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Archive: Midland

2006 French Grand Prix

16 July 2006 16:28

Categories: Formula 1

Well that was another bore-fest. It did not fit the occasion, which was the 100th anniversary of the first ever Grand Prix (Grand Prix motor racing having been invented in France, of course). I guess we should just count ourselves lucky that it makes the Championship battle look that much closer. It’s not that Michael Schumacher closed the gap on Alonso — he was only able to eat two points out of that lead today. Alonso still has a 17-point advantage.

From Ferrari’s point of view, it was a real shame that Massa wasn’t able to stay in second position. But the mere fact that Ferrari (and Bridgestone) were otherwise so dominant this weekend suggests that Schumi could well continute to nibble away at Alonso’s lead for the rest of the season. Alonso and Renault is still a supremely reliable package — even if their speed has dropped off a bit. But Alonso isn’t perfect and he hasn’t quite been ‘on it’ so much in these past two races.

Other notes from the race: What has happened to Nico Rosberg? He started the season so brightly, but nowadays you are very likely to find him at the back of the pack. Today he finished 14th in a race which only had 16 cars running at the end. Williams in general have totally lost it. 8th in the Constructors Championship is simply awful for a team with such a pedigree. I find it difficult to see how Williams can ever get back up to speed. All you can say is that Benetton were in a similar position about five years ago — now look at them as Renault.

Similarly, Honda are woeful. They started the season as potential race winners. Today they are mingling with the Midlands. Pathetic. They need to get their act together.

Once again Pedro de la Rosa provided some of the only real action on track. It was nice to see him score a couple of points, although it did seem as though he was being held up an awful lot after having a poor start. He is capable of more. Let’s hope he has an opportunity to show it.

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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!

Update: “Horner goes for a swim… But did he take a dip in the nip as advertised?”

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2006 Australian Grand Prix

2 April 2006 23:50

Categories: Formula 1

Better late than never. Races don’t come much more action-packed than that. It’s just as well the race itself was good fun, because by the looks of it there isn’t going to be much of a championship battle this year. Renault and Alonso look as though they could race their cars backwards and still walk the championship in their sleep.

Just like qualifying, cars were falling of the circuit left, right and centre. Juan Pablo Montoya didn’t even wait for the race to start to go off on a spin. He looked like a bit of a funnyman. Lucky for him that Fisichella stalled and caused there to be a second warm-up lap! Montoya’s retirement in the end was possibly one of the strangest I’ve ever seen. If that had happened to me I would be pissed off, but Montoya in his post-race interview he was joking about it! “Haha, yeah, I had a few spins! Crazy old me, eh?” Fiery guy.

He went off in the same place as Michael Schumacher, and that really was weird. Schumi made several mistakes in the run-up to his retirement. It’s not unusual to see him run a bit wide every once in a while, but he just piled on mistake after mistake. James Allen said he was obviously wound-up big time because he ended up storming into the Toyota garage apparently thinking it was his Ferrari garage! Very odd.

Loads of folk were crashing though. Massa once again proved how much of an idiot he is. He took out Rosberg at the first corner, which is a shame for Rosberg. Klien had a funny accident near the start as well, and Tonio Liuzzi had a strange off after a restart. Must have been a tyre thing — loads of folk were complaining about grip.

Fisichella and Button were both complaining about grip. I think Fisichella is just making excuses though because he magically found a bit of speed when the boss got on the radio to tell him to pull his finger out (after having already been told, live on worldwide television, that he was being two seconds slower than Alonso for no good reason). He lucked into that 5th place due to Button’s problem, although he was pretty brave to drive straight into Button’s fire and oil. And given that Fisichella had to start the race from the pitlane I guess he has to take a bit of credit for getting that far up the field in the first place.

As for Button’s last-minute engine blow-up, it meant one of the most exciting ends to a race that I can remember. How unlucky must you be for your engine to blow up on the very last corner? Gutting. Button drove a smooth race yet again, but although he can get the odd pole position (and he didn’t seem to be too lightly fuelled) he is seriously lacking in race pace.

Honda’s decision to pull over to avoid getting an engine penalty is a talking point. I would certainly have gone for the points if I could. It’s a bit defensive to sacrifice two, three or maybe even four points for a measely grid penalty isn’t it? Are they really so scared of ten places on the grid? Pat Symmonds says it was the right choice — but he’s with the other team so I don’t know if I believe him! Whatever, if this was really about taking advantage of Button’s and Honda’s strength at Imola, surely this strength would only make the ten place penalty easier to swallow.

As for Alonso and Räikkönen, I am sad that Räikkönen wasn’t able to challenge Alonso more closely. By the end of the race Kimi wasn’t actually that far behind, but all sorts of things were conspiring against him. He had some kind of problem with his front wing which wasn’t a help. But the biggest factor was the restarts — the Midlands allowed Alonso to storm away and have a four second lead at the restart — twice. Alonso doesn’t even need to try with help like that. This really bunched up the field and some of the restarts were insane.

Alonso can take a lot more credit for what happened at the first restart. His overtaking move on Button was perfectly timed and got me very excited. Genius. It is moments like that that make you really appreciate why Alonso is World Champion.

Third place was Ralf Schumacher, and that is a real return to form for Toyota. A surprise after their fairly torrid first couple of races, particularly Bahrain where they really were in amongst the backmarkers. When you consider that Ralf had a drive-through penalty as well, Schumacher Jnr’s race was pretty good.

The BMWs were also fantastic. They look much stronger than I had anticipated, and I’m pleased for Heidfeld especially to get such a good result by finishing fourth. Williams looked like they were the stronger of the two teams in Bahrain, but Williams have some reliability issues that they need to iron out. I’m not a great fan of Mark Webber, but you really have to feel sorry for him to have that failure whilst leading his home grand prix (even although he was yet to pit).

Rubens Barrichello was lucky to finish as high as he did. He undoubtedly benefited from there being so many retirements. Given that he spent so much time being stuck behind Takuma Sato’s Super Aguri, you must wonder about his ability to get to grips with his Honda. To be stuck behind what is effectively a Honda B-team running a four year old car really shouldn’t happen. Whatever the problem with that Honda is — and both Button and Barrichello are complaining — it seems to be hitting Barrichello much harder. He said on the radio that he was struggling like a bitch. Button, on the other hand, seems able to battle on and make the most of what he’s got without getting into a mope.

Another controversial A-team versus B-team moment was with Red Bull and Toro Rosso. The Toro Rosso is controversial because of its V10 engines, and at the start of the season I decided that as long as it was behind the main Red Bull cars then everything was above board. But the Toro Rosso was ahead of the Red Bull on the track. How angry was David Coulthard after the race? Livid. And he took it to the stewards: Scott Speed overtook DC under yellows. Then Speed was given a penalty and lost his 8th place and first points finish. So he said a sweary word to David Coulthard. Come on lads. Aren’t you both racing on the same side? Do some in the Red Bull team feel threatened by the existence of Toro Rosso?

Okay, a three week break until the next race now so there’s plenty of time to reflect on it all. I’m off to watch the highlights programme — that was a race worth watching three times!

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2006 Bahrain Grand Prix

12 March 2006 17:22

Categories: Formula 1

Quite a good race. Although it wasn’t action-packed from start to finish, there were a number of notable moments.

Firstly, it turned out that the Ferraris (Michael Schumacher at least, although we can’t tell with Felipe Massa) were not as lightly fuelled as some suspected. So Ferrari are back on form. Even though they did not win the race, it could hardly have been closer — if Alonso’s final pit stop was any slower, Michael would probably have won. But is that rear wing legal?

The podium was perfect — the three greatest drivers in the world today. Speaking of which, it was another amazing drive from Kimi Räikkönen. He is used to charging from the back of the grid to the front, which is just as well because that McLaren is still unreliable. But at least there were no reliability problems during the actual race. Once again, if McLaren can get their reliability act together, they can have a strong season. Not sure why Montoya wasn’t able to make so much of it though.

Clearly not all the cars are reliable though. Rubens Barrichello in a Honda had a dodgy gearbox. Meanwhile Giancarlo Fisichella inherited yesterday’s engine problems from qualifying. For some reason this made him ramble on about flocks of sheep, or something…

Jenson Button is also looking strong. I’m not a great fan of Button, but he really impressed me today. He made some very smart overtaking manoeuvres into turn 1. He’s blaming the lack of a better result on the first three seconds. Maybe he’s right. If that’s the case, he is another strong candidate for race wins at least.

Another person who impressed was Nico Rosberg. He has not had a perfect weekend, but he had some very impressive moments, and he set the fastest lap in the process of scoring two points. Not bad for his first race! Obviously the Williams is in good shape which was a help. At the moment it’s looking like a sturdy fifth-best car behind Ferrari, McLaren, Renault and Honda. They can hardly ask for more.

The Red Bulls seem to be there or thereabouts. Coulthard’s flat-spotted tyre ruined the end of his race, but Klien looked good. Felipe Massa may have shown pace in qualifying yesterday, but he made a bad mistake today, almost taking out Alonso in the process. That is why Massa isn’t rated highly.

Toyota were terrible. I really don’t understand how they’ve allowed themselves to fall so far back. In the classification, Trulli was ahead only of a Midland and an Aguri. What an embarassment — surely they should be battling for higher than 15th or 16th position?

Lastly, Super Aguri. Their cars are slow, which is understandable, but they obviously haven’t quite got their act together in other respects either. Mechanics were still on the track when they should have been off. Both drivers tried to make a pit stop at the same time, and Ide ran over some of his pit crew. It’s the pinnacle of motorsport.

Finally, a word from the spectator’s viewpoint. It is impossible to tell apart the Midlands and McLarens unless it’s a detailed close-up, and even then it takes a second to work it out.

Anyway, not a bad start to the season, and it’s looking like we’ll be in for a close one between the big four teams!

Full race results

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Qualifying: Mixed results (in more ways than one)

11 March 2006 13:29

Categories: Formula 1

Well, the new Formula 1 qualifying format was certainly different. Great fun to watch as well — at least the first two sections were. Kimi Räikkönen really showed up an interesting problem with the new format. A lot of the teams were avoiding putting in a lap until the very last moment they could get away with. Kimi showed how risky this strategy actually is. The red flags came out with more than four minutes to go, but if the red flag came out with one or two minutes to go, a lot of cars would not have posted a time (because they were on their out / flying laps when the red flags came out, and wouldn’t have enough time to post another lap time once the session re-started).

It led to a frantic last few minutes of the first section. The second section of the qualifying session was just as good — lots of fast action as drivers tried to get their way into the top ten.

The final section, however, was a complete disaster. Just like the bad old days of the twelve-lap format, nothing happened at first and all the action was at the end. After the action of the first two parts of qualifying, the mundanity of the final section was a real come down. Clearly, they need to get rid of this obsession with qualifying with race fuel on board. It works okay in a one-lap format, but not a free-for-all style like the new format.

Inevitably all the drivers spent the first ten or fifteen minutes just burning off fuel to make their cars lighter. I am a defender of F1, but in this increasingly environmentally conscious world, it just doesn’t fit easily. Burning off fuel, not because they are setting a fast lap time, but for no reason — it simply sounds like a waste. What’s more, it makes it bloody boring for the spectator as well. I think if they took this silly rule away, qualifying would be sorted.

So, mixed results for the qualifying format itself, but the important thing for the race is the grid, and that is mixed up as well! This is terrible for Räikkönen and McLaren. Clearly McLaren’s problems are not only with the engine, and having to start from the back of the grid is not a great way to start the season.

Toyota’s lack of pace also shocked me. Ralf Schumacher getting knocked out in the first section is confusing. Maybe he lost out due to the frantic confusion and the bunched up cars in the session. But Trulli was not much faster and he got knocked out in the second section, ending up just 14th. It looks terrible for Toyota — I don’t understand how they got so slow. They are only a little bit ahead of MF1, who are using the same Toyota engines. It’s a bit embarassing to only just manage to beat MF1, particularly for Mike Gascoyne. What’s gone wrong?

The Toro Rossos are probably in just about the right place. Liuzzi had an awful lap which was televised to the world, so maybe it was not the car’s problem. But if the cars were much further ahead people would be making yet more noise about the V8 / V10 equivalency formula. I was pleased that Nick Heidfeld managed to get into the top 10, even if he was unable to make any impact in the final session. BMW look fairly good on the basis of that qualifying session.

I was very impressed with Felipe Massa as well. I thought he was a mediocre driver, but he managed to push Michael Schumacher fairly hard today, and the fact that he finished second shows that Ferrari are back on form now. But if the Ferraris are on light fuel as Montoya suggested on ITV just then, Button and Alonso could have a chance for a win.

I can’t wait for the race now!

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