The Abu Dhabi Grand Prix report

Oh my gosh!  I can’t believe I forgot to write my race report.  Well, actually I can believe I forgot.  The race was really boring and stupid.

This was the last race of the year, and so I tried to keep an open mind.  There won’t be any more racing for a long long time.  I hate winter.

So I should probably tell you about the track.  Yas Marina is built on a man-made island.  The track is built around a marina, hence the name.  It had some fancy grandstands, and a hotel, and the track goes under a hotel walkway, and the paddocks are all air-conditioned.  The facilities are fabulous, everybody said so.  But the whole thing left me cold.  The track has no personality.  Once the sun went down it was like watching a race at an airport.  Yawn.

Lewis Hamilton was on pole.  He was absolutely flying.  It was amazing.  And I don’t even LIKE Lewis Hamilton.  Sadly, during the race he had a brake problem, and brake problems are bad when you are driving over 100 miles an hour. He had to retire the car.  It was too bad.  He was going so fast I was starting to think he might actually become airborne at the end of the long straight.  But he didn’t.

Sebastian Vettel won.  He started second on the grid.  Mark Webber rounded out the top three in the second Red Bull racer.  He ended up finishing second, and our new World Champion, Jenson Button finished third.

Alonso, meanwhile started 15^th on the grid, and finished 14^th.  Wow.  That Renault was a real steaming pile this year.  If I were giving them a grade I would give them an F-.  I cannot wait until next year when he is driving a Ferrari.  Finally he will have a proper car again.

And so another Formula 1 season comes to an end.  I’m sure my mom will be relieved.  There will be far fewer racing posts in the coming months.

Once again, consult a real racing site for real information.

The Brazilian Grand Prix Report – or Button’s Brawn Beats the Bull

First of all, let me say a big congratulations to our 2009 World Drivers Champion, Jenson Button.  Wow. What a story.  But I will get to that in a minute.

Once again our story starts on Saturday where qualifying was an unmitigated disaster.  It was pouring down rain, there was water everywhere, cars were hydroplaning all over the place.  There is no way; no way at all they should have been running in those conditions.  But I suppose the television schedule rules everything so run they did.  I think they should have waited and done qualifying Sunday morning before the race, but Charlie Whiting (race director) did not ask for my opinion.

So in the midst of all the carnage of qualifying Jenson Button, the championship leader qualified a dismal 14th.  His teammate and closest rival for the title, Rubens Barichello was on pole.  The third contender, Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull was 15th effectively ending his title hopes because he had to win the race to stay in the hunt.

The first lap was not much better than qualifying.  It wasn’t raining, but there was mayhem and carnage.  Rubens had a good start and pulled away, but Mark Webber, who had started second was right on his tail.  But there was trouble behind those two.  Adrian Sutil and Jarno Trulli collided, taking each other out of the race.  Then as an extra-added bonus, after hitting Trulli Sutil went back across the track and hit your favorite and mine, Fernando Alonso ending his race as well.  Tragic.

The safety car came out and both McLaren’s pitted.  But they sent Heikki Kovalainen on his way with the fuel rig still attached to his car!  Oops.  As he barreled down the pit lane spewing fuel, Kimi Raikkonen found himself literally in the middle of a flash fire.  Yikes.  It was out in an instant, and Kimi never even blinked.  I guess they don’t call him The Ice Man for nothing.

Things settled down after that and Jenson Button drove like a champion, passing people left and right (and benefiting from a lot of early retirements) to finish 5th.  It was enough to seal the deal.

This is truly an amazing story.  Last winter the Brawn team didn’t even exist.  Last season Button drove for Honda, who announced after the season that they were leaving Formula One and the team was for sale.  So last Christmas Button didn’t even have a job. Ross Brawn, the Honda team Principal put together the funding to buy the Honda team and Brawn GP was born.  So imagine that if you will.  Going from one of the worst cars on the grid (Honda) to having no car at all to having the best car on the grid.  All in the space of a year.   I am so happy for him.

Lost in all this was the fact Mark Webber won the race, Robert Kubica came in second in his BMW and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton came in third.  That was an excellent finish for him since he started 18th.

Our new world champ

Photo source

As always, please go find yourself a reputable source if you want reliable information.

F1 comes to the middle of nowhere

It’s a Formula 1 day mom. Sorry.

Big doings in the Big City today.  I got word yesterday via one of my F1 Forum friends that there would be a Ferrari Formula 1 car at one of the Chevy dealers in the Big City.  Sweet.  I made my plans, listened to Tom make fun of me, and went to bed.

Then this morning, potential disaster:  Princess O arrived in my room looking all pitiful and announced that she had been up since 2am.  Of course my first thought was, “dammit, she has to go to school today, I’m going out”.  So I gave her a big pep talk and fed her chocolate milk and sent her on her way.  Feel free to put that on my application for mother of the year.

Once I got the C-man to school I came home, “borrowed” Princess O’s T-shirt, fired up the Songs for Driving Fast playlist on my Ipod and hit the road.

I was really looking forward to meeting some other F1 fans in the neighborhood, or at least in the state.  But I was the only one there.  The only one!   It was just me and the car and the car’s babysitter.  There weren’t even ropes around the car, just a sign saying don’t touch.  Amazing.  I have never been that close to one of these cars before.  It was so cool.

The sign said it was from 2001 but it didn’t look like it to me.  But then again, what do I know?  And besides, it’s just a show chassis anyway it could have bits and pieces on it from a variety of years.  Since I had the thing pretty much to myself I look a lot of pictures.  Here they are:

I also played the F1 simulator game they had there, and wow I am really bad at that.

I spent a lovely 30 minutes or so ogling the car from every angle, and then I came home, carefully folded the Royal T-shirt and put it away.  She’ll never even know.

The Japanese Grand Prix Report

That was not the most interesting race I have ever seen.  But it wasn’t bad either.  Frankly there is no such thing as a bad race, only bad results.

The real story this weekend was qualifying.  It was a train wreck.  When qually began we learned that Mark Webber would not be qualifying in his Red Bull because of a heavy accident in practice.  His car was all banged up and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men could not get it back together again in time.

So we were already down one driver.  Then we had three red flag sessions (a red flag is when they make all the cars come back into the pits – usually because of an accident on track), and six accidents involving five drivers.  Sebastien Buemi crashed his Torro Rosso in Q1, but made it to the next round anyway.

Torro Rosso’s Jaime Alguersuari was the next to crash, bringing out the first red flag.  He was followed by BMW’s Timo Glock, McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen, and Sebastien Buemi AGAIN, with his second crash of the day.

Then after qualifying the stewards handed out penalties to Alonso (tragic), both Brawn cars, one of the BMW’s, Buemi and Adrian Sutil.  Complete pandemonium.  I don’t think they actually set the grid until a few hours before the race.  Oy.

After it all shook out Sebastian Vettel was on pole for Red Bull, Toyota’s Jarno Trulli was second and Lewis Hamilton was third for McLaren.  Alonso started 16^th.  Horrible.

Well, after all that I was expecting the entire field to end up in a big pile in turn one.  But I was wrong.  After all that Vettel ran away with it.  I was surprised.  He is out of fresh engines (you only get eight this year) so he is using engines that already have at least one race on them.  I was half expecting his car to detonate the entire race.  But, I was wrong.

Jarno Trulli managed to hold off Lewis Hamilton for second place.  Toyota desperately needed a good result this weekend.  It was their home Grand Prix after all.  And Timo Glock ended up sitting the race out.  Remember, he was one of the guys who crashed during qualifying, and he cut his leg.  He will be fine, but it is hard to drive an F1 car with 14 stitches, so he sat this one out.

Alonso, meanwhile, finished tenth.  Not a bad finish, but I was hoping for better.  But next year he will have a pretty car that is also a fast car and he will be back at the front of the grid where he belongs.

He also seems to have forgotten to pack his razor for this round of fly-away races.  I kind of like it.

Photo from GP Update

As usual find a real F1 site for real information.

Alonso to Ferrari!

It’s official! (Oh, and it’s a Formula 1 day today mom.  Sorry).

“We are very proud to welcome to our team another winning driver, who has demonstrated his amazing talent by winning two world championships in his career to date,” said Ferrari team boss Stefano Domenicali.

Autosport.com

I have been waiting for this announcement for ages.  I first suspected he would land at Ferrari back in 2007 when he left McLaren.  And now, finally I was right.  Oh boy oh boy.  This is gonna be great.

I know a lot of people have their reservations about how well Felipe Massa and Fernando will get along as teammates, but I think they will be fine.  I think they both know the other will not give an inch, and so neither one of them will expect it.  Add to that the fact that in the last couple years Ferrari has refrained from naming a #1 driver and waiting to see how the season plays out.  Then the driver with the best shot at the driver’s title gets top dog status.

Anyway, I think this will be good.  He will have a good car, on a top team, and hopefully he can kick the rest of the grid’s butt.  Hah.

No word yet on what will happen to Kimi Raikkonen, the driver Alonso is replacing.  The rumors are he will end up back at McLaren, but there is nothing official yet.  Princess O is most displeased.

Kimi is her favorite driver.  She says he has a “nice face”.  He does, it’s true.  I told her last night that it looked like Kimi would be moving on.  I asked her if she would stick with Ferrari or move to McLaren with Kimi.  She said she was sticking with Kimi, and if Kimi retires she will find a new favorite driver.  I suggested Alonso, but she said she doesn’t like him.

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t like his hair” she replied.

Well, I suppose that is as good a reason as any for choosing a favorite driver, especially at age 11.  I recommended Nico Rosberg, but she just gave me the hairy eyeball.

I wonder if she will let me borrow her Ferrari T-shirt…

The Singapore Grand Prix Report

Well, that went about as well as I could have possibly expected.  I am so happy.  Alonso came in third!  That was his first podium finish of the season.  Of course I was happier last year when he won, but it turns out that wasn’t so much a race as it was an episode of professional wrestling on wheels.

The Singapore Grand Prix is run on a street circuit and it is also Formula One’s only night race.  In principal I don’t think this is a good idea, and I maintain that if Bernie Ecclestone is really so concerned with what time the races air in the European markets, he should hold the races in the European markets.  Consider that a helpful hint to Bernie from me.  You’re welcome.

However, now that I have said my piece I have to admit I love this race.  The track and the city in the background are beautiful, and the cars look gorgeous under the lights.  So far there don’t seem to be any real safety issues, although if it ever rains during the race there I predict all hell will break loose.

Lewis Hamilton started on pole in his shiny silver McLaren (definitely one of the prettiest cars under the lights).  Sebastien Vettel started second in his Red Bull and Nico Rosberg in the Williams started third.  Mark Webber in the second Red Bull and Fernando Alonso in his Renault rounded out the top five.

Hamilton got an early lead and never gave it up.  He won easily.  Vettel was having a really good race until he got busted speeding in the pit lane and had to do a drive through penalty.  Then he had to nurse the car along in the waning laps because of brake problems.  Those problems put his teammate Mark Webber into the wall and caused Torro Ross (the Red Bull B team) to retire both their cars before the race ended.

Nico Rosberg’s race took a hit after he got hit with a drive through penalty for crossing the white line in the pit exit lane.  This is a big no-no.

In the end it was Hamilton first, Timo Glock of Toyota second (where did that come from?) and Alonso third.  After the race Fernando dedicated the podium to Flavio Briatore, the former team principal and one of the guilty parties in Crashgate.

A lot of people are questioning whether or not Alonso should have said anything.  I interpreted it as a thank you to the man who brought him along in Formula 1, and who played a big part in his two world titles.  I think it’s a mistake to read any more into it.  But here’s what he said.  You can judge for yourself:

But finally this podium in this particular moment after what happened from Monza to here with the team. It has been a difficult time for the team. Now we put that behind us and we concentrate on the remaining races. I dedicate this podium to Flavio (Briatore) at home as he is part of the success we had today.

Formula 1.com

Alonso was looking a little mangy this weekend, but in a good way.

The Japanese Grand Prix is the next one on the calendar, and it’s next weekend!  I love back-to-back races.

Of course you know better than to take anything I say seriously.  Go find yourself a real F1 news site for crying out loud.

Renault, race fixing and judgement day

The World Motor Sport Council met today to decide the fate of the Renault Formula 1 team in the whole Crashgate race fixing scandal.

And the result was a two year suspended race ban.  This is essentially double secret probation.  So they have been suspended, but the suspension has been suspended.  Understand?  Good.  If they keep their noses clean until the end of the 2011 season the whole thing goes away.

The WMSC determined that the Renault team did in fact collude to fix the race, but also concluded that only three people were involved in the scheme.  Those three people were:

1. Flavio Braitore – Team principal.  He has been handed a lifetime ban from Formula One and all other FIA sanctioned sports.
2. Pat Symonds – Head Engineer.  He has been handed a five-year ban from the sport, and we can assume he won’t be back.
3. Nelson Piquet Junior – the driver who spun the car.  He gets away scott free because he was granted immunity by the FIA in exchange for his statement.  This doesn’t exactly sit well with me, but I was not consulted.  And, at the end of the day, I don’t think we will be seeing him in a Formula One car again ever.  That is probably punishment enough.

You will all be happy to know that the council decreed that Alonso didn’t know anything about this.  I know I was.

The sentence seems pretty light to me.   I mean, they fixed a race for crying out loud.  By crashing a car!  People could have been hurt.  I am just disgusted that they would put their own driver at risk like that.  Not to mention all the other drivers, the race marshals, and the spectators.  It makes me sick.  And I am left asking once again what were they thinking?

I was expecting a massive fine along the lines of the $100-million dollar fine McLaren got hit with in 2007.  I was also expecting them to take the win away from Alonso.  But apparently they can’t do that because after November of each race season the results are set in stone and you can’t change them.  Who knew?

Consistency is not the FIA’s strong point.  But what seems to surface at every one of these extraordinary meetings is that it really frosts the FIA if you lie to them.  In 2007 McLaren got caught cheating, and then got caught lying, hence the monster fine.  The same things happened to them after the Australian Grand Prix this year.  They lied to the FIA about what happened during the race and they were punished accordingly.  Renault fixes a race, admits it and apologizes and nothing happens.

So the moral of the story seems to be cheat like crazy, but own up to it if you get caught.  Is it fair?  Probably not.  But this is what happens when you let one man (Max Mosely) run the show.  He more or less gets to pick and choose how to enforce the rules.

For real information look to GP Update, Allen on F1, or Paddock Talk.  There are also plenty of other sites, but those are my favorites.

Renault, race fixing and game, set and match

Well, so I guess that’s that then.

“The Renault F1 team announced on Wednesday that team boss Flavio Briatore and its executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds, have left the team. The team furthermore announced in a statement that it will not dispute the recent allegations made by the FIA concerning the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix.”

GP Update

I realize pleading no contest is not the same as pleading guilty, but it looks the same.  I really did not want to believe this was true.  I do not want to believe the team told Nelson Joonyer to crash on purpose to give Alonso a chance to win the race.  I am just sick about this.

Now, I have been a race fan for a while now, and I am not so naïve to think everybody is following all the rules all the time.  It happens in every sport.

But this goes beyond cheating.  This is much more than an illegal fuel tank, or an especially creative interpretation of the rules.  This is much much bigger.  To think that anybody would knowingly and willingly put their own team’s driver at risk and every other driver on the track, well, it’s disgusting.

Right now I am just clinging to the evidence that says Alonso himself knew nothing about this scheme.  But it is small comfort.

That race in Singapore last year was one of my favorites.  I still have it on tape.  It was one of the races I would pull out and watch from time to time, just for fun.  But now it’s ruined for me.  I will never be able to watch it again.

Why would anybody  do that?  It’s not like they were in contention for the championship.  It was a nice win, but it didn’t really mean anything in the grand scheme of things.  What were they thinking?

The Italian Grand Prix report

Monza!  It is one of the oldest and fastest tracks on the calendar.  And the Tifosi are out in force.  This is a fun race to watch.  Someday maybe I can see it live and in person.  But first I have to win the lottery.

There was a new face in the front row after qualifying.  Adrian Sutil in the Force India.  Wow.  That’s twice in two races that FI have landed at the pointy end.  He had pole for a brief shining moment, but then Lewis Hamilton pipped him at the last minute.  I was disappointed. Lewis has been on pole in his shiny McLaren lots of times, it’s boring.  Sutil on pole would have been more interesting.  Kimi Raikkonen started third.  Giancarlo Fisichella started 14^th in the second Ferrari.

This was his first race for the Scuderia.  He had been a Force India driver until last week, and Fisi will be pinch-hitting for Massa for the rest of the season.  And Vitantonio Liuzzi stepped into Fisi’s old spot at Force India.

Alonso was eighth on the grid.  He had the KERS system back on the car this weekend, but I wasn’t expecting much.  He ended up finishing fifth, which was a spot higher than I had predicted.

Hamilton and Sutil were both fuelled very light, going for a short first stint.  Funny that when Hamilton starts the race on fumes nobody says a word, but when Alonso starts from the front with a light fuel load it’s all we hear about.  Hmmm.  I wonder why that is.

Kimi got around Sutil at the start.  I knew he would.  Kimi has KERS too, (a sort of push to pass system) and Sutil did not.  Kimi and Hamilton sped off into the distance.  Sutil was third and the Brawn cars filled out the top five.  This was good for the Brawns because they were only planning to pit once, but the top three were all on a two-stop strategy.  If the Brawns could stay close, they might be able to snag the lead.

After the first round of pit stops Hamilton inherited the lead, but Brawn took it over after Hamilton came in for his second stop.  Suddenly the running order was Barrichello, Button, and Hamilton, with Kimi in fourth.

But with just one lap to go in the race Hamilton lost the back end and crashed hard.  He just kind of sat there for minute and I was getting worried.  I hate it when they crash, and I especially hate it when they crash and they sit there not moving.  It makes me nervous.  Especially after what happened to Massa.  That makes two DNF’s in a row for Hamilton and it has mathematically eliminated him from this year’s championship.

On that front, Button retains the lead, but Barrichello inched a little bit closer.  He is only 14 points behind now.  With four races to go there are only four drivers in contention.  Button and Barichello for Brawn (whew! That’s a lot of alliteration) and Vettel and Webber for Red Bull.  Vettel managed to finish 8^th for one lonely championship point, but Webber crashed out in lap one.  Poor thing.

Next on the agenda is the WMSC hearing in Paris regarding the whole “Crashgate” Renault scandal.  Then the Singapore Grand Prix on September 27.

As always, please consult a real Formula 1 news website for accurate race information.

And has anybody else noticed that Speed TV’s Peter Windsor have been practically drooly in his comments about Alonso the last few races?  I wonder why the sudden turnaround.  Windsor has done nothing but slag Fernando off since 2007.  Curious.

The Belgian Grand Prix Report

Well, that was interesting.

I would love to tell you about the Belgian Grand Prix, but before I can tell you that story, I have to tell you this story, the story of qualifying from Bizarro-Land.

Luca Badoer, pinch-hitting for the injured Felipe Massa qualified last.  And while it is very unusual to see a Ferrari starting from P20 Badoer was driving it, so that makes sense.

Meanwhile Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton qualified 12^th, 13^th and 14^th respectively.  That’s one defending champion, one two-time former world champion, and this year’s championship leader all starting firmly in the middle.  And ladies and gentlemen, the middle is not where you want to be at Spa.

But who, who was up at the pointy end?  Who, you ask, was on pole?  Giancarlo Fisichella in the Force India.  Force India ladies and gentlemen!  They haven’t had a pole position since 1999 when the team was called Jordan, and Fisi’s last pole position came with Renault in 2006.  It had been a long dry spell.

Jarno Trulli qualified second in his Toyota.  I was predicting a Trulli train at the start as we all watched Fisi roll off into the mists of the Ardennes, but it was not to be.  (It is called the Trulli train because while the Toyota is not very fast, Trulli is notoriously difficult to pass, so all the other cars just kind of line up behind him waiting for a chance to get by).

And so on to the race.  As I predicted there were huge shenanigans.  On lap one Romain Grosjean’s Renault and Jenson Button’s Brawn GP car ran into each other, taking both of them out of the race.  Lewis Hamilton, meanwhile tangled with Jaime Alguesuari on the same lap and both of them retired.  Big Mess!  Safety Car!

Somewhere along the line Kimi Raikkonen’s Ferrari got around Fisichella and that’s where he stayed for the remainder of the race.  Fisi finished second.  It was a truly miraculous finish for the perennial back marker.

Alonso had to retire from the race.  He had damaged his left front wheel somewhere in all the chaos and at his first pit stop the crew couldn’t get the wheel faring on properly.  They sent him out anyway, but brought him back in a lap later.  Dammit! He had been running third.  I knew there was no way he would finish there, but he would have easily finished in the points.  Grumble grumble grumble.

So it was another dire race for Jenson Button.  Now his lead in the WDC is down to 16 points.  With six races left, that is not insurmountable.  I fear he may lack the race craft and the intestinal fortitude to see this through to a successful conclusion.

I know it was not his fault that Grosjean hit him.  But you could argue that if he hadn’t done so poorly in qualifying he would have been stuck in the middle of the pack where the smash-ups always happen.  I am not trying to criticize Button.  But I am beginning to have my doubts.