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Archive: Juan Pablo Montoya

Turkish GP: Sorry for the delay

27 August 2006 17:46

Categories: Formula 1, General, Personal

I’m ashamed to say that I slept through most of today’s race. I don’t know what’s happening to me at the moment, but I have been very tired all weekend, and I haven’t even had a chance to get much sleep. I slept through qualifying aswell, although that usually happens.

I was okay before the race started, but just after Räikkönen’s crash I started to drift off. I woke up whenever something happened — I saw glimpses of Liuzzi and Yamamoto beached. But I found it so uncomfortable to watch, I had to close my eyes and go to sleep. I woke up with about fifteen laps to go, in time to see the incredible battle between Alonso and Schumacher.

I say I slept through the race and qualifying, although I caught snatches of it whenever I was able to wake up. Apparently the qualifying session was a thriller — the third ‘thriller’ in a row that I’ve missed aswell!

I know I am in a minority here, but I personally preferred the one lap qualifying system. It was exciting to see how a driver would cope under the full glare of the spotlight, with just one chance to set a time. Montoya stuffing it into the wall at the very last corner at last year’s qualifying session at Hockenheim is one of the most memorable moments from qualifying I have ever seen.

With the free-for-all system there are precious few memorable moments. Do you know why? Because nobody sees any actual driving. I heard that by the end of qualifying yesterday the director just stayed on the pit straight basically watching the cars go past as driver after driver crossed the line to set a time. This is pointless. You don’t see any actual driving here — and I watch Formula 1 because I want to see driving. If I just wanted to see a bunch of times scrolling across the screen, I would just visit Formula 1.com’s Live Timing section.

As I say though, I’ll have to watch the highlights programme before I write more about today’s race.

2 comments

Goodbye to Montoya and Montagny

16 July 2006 16:32

Categories: Formula 1

The United States Grand Prix was Juan Pablo Montoya’s last. He decided to move to Nascar — ridiculously boring stock car oval racing in the States — after no decent long-term opportunities within Formula 1 emerged. His team boss Ron Dennis dumped him immediately, and Pedro de la Rosa will take his place for the time being.

There is no doubt that Juan Pablo Montoya was a character. His ballsy racing style earned him a lot of fans. Unfortunately for him, it also earned him a lot of detractors. Many saw him as error-prone and perhaps even dangerous, causing too many accidents. Don’t forget that his last action as an F1 driver was to crash into his team mate and take out about a quarter of the entire field in one go.

In the press conference where Montoya announced his move to Nascar, he said that he couldn’t wait to get back to racing and touching wheels — because if you do that in F1 you are an animal.

A lot of people will miss him, but similar things were said when Eddie Irvine left F1 aswell. It will be very interesting to see how Montoya does in Nascar. Personally, I would be amazed if he could stay awake.

F1Fanatic has a good post on Montoya’s move to Nascar.

The French Grand Prix was Franck Montagny’s last — for the time being at least. He was brought in hastily as a replacement for the disastrous Yuji Ide at Super Aguri. Aguri seem determined to have an all-Japanese line-up, so the Frenchman’s place was never going to be secure.

Montagny’s season has gone largely unnoticed. But let’s face it — it’s difficult to be noticed in a Super Aguri unless you completely lose it like Yuji Ide or slam it into the wall like Takuma Sato. It is really easy to feel sorry for Montagny. He did Renault’s dirty work as a test driver, and no doubt he made important contributions to the incredible rise of the French team over the past three or four years.

Unfortunately, like many test drivers, he has never been given a decent chance at a proper race drive. And like many test drivers when he did get a chance it was in a piss-poor car. You would need more than your fingers and toes to count the number of drivers in such a situation — Pedro de la Rosa, Anthony Davidson, Alexander Wurz, Marc Gené, Luca Badoer, Ricardo Zonta… And who’s to say that people like Heikki Kovalainen, Robert Kubica, Lewis Hamilton and Gary Paffett won’t find themselves in a similar trap?

Franck Montagny showed just as much potential as the four promising youngsters I have just listed. Sadly it looks as though Montagny is just yet another one of those drivers who had to make do with the biscuit crumbs left over. In the weekend that France is celebrating 100 years of Grand Prix motor racing, it is sad that once again the nation is not being represented in the sport.

His replacement at Super Aguri? Sakon Yamamoto, who finished 10^th overall in last year’s Formula Nippon championship. Considering Ide finished 2^nd, that doesn’t look too good…

1 comment

2006 Canadian Grand Prix

26 June 2006 17:28

Categories: Formula 1

I’m a bit late with this one, so I’ll try to keep it brief! I enjoyed the Canadian Grand Prix. There always seemed to be something ready to happen just around the corner. Marbling is common in motor racing, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen it causing such trouble for the drivers, with David Coulthard describing the conditions as the worst dry weather conditions he had ever been in.

Some humour was provided before the race began with a conversation between Scott Speed and his engineer. You can see the pleasent Speed in action on the right there. Speed is known for having a bit of an “attitude problem”, although apart from the infamous moment where he swore at David Coulthard in the stewards’ room the viewers have never seen much of this. Well we got a good old dose of it yesterday.

Speed: Is my engine nice and cool?
Engineer: Yes, your engine is cool.
Speed: Well good, because when I finish the race and get back to the pits and look at the data [voice building up to a cresendo] and Liuzzi’s engine is five degrees cooler than mine, somebody’s head is gonna roll!

Toro Rosso boss Gerhard Berger says he likes racing drivers to have this sort of attitude. Martin Brundle pointed out that there’s not really a lot that anybody can do about the engine temperature. Speed is by no means certain to retain his drive next year, but I hope he says around just for the pure comedy value.

It didn’t take long for the second blooper to emerge. How many Formula 1 starts has Giancarlo Fisichella made? 170. Surely he has the patience to wait for the lights to go out? In the end he compromised his start and had to take a drive-through penalty. Fisichella is bloody lucky he’s driving for Renault. Jean Todt was less than kind about him today.

Nico Rosberg got himself into a few scrapes over the weekend. He managed to hold up his team mate in qualifying as well as Rubens Barrichello, before going on to set a fast but scrappy lap. It sure looks great if you’re scraping along the wall, but anything more than that and you’ll find yourself slammed into said wall. I would say Rosberg was as lucky as he was fast. He didn’t endear himself to anybody with his optimistic battle with Montoya on lap 2. Rosberg is still a rookie, but in my eyes this is a world away from the Rosberg that set Bahrain alight.

Kimi Räikkönen doesn’t quite seem to be all there. I really think he could have won the race. Okay, the problems in the pitstops — with clutch and engine issues — were mostly to blame for Kimi’s downfall. But at one point in the first stint he was all over Alonso, and Martin Brundle was certain that Räikkönen would take the lead on the circuit. In the end it never happened. Whether that was the car or Kimi, I don’t know. But I think we all understand why he is going to be driving for either Ferrari or Renault next year. Two great qualifying performances in a row remind us that there is another young gun in Formula 1 who hasn’t had the opportunity that Alonso was handed on a silver plate.

Honda had another shocker. At the start of the season they almost looked in contention for race wins. Now they can count themselves lucky if they score a point. Where did it all go so wrong?

Perhaps the stupidest thing that happened yesterday was Ralf Schumacher carrying on and on with a car that was clearly sick. He was never going to score a point, and his only purpose yesterday was to act as a mobile chicane. On a narrow, twisty circuit like Montreal, and with the additional marble problems, that was surely too dangerous. On one of Ralf Schumacher’s first slow laps I saw a marshall waving a white flag. That means that the marshall felt that the car was going dangrously slowly.

Surely he was going to tour to the pits and retire? Nope. He would go on to be dangerously slow until his 58^th lap. Why Toyota didn’t call him in I don’t understand. And why the stewards didn’t call him in I don’t understand. Is this not the sort of thing that the black flag with an orange circle was invented for? Ridiculous all round.

Ralf Schumacher caused Jacques Villeneuve to go straight ahead into the wall after he got on to the marbles. This brought out the safety car towards the end of the race, ensuring that the cars were bunched together towards the end of the race — plenty of opportunity for last-minute overtaking, especially with drivers getting caught out on the marbles at the hairpin.

Räikkönen lost second place to Michael Schumacher with just two laps to go, finally bringing to an end a weekend which just an hour or so ago had looked so promising. But Jenson Button must have felt even worse after being passed by David Coulthard down the straight with just a few laps to go. Coulthard had looked snookered. A torrid qualifying session followed by an engine change meant that he started from the very back of the grid. That is possibly the hardest he’s ever worked for a single point. The heroic drive is a reminder that there is still life in old greybeard.

2 comments

2006 British Grand Prix

11 June 2006 15:49

Categories: Formula 1

Lots of talking points, even though there wasn’t that much on-track action.

Infact, the first session of qualifying was probably the most interesting part of the whole weekend. Track conditions were clearly not too good, probably as a result of Silverstone’s famously unpredictable wind conditions. All of the drivers seemed to be struggling badly until the very end of the session. Even then, there seemed to be a somewhat pedestrian feel to the session, as though nobody could quite be bothered to put a lap in.

The laid-back attitude combined with the windy conditions meant that two big names dropped out in the first knockout stage — Mark Webber and Jenson Button. Button qualified in a truly awful 19^th position. This put him ahead of only Jarno Trulli, who was unable to set a time because his engine blew, and the chronically slow Super Aguris. Super Aguri is meant to be a Honda B-team, but given Button’s recent form they may as well toss a coin to decide which is the B-team.

It is yet another example, though, of Honda’s silly little mistakes. Honda hoof it over the bar time and time again. Jenson Button did lose three minutes in the qualifying session by being randomly called in to be weighed. But every driver knows that there is a possibility that they will be weighed. It is a part of the sport and the team should have factored this in when planning Button’s schedule. It is not an excuse. At least Honda seem to be holding their hands up and taking the blame, but they shouldn’t have done that in the first place. Some commentators, notably ITV’s Ted Kravitz, claimed that Button still had time to set another lap, but Honda chose not to. If that is the case, then the error is scandalous.

At least the race looked a bit brighter for Button. He had a really good start to the race. He was looking fast and got up to 12^th when he had an oil leak that spun him into retirement. At least you can put this down to bad luck, as I don’t think the oil leak is a common problem for Honda. A chink of light at the end of the tunnel for Honda perhaps.

The season so far for Honda can definitely be split into two. The first few races saw the sort of overblown hype we’ve come to expect from Honda following a highly successful winter of testing. Button seemed convinced that he would win a race this season, and he was qualifying superbly, even if the race pace wasn’t quite there. Rubens Barrichello, meanwhile, was struggling to get to grips with his new car.

Then there was a change at the Nürburgring. Since then it has been Barrichello who has been coming up with the results for Honda. Button’s qualifying pace has disappeared, and race results have fallen through the floor. Button’s confidence has gone. His shoulders are slumped. His Honda is no longer a potential race-winning car. Honda have a lot of work to do if they are to become serious World Championship contenders. And they need to start by cutting out the silly errors.

(Update: No quick fix for Button.)

The starting grid was mouthwatering. At last, we had the three greatest drivers in the world occupying the top three positions. Kimi Räikkönen really pulled one out of the bag to qualify second. He left it really late to set his final flying lap. He had to treat his out lap like a qualifying lap. It may wear down the tyres, but I wonder if it was actually (unintentionally) advantageous to Kimi. Instead of touring round on the out lap to conserve tyres, Kimi was going full speed. He must have been really pumped up, and he ended up setting a blistering time.

It wasn’t quite enough to beat Fernando Alonso, and the Spaniard proved today that he really is the driver to beat at the moment. At the start of the race it looked like we would have a close battle between the three best drivers in the world: Alonso, Räikkönen and Michael Schumacher. But Alonso just sat back and drove off into the distance.

Räikkönen must have had a fantastic lap to be able to qualify second, because his McLaren simply hasn’t got the pace of the Renault or the Ferrari. It is probably fair to say that Räikkönen impeded Michael Schumacher today. Räikkönen looked like he had 2^nd in the bag, but Ferrari’s tactician Ross Brawn came up with a genius plan which gave Michael Schumacher one lap on a clear track to overtake Kimi in the pits. Schumacher did his duty and set the timing screen alight. After Räikkönen’s pit stop, Schumi was easily ahead. I dread to think where Räikkönen would have finished the race had he not qualified so well yesterday.

Despite Räikkönen’s problems, the fact that these three drivers were at the head of the field for the entire race is good for Formula 1. It is a demonstration that being a winner doesn’t just depend on having a good car. The top three all came from different teams. Renault, Ferrari and McLaren each have a world-class driver, but they also each have a mediocre driver. There are reports today that Montoya will not have his McLaren contract renewed. Fisichella has a mountain to climb if he is to stay at Renault. And I will be amazed if Felipe Massa is still driving a Ferrari next year. Then again, the top six places were all occupied by these six drivers.

7^th and 8^th were taken by BMW, in another solid weekend for them. They look like finishing ahead of Williams in this year’s Constructors’ Championship. Rosberg missed out on a point by just 0.8 seconds. Honda and Toyota both had another underachieving race.

The only other notable incident was the crash involving Scott Speed, Ralf Schumacher and Mark Webber. Martin Brundle was quick to criticise Scott Speed. I am not so sure. I see it as a borderline racing incident. Speed didn’t really have anywhere else to go, because Vitantonio Liuzzi was right behind him, so if he hit the brakes that might have caused a different crash. Certainly, Ralf Schumacher and Mark Webber were innocent parties there.

Formula 1 is moving on to North America next. Let’s hope they don’t bollocks it up this time!

Race result
Update: F1Fanatic: 2006 Stats Update: Britain
Update: F1Fanatic: British Grand Prix 2006 Review. There were many drives of quality at Silverstone this year. But you could only see them by squinting at the timing sheets after the race and by putting qualifying performances in the context of race fuel loads.
BlogF1: Alonso Takes British Victory

2 comments

2006 Monaco Grand Prix

28 May 2006 16:08

Categories: Formula 1

Well, that turned out to be not a bad race! Yesterday’s Schumacher incident provided an interesting talking point to frame the race in, and the race did threaten to become a procession at one point.

In a way, it still was a procession, as Alonso led the race practically from start to finish. But what happened behind him was still thrilling — and when I mean behind him, I mean right behind him.

Drivers who really deserved better were harshly treated by luck today. Mark Webber had an amazing qualifying session yesterday, and he was driving well today before his Cosworth engine expired. The Williams car appears to be capable of scoring points, but that Cosworth engine is still a massive liability. I’m not a great fan of Webber, but he was impressive over the weekend, and a podium finish would have been a fair reward.

A pity too for Kimi Räikkönen, who at last was able to challenge Alonso at the front — and he was really threatening at one point. We haven’t really seen this all year. The McLaren car doesn’t have the pace of the Renault or the Ferrari, and Räikkönen seems to have lost a little bit of his drive, but he looked good for at least second place today. He was able to take advantage of Webber’s little error at Ste Devote in a thrilling, brave move. Unfortunately, during the safety car period caused by Webber’s failure, the McLaren’s reliability glitches kicked in again — the story of Räikkönen’s life.

By this time the pack seemed to have well and truly mixed up after the safety car, and Rubens Barrichello in the Honda was in third place! It truly is a remarkable reversal of fortunes at Honda. Button really is struggling at the moment. The Honda team keep on talking up their chances, yet the performance they really need never materialises. This is a weekend that Button will want to forget — Barrichello is now much more confident in the Honda. Unfortunately for the Brazilian, speeding in the pit lane isn’t the way to go about finishing in the podium.

After Barrichello’s drive-through penalty, it was Jarno Trulli in the Toyota which Martin Brundle said looked so bad it was like a pogo stick (!) during practice who was in line for a podium finish! But towards the end of the race, his car gave up as well, on the hill after Ste Devote. Clearly, third position was not a lucky place to be in today!

So when David Coulthard in the Red Bull inherited the podium position, he might well have been worried about Barrichello and Michael Schumacher catching up with him. Luckily for Coulthard, he only had to maintain his position for a few laps, and he scored a great podium finish — Red Bull’s first. It’s good for them as they have had a moderately disappointing season so far. I absolutely loved the Superman cape stunt! It might even beat last year’s pit crew of Star Wars stormtroopers. Fantastic.

Yes, Michael Schumacher was in fifth position. After yesterday’s scanda, Schumi went some of the way towards redeeming himself with some clean, impressive overtaking manoeuvres. He left his team mate Massa behind.

Who was second you ask? Juan Pablo Montoya with yet another anonymous race, quietly collecting a helpful handful of points.

Today’s troublemaker was Christijan Albers, who unwisely squeezed his team mate Monteiro into the wall at the otherwise unusually clean start. That was unnecessary enough, but then he decided to ram into a Super Aguri later on in the race. Come on Albers, this isn’t a computer game!

I have to say though, all of the drivers were largely impressive. There was little in the way of driver error or crashes — Nico Rosberg’s was apparently caused by his throttle being stuck open.

All-in-all, it was a good race, but even this early in the season it looks as though Alonso has the championship well and truly wrapped up. Silverstone next!