA bother at all?
Well, it was McLaren who stood accused, not so? And history has shown, over and over again, that the FIA will act on a sliver of an excuse to nail Ron Dennis and his boys.
When the Maccas stole a march on the rest in 1998 and 1999, Mario Illien's use of beryllium in the Mercedes V10 engines was obviously banned.
Now, beryllium has the advantages of being ultra-light, generating less friction and dispersing heat very quickly, which all add up to a more powerful engine needing less cooling.
When Adrian Newey could thus endow the MP4-13 and -14 with smaller radiators, and therefore tighter side-pods for better aero, the McLarens took off.
But, hey presto, this exotic material was too expensive, even for Ferrari.
So, the FIA had to act. Officially, beryllium was declared too toxic.
Second brake pedal
In early 1998, McLaren also used a mechanically operated system braking the inside rear wheel in a corner more than the outside wheels, to make the car turn in better.
That was banned on the grounds that it constituted three-wheel steering, whereas F1 cars are only allowed to steer via two wheels.
So, if great oversteer drivers like Montoya, Villeneuve, Peterson and Rindt got the car's tail out on the exit of corners, did that amount to four-wheel steering?
Of course not.
And by the way, McLaren didn't operate three brake pedals, as some people in their massive ignorance seem to believe, but only two.
Speaking of which: in 2000 Coulthard was excluded from the Brazilian GP when one side of his front wing exceeded the 5 mm tolerance by 2 mm, after it had been knocked askew during the race by a bumpy track.
By contrast, Ferrari retained their points three races earlier, in the Malaysian GP of 1999, when bargeboards - as fitted prior to the race - exceeded the maximum tolerance by a full centimeter.
Renault feeling the brunt
Last year, it was Renault's turn to suffer the FIA's bias, when mass dampers were banned out of the blue after having been officially declared legal by FIA chief technical delegate Charlie Whiting at every step of its inception and development for over a year.
It's not as if Charlie had woken up one morning, only to find that one of the teams had been running an illegal system that he was unaware of.
Had this been the case, he should have been fired for gross incompetence in any case.
But Charlie was even more pathetic.
He committed a cynical foul as well, by making a sudden and complete U-turn on his own rulings, simply at the behest of another - outperformed - competitor.
And what kind of a fool calls mass dampers 'aero devices'? Hidden inside the bodywork, they're not even exposed to air flow at all!
Yes, they have the effect of stabilising a car back to its optimum posture a fraction sooner, so that aero devices have more time to be as efficient as possible.
But this is exactly what conventional suspension parts do as well, not to forget about tyres.
And none of them have ever been banned as 'aero' devices, even though they're exposed to airflow rather more than mass dampers!
Down the garden path
Effectively, Whiting's sequence of decisions had led Renault down the garden path, up to the edge of the abyss, from whence Charlie used the cover of darkness to push La Regie over the cliff.
And we all know for whose benefit: the same team and driver who scored when Alonso was inexplicably docked a five-car penalty at Monza last year, for having 'blocked' Felipe Massa in qualifying.
So outrageous was Alonso's penalty, that Niki Lauda - a legendary ex-Ferrari driver, no less - advised viewers to switch their TVs off in protest.
That was until Lauda was reminded that his task was to increase viewership, and not decrease it.
In any case, one would have hoped that this nonsense - of targeting Ferrari's strongest opponents - would have stopped by now.
Monaco, alas, showed that those days are, perhaps, not yet over.
And we say 'perhaps', because it is not clear who had complained about McLaren's so-called 'team orders', if anyone did at all.
Reduced racing
If, however, it was a complaint from Ferrari, it would really have been a case of irony in overdrive, for it was Maranello themselves who had cemented the modern credo of racing up to the second stops, only to protect positions and points thereafter.
A good or a bad thing?
Well, it makes sense for team mates not to clobber each other out of the race, not so?
Which doesn't mean that they should not race each other up to the flag. Had anyone tried to tell Senna and Prost that? Or Mansell and Piquet? Or Prost and Lauda?
No.
Yet, Monaco is different. On a circuit where Mansell's mighty Williams couldn't find a way past Senna's puny McLaren in 1992, notwithstanding an advantage of 4 seconds per lap, it seems like a healthy decision to hold station, rather than attempt the impossible.
What chance did Lewis Hamilton really have to nip past Alonso, given cars that were matched to the last two-tenths of a second, over the course of a whole weekend?
What chance if Alonso himself, as well as Massa and Raikkonen, got stuck for lengthy periods behind cars that were 2 seconds a lap slower?
One can understand Hamilton's desire to race flat-out until the flag drops. It is in his blood to go balls-to-the-wall.
And the Hammer drove beautifully, daringly, exhilaratingly.
So did Alonso. What a slide, and what a catch, into the entrance to the swimming pool complex, deep into the race, just before his second pit stop!
The Circus Master
Which begs the real question of the 'Monaco team order' saga: why in heaven's name did Ron Dennis have to do the silly schoolboy thing and claim that his cars were slowed from as early as lap 10, because they were so superior?
Why, if it was clear that both Alonso and Hamilton drove on the edge and sometimes over it, up to the second stops? Who did Dennis try to fool?
Even Martin Brundle was getting nervous for McLaren's sake, calling for a halt to the bare-knuckled duel long before the team did.
Yet, Ron felt the need to brag like a spoilt brat. That, really, is what turned the aftermath of the Monaco GP into farce.
That, plus some pathetic hyperventilated sensationalism from the British press, who whipped the Queen's island into a frenzy with outrageously misleading headlines about Hamilton having been cuckolded.
Not for nothing then, huh, that both Alonso and Hammi sport long, if not bushy, side-handle bars? It's for Ron to grab onto, if he wants to reign his drivers in!
The tragic point, however, to have emerged from this whole sorry saga, was some more proof of how extremely gullible, childish and uneducated F1's fan base really is, to have been taken for a ride like this.
And guess who manipulated it into a massive promotional exercise, fuelling the frenzy with extremist talk, like having McLaren excluded from the championship?
Why, that clever old ring master himself, Mr Bernhard Charles Ecclestone.
Good on 'yer bank balance, mate. But not good for the sport.
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
Gallactico 18 years ago
The Ferrari versus McLaren battle resumes in Montreal, but everyone will be watching to see what happens in the Hamilton versus Alonso duel.
From a grand prix where everything is slow and tip-toeing, comes a grand prix that is fast and brake straining.
To be good on the Isle Notre Dame circuit in Montreal you need to have a lot of speed and a lot of brakes and Ferrari will go into the race confident that they can supply both.
Felipe Massa may be trailing in the World Championship table, but two races in two weekends could see a big change at the top.
Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen has most to prove after an uncharacteristic contact with the Monaco Armco. The Finn has had to put up with criticism from retired Mclaren and Ferrari drivers alike - former mentor Mika Hakkinen's been having a go, and Irv the Swerve has been having a go, too. Kimi needs to go out and let his driving do the talking, and most importantly, the answering back.
However Felipe Massa will be a tough one to crack. The Brazilian has put in some inconsistent laps in a lot of the early qualifying sessions this year, but when it really matters - the final hot lap, he's always managed to put in his best time. That has been most of the difference between the two Ferrari team-mates this season - Massa has started from better positions and capitalised on them.
Even more interesting, of course, is the battle being played out between Hamilton and Alonso. Alonso had the edge in Monaco thanks to a baulked final lap in qualifying which prevented Hamilton from getting pole, and from a cautious racing strategy from Ron Dennis, bringing Lewis in earlier than needed.
We keep on expecting Lewis to drop the ball but he doesn't. In Bahrain, Spain and Monaco we have assumed in previews that Hamilton would do something seriously cack-handed and we could stash all the superlatives away and treat him like a normal rookie. But he hasn't. A skid into the barriers at Ste Devote hardly counts as anything more than youthful exuberance.
Constant enthusiasm by anyone about anything for huge lengths of time can get very wearing - we know - and praising Hamilton has even lost us the mighty Darth Sparhawk as a reader (see recent Letters). But it would be quite wrong to take a contrary view when the guy is clearly a force of nature.
He's been close or ahead of a double World Champion in five races now, something that the vastly more experienced Giancarlo Fisichella couldn't do with 11 seasons of experience. The more races that pass by, the more you feel that it's going to continue that way.
However in Montreal, the McLaren duo might find they have more of a battle with the horsepower of the BMWs for 3rd and 4th, than with the Ferraris for 1st and 2nd.
Renault showed improved form in Monaco and Giancarlo Fisichella has always run well in Montreal, stretching all the way back to his Benetton days when he might even have won. But they're likely to struggle to keep up on a low downforce track.
And talking of low downforce, lot of eyes will be looking backwards on the rear mounted cameras to see how flexi everybody's rear wing is. It's the Red Bull team that got their knuckles rapped for having a bendy rear wing in Spain and for this race the FIA technical delegate has devised a far tougher test on the unloaded wing. And whereas Charlie Whiting was prepared to allow 5mm of tolerance before, this time round it's just 2mm. So no room for error there.
Someone who's run well in Canada in the past and who really needs a result right now is Ralf Schumacher. The Toyota team have been going back over their Monaco car like a CSI team working out where the crime was committed. Ralf qualified just ahead of the Spykers and really needs to get into Q2. (Though having said that, his race in Montreal last year was dreadful, his slow-running causing the demise of Jacques Villeneuve).
Though we jokily run a table of Drivers Most Likely To Be Sacked in the Team-Mate Wars feature, Ralf and the "Replacement" word are beginning to be discussed in the press.
Canada with its long straights and tight Armco is often seen as a car breaker, but Monaco even more so, and we only saw four cars go out in Monte Carlo. If that is the case then the Ferrari /McLaren dominance of the points will continue. They have picked up all 15 of the first 15 podiums of 2007 and only BMW 's Boulder Bothers pose any challenge to this continuing at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Maybe it's time to put the Champions' Wall, the barrier at the exit of the final corner, back in place...
From a grand prix where everything is slow and tip-toeing, comes a grand prix that is fast and brake straining.
To be good on the Isle Notre Dame circuit in Montreal you need to have a lot of speed and a lot of brakes and Ferrari will go into the race confident that they can supply both.
Felipe Massa may be trailing in the World Championship table, but two races in two weekends could see a big change at the top.
Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen has most to prove after an uncharacteristic contact with the Monaco Armco. The Finn has had to put up with criticism from retired Mclaren and Ferrari drivers alike - former mentor Mika Hakkinen's been having a go, and Irv the Swerve has been having a go, too. Kimi needs to go out and let his driving do the talking, and most importantly, the answering back.
However Felipe Massa will be a tough one to crack. The Brazilian has put in some inconsistent laps in a lot of the early qualifying sessions this year, but when it really matters - the final hot lap, he's always managed to put in his best time. That has been most of the difference between the two Ferrari team-mates this season - Massa has started from better positions and capitalised on them.
Even more interesting, of course, is the battle being played out between Hamilton and Alonso. Alonso had the edge in Monaco thanks to a baulked final lap in qualifying which prevented Hamilton from getting pole, and from a cautious racing strategy from Ron Dennis, bringing Lewis in earlier than needed.
We keep on expecting Lewis to drop the ball but he doesn't. In Bahrain, Spain and Monaco we have assumed in previews that Hamilton would do something seriously cack-handed and we could stash all the superlatives away and treat him like a normal rookie. But he hasn't. A skid into the barriers at Ste Devote hardly counts as anything more than youthful exuberance.
Constant enthusiasm by anyone about anything for huge lengths of time can get very wearing - we know - and praising Hamilton has even lost us the mighty Darth Sparhawk as a reader (see recent Letters). But it would be quite wrong to take a contrary view when the guy is clearly a force of nature.
He's been close or ahead of a double World Champion in five races now, something that the vastly more experienced Giancarlo Fisichella couldn't do with 11 seasons of experience. The more races that pass by, the more you feel that it's going to continue that way.
However in Montreal, the McLaren duo might find they have more of a battle with the horsepower of the BMWs for 3rd and 4th, than with the Ferraris for 1st and 2nd.
Renault showed improved form in Monaco and Giancarlo Fisichella has always run well in Montreal, stretching all the way back to his Benetton days when he might even have won. But they're likely to struggle to keep up on a low downforce track.
And talking of low downforce, lot of eyes will be looking backwards on the rear mounted cameras to see how flexi everybody's rear wing is. It's the Red Bull team that got their knuckles rapped for having a bendy rear wing in Spain and for this race the FIA technical delegate has devised a far tougher test on the unloaded wing. And whereas Charlie Whiting was prepared to allow 5mm of tolerance before, this time round it's just 2mm. So no room for error there.
Someone who's run well in Canada in the past and who really needs a result right now is Ralf Schumacher. The Toyota team have been going back over their Monaco car like a CSI team working out where the crime was committed. Ralf qualified just ahead of the Spykers and really needs to get into Q2. (Though having said that, his race in Montreal last year was dreadful, his slow-running causing the demise of Jacques Villeneuve).
Though we jokily run a table of Drivers Most Likely To Be Sacked in the Team-Mate Wars feature, Ralf and the "Replacement" word are beginning to be discussed in the press.
Canada with its long straights and tight Armco is often seen as a car breaker, but Monaco even more so, and we only saw four cars go out in Monte Carlo. If that is the case then the Ferrari /McLaren dominance of the points will continue. They have picked up all 15 of the first 15 podiums of 2007 and only BMW 's Boulder Bothers pose any challenge to this continuing at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Maybe it's time to put the Champions' Wall, the barrier at the exit of the final corner, back in place...
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
retailtherapy73 18 years ago
congratulations to lewis hamilton on his first victory!
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
jsnd 18 years ago
yeah, it makes a change to watch tv coverage of a black guy driving at high speeds that isnt shot from a news helicopter 
but seriously, what a screwy race
but seriously, what a screwy race
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
[Deleted] 18 years ago
Alonso is such a big girl's blouse, stop crying you big baby.
he has no-one to blame but himself for being 8 points behind, he's made the mistake and now he's blaming the team.
he's not schumie at ferrari, he HAS to compete with his team mate, but because he's WC he expects ron to tell the rookie team mate to pull over.....well tough shit!!
he has no-one to blame but himself for being 8 points behind, he's made the mistake and now he's blaming the team.
he's not schumie at ferrari, he HAS to compete with his team mate, but because he's WC he expects ron to tell the rookie team mate to pull over.....well tough shit!!
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
Ascaris 18 years ago
Quote:
Originally posted by Black_Swan
Alonso is such a big girl's blouse, stop crying you big baby.
he has no-one to blame but himself for being 8 points behind, he's made the mistake and now he's blaming the team.
he's not schumie at ferrari, he HAS to compete with his team mate, but because he's WC he expects ron to tell the rookie team mate to pull over.....well tough shit!!
I told you 2 years ago that alonso is full of shit. I'm glad people now finally see it.
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
trustno.1 18 years ago
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
Gallactico 18 years ago
Team by team analysis of Sunday's US Grand Prix (teams listed in championship order):
Mclaren: Lewis Hamilton 1, Fernando Alonso 2
Hamilton's second win in a row stretched his overall lead over Alonso to 10 points. McLaren celebrated their third one-two in seven races, third win in a row and fourth of the season. Alonso stood on the Indianapolis podium for the first time.
Ferrari: Felipe Massa 3, Kimi Raikkonen 4
Massa returned to the podium but demanded more from the team. Raikkonen lost two positions at the start and had to fight his way back.
BMW Sauber: Sebastian Vettel 8, Nick Heidfeld retired
Vettel, 19, became F1's youngest point scorer on his debut as stand-in for Robert Kubica following the Polish driver's crash in Canada. Heidfeld retired on lap 56 with an hydraulic leak.
Renault: Heikki Kovalainen 5, Giancarlo Fisichella 9
Kovalainen led a Grand Prix for the first time, from laps 22 to 26 before his first stop. Fisichella's one-stop strategy backfired when he spun on the second lap and dropped from eighth to 19th. Renault scored more points than BMW for the first time this season.
Williams: Alexander Wurz 10, Nico Rosberg 16
Rosberg retired 4-1/2 laps from the finish with an oil leak while in sixth place and on course to equal the best result of his career. Wurz started on a one stop strategy but was slowed by traffic.
Toyota: Jarno Trulli 6, Ralf Schumacher retired
Trulli produced Toyota's highest finish this season. Schumacher's race ended at the first corner after a collision with Coulthard damaged the suspension.
Red Bull: Mark Webber 7, David Coulthard retired
Webber scored his first points of the season after fighting with Trulli from start to finish. Coulthard got as far as the first turn before being speared by Schumacher's Toyota.
Super Aguri: Anthony Davidson 11, Takuma Sato retired
Sato was penalised 10 places on the starting grid for his next race after overtaking under yellow flags before he spun off and beached his car in the gravel. Davidson equalled his best ever result.
Toro Rosso: Scott Speed 13, Vitantonio Liuzzi 17
Speed complained of a lack of grip. Liuzzi was classified despite retiring in the pits with a loss of water pressure.
Honda: Jenson Button 12, Rubens Barrichello retired
Barrichello's race ended at the first corner with a broken wishbone and push rod after colliding with two cars as he tried to avoid Schumacher's Toyota. Button was one of those hit, damaging the front of the car. He also took on too much fuel at the first pitstop due to a rig pressure valve failure.
Spyker: Adrian Sutil 14, Christijan Albers 15
Sutil gained eight places at the start. Albers was on a one-stop strategy.
Mclaren: Lewis Hamilton 1, Fernando Alonso 2
Hamilton's second win in a row stretched his overall lead over Alonso to 10 points. McLaren celebrated their third one-two in seven races, third win in a row and fourth of the season. Alonso stood on the Indianapolis podium for the first time.
Ferrari: Felipe Massa 3, Kimi Raikkonen 4
Massa returned to the podium but demanded more from the team. Raikkonen lost two positions at the start and had to fight his way back.
BMW Sauber: Sebastian Vettel 8, Nick Heidfeld retired
Vettel, 19, became F1's youngest point scorer on his debut as stand-in for Robert Kubica following the Polish driver's crash in Canada. Heidfeld retired on lap 56 with an hydraulic leak.
Renault: Heikki Kovalainen 5, Giancarlo Fisichella 9
Kovalainen led a Grand Prix for the first time, from laps 22 to 26 before his first stop. Fisichella's one-stop strategy backfired when he spun on the second lap and dropped from eighth to 19th. Renault scored more points than BMW for the first time this season.
Williams: Alexander Wurz 10, Nico Rosberg 16
Rosberg retired 4-1/2 laps from the finish with an oil leak while in sixth place and on course to equal the best result of his career. Wurz started on a one stop strategy but was slowed by traffic.
Toyota: Jarno Trulli 6, Ralf Schumacher retired
Trulli produced Toyota's highest finish this season. Schumacher's race ended at the first corner after a collision with Coulthard damaged the suspension.
Red Bull: Mark Webber 7, David Coulthard retired
Webber scored his first points of the season after fighting with Trulli from start to finish. Coulthard got as far as the first turn before being speared by Schumacher's Toyota.
Super Aguri: Anthony Davidson 11, Takuma Sato retired
Sato was penalised 10 places on the starting grid for his next race after overtaking under yellow flags before he spun off and beached his car in the gravel. Davidson equalled his best ever result.
Toro Rosso: Scott Speed 13, Vitantonio Liuzzi 17
Speed complained of a lack of grip. Liuzzi was classified despite retiring in the pits with a loss of water pressure.
Honda: Jenson Button 12, Rubens Barrichello retired
Barrichello's race ended at the first corner with a broken wishbone and push rod after colliding with two cars as he tried to avoid Schumacher's Toyota. Button was one of those hit, damaging the front of the car. He also took on too much fuel at the first pitstop due to a rig pressure valve failure.
Spyker: Adrian Sutil 14, Christijan Albers 15
Sutil gained eight places at the start. Albers was on a one-stop strategy.
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
nachos 18 years ago
Alonso is gonna end up winning the world championat he is much better than hamilton.
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
jsnd 18 years ago
I hope so, but there is something wrong with f1 in general, it seems whoever gets out front early wins. Its the rest of the pack fighting for position thats worth watching.
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
alex_alex 18 years ago
Quote:
Originally posted by nachos
Alonso is gonna end up winning the world championat he is much better than hamilton.
I think so too, Its about time he wins
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
Ascaris 18 years ago
Fantastic Kimi! Fantastic Ferrari! 
Awesome race, finally the launch control of Ferrari worked like it should work.
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
VicVega 18 years ago
oh yeah ! fantastic race, excellent start, genious tactic, and wonderful job from Kimi and Ferrari-team !
(beer)
(beer)
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
Ascaris 18 years ago
Hahhah, Massa is now saying in his own website that Kimi's victory was because of luck. Yeah right, it's the luck who drives the car, creates brilliant tactics and wins the race. Massa is just a bitter little troll, exactly like Alonso. They both try to create new excuses to explain their own driving.
You'll never hear pathetic shit like that from Kimi. That's the difference between us and them. Finns are strict people, Häkkinen NEVER said a bad word from his team, lots of difficulties and car problems but he always brought out the positive sides. Same goes with Kimi, he is even more strict than Häkkinen, he says what he thinks and that's the best way to keep your dignity. Kimi don't act like he is the best one in the series, he keeps it real. The Iceman has received lots of critics because of his "lame" style to celebrate and give happy comments. He is there to drive a fucking car, not to act like a playboy. Foreign media says Kimi is arrogant, no people, he is just a Finn.
You'll never hear pathetic shit like that from Kimi. That's the difference between us and them. Finns are strict people, Häkkinen NEVER said a bad word from his team, lots of difficulties and car problems but he always brought out the positive sides. Same goes with Kimi, he is even more strict than Häkkinen, he says what he thinks and that's the best way to keep your dignity. Kimi don't act like he is the best one in the series, he keeps it real. The Iceman has received lots of critics because of his "lame" style to celebrate and give happy comments. He is there to drive a fucking car, not to act like a playboy. Foreign media says Kimi is arrogant, no people, he is just a Finn.
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
VicVega 18 years ago
what got you all wired up this morning Ascaris ?
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
Ascaris 18 years ago
Quote:
Originally posted by VicVega
what got you all wired up this morning Ascaris ?
Stupid people all around.
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
Gallactico 18 years ago
hmmm... what about the new f1 scandal?
* This post has been modified
: 18 years ago
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