Formula 1 Jam

Alonso extended his dominant lead in the Formula One World Championships with a flawless performance to win his maiden Canadian Grand Prix. Michael Schumacher and Kimi Raikkonen flanked the World Champ on the podium finishing 2nd and 3rd respectively.

The on-the-edge race became apparent after Nico Rosberg and Montoya collided right after the start of the race. Both were fighting for 5th place after getting a slip ahead of Michael Schumacher on the start. Giancarlo Fisichella was the other loser at the start as Kimi overtook him into the first corner. The incident became clear after replays showed the Renault jumpstarting and stopping and then moving again. He was given a drive through penalty ending his hope for a podium.

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Fernando Alonso produced the most impressive lap in the history of the Canadian Grand Prix to blow away his opponents en route to his fifth consecutive pole. The Spaniard’s performance in qualification was not short of “God Like” as nobody came to within 0.4s of his time.

Michael Schumacher’s World Championship received a clear dent as the German managed a modest fifth. The German looks heavy on his Ferrari and might try to pit one time lesser than the Renaults. Trulli will have frustrated the seven times World Champ by qualifying 0.018s ahead. Michael will be looking to overtake him to the first corner so that his strategy does not get effected.

Fisichella’s final lap was brilliant enough to get him ahead of Kimi Raikkonen. The Mc Larens look finally up to pace but are still nowhere close to the pace of the Renaults as Fisi showed. Rosberg took the 6th place after suffering a scare in the first session which saw his teammate getting eliminated.

Montoya, Button, Barrichello and Massa form the tail of the top ten. Villeneuve disappointed his home fans by failing to make it the last segment of qualification after showing so much promise in the practice sessions. Heidfeld also dashed BMW hopes of a podium qualifying at 13th.

PREDICTIONS:

Few people will doubt a Renault 1-2 tommorow and I am one of them. The Renault’s will cross the line the way they start and will be followed by either Kimi or Michael(my bet is Michael). Alonso will dominate the race from the start just like he did in Spain and England. Fisi looks good and will be hard to beat in a car thats doing really well right now.

Qualification Results

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Giancarlo Fisichella will partner the Renault challenge in 2007. The official announcement was made earlier today in the Renault F1 website.

He has also hinted that a Finn will be his teammate in 2007. That leaves possibly only Kimi and Hiekki for the other Renault Seat. Kimi has already been linked to a Ferrari drive in 2007 and Hiekki has already taken a place in the heart of Renault fans as the next top Renault Driver. Hiekki had beaten Michael Schumacher in the Race of Champions race in 2004 and has been testing with Renault this year.

Another decisive factor in the fight for a race drive in 2007 will be Michael Schumacher’s decision of his future(expected in Sep). Flavio had offered the Seven times world champ a Renault seat earlier in the season.

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As the chequered flag came out on Silverstone the grim reality of it all hit the F1 paddock. Renault and Alonso are unstoppable this season and the much awaited misfortune and bad luck as kept away from the French outfit. The victory took the list of consecutive podiums for Alonso to 14. The world record held currently by Michael Schumacher at 19. The recent hunger of victory has meant that, Michael’s other records are clearly threatened by the Spaniard who looks all set to rewrite record books.

The race victory means that Alonso can finish 2nd behind Michael in every race remaining in this season and still win the World championship. Winning the World Champs for the second time will mean that he would have won 2 Grand Prixs before anybody ever in the sport. The second WC victory would be at an age younger than Emerson Fittipaldi (The second youngest driver to become World Champ after Alonso) managed his first Championship victory. The successful defense of the World Championship will mean that he will automatically become the youngest driver to defend the WC successfully dethroning guess who… Michael Schumacher from the record books.

Michael’s first WC came in the year 1994 at an age of 25yrs and 10 months, Alonso’s in 2005 at an age of 24yrs 2 months. Alonso has an year advantage over Michael but the work to be done is incredibly difficult… Michael went on to win 5 of the next 10 WCs and If Alonso has to better the scales he would minimum hv to do the same… Its impossible to predict how things will turn out but so far Alonso has not only been on time wrt victories and poles wrt Schumi he is actually one better.

Here is a short comparison of the two as they headed for their Second World Championships

Stats MSc FA
races 60* 78*
wins 14 13
podiums 31 31
(* comparison upto 8 races in the season following their first championship victory)

There are intresting facts around those statstics like both won their first Grand Prix towards the end of their second season and it was their only race win that season. They both at that time were on their 5th season in F1. They both moved(or will move) from their team after 2 WC victories.

In the last 27 GPs Alonso has gone on the podium 23 times and has won 12 of those races. Stunning form similar to Michael’s domination 2002 and 2004.

If the last 3 races are any indication, Renault and Alonso look in total control of the WC. Michael has clearly never had a harder fight for the WC ever. How far will the domination last and will Michael be able to close the gap or will the Spaniard seal the WC with quarter of the season remaining only time can tell. Until then we can all sit back and watch the best racing we have watched in years and hope we are witness to something future generations may not be privileged enough to watch

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There was no point in the race where anyone could have doubted Alonso winning(ok maybe the first lap ). The brilliance of the victory was in the dominant fashion that he did it. Firstly qualification where Alonso mastered the circuit in a heavier car than both Michael and Kimi. Then he went on to lead every single lap of the race to the finish ending the Grand Prix 13.9s ahead of the next racer.

This race will be remembered for the magical drive from Alonso but the fight between Michael and Kimi was probably the most exciting part of the race. Kimi finally overtaken by a flying Michael during the second pitstop. That lap right after he pitted had the best 2nd and 3rd sector times and that was enough for the German to pull ahead of the Finn.

The race started disastrously for Webber as Ralf whose car was touched by Scott Speed moved into his path. The 3 drivers retired and the Safety car was scrambled. The restart happened a few laps later and Alonso was pushed by Kimi in the start of the stint and that was the only time he was on pressure. Micheal was in Kimi’s slipstream right from the restart and he would continue to have that view until his second stop.

Nick Heidfeld was the big loser after his first pitstop… he was in 2nd place and could easily have come out in 4th when his clutch failed and was pushed into gear costing him around 15s. He ended up 7th ahead of Villeneuve as BMW took the last 2 point scoring points.

In the second best battle on the track Fisi slipped past Massa in the second set of pitstops after chasing him all day. The Ferrari looked strong in the first and second stint but towards the end of the second one Fisi did some hot laps gaining the position. He chased Kimi to the flag finishing 1.3s behind the Mc Laren in 4th.

Button looked good until his engine blew ending his British dream to be a local GP winner. The Briton had gained a lot of places before his engine caught fire. Trulli had a decent race finishing in 11th after starting in 22nd… Toyota strategy has to be talked about as they started with the lowest amount of fuel which probably cost them a bunch of points.

Renault look stronger than ever and Alonso more and more dominating as each race passes by. Alonso in the post race press conference said “(from now on) The best Defense is to Attack.” As they head to America for the next two races Alonso would like to set things right in Canada after he retired from P1 last year gifting the victory to Kimi. The others will hope that misfortune strikes the World Champ as it looks close to impossible for anyone to beat him on track with his current form.

Btw, I got my prediction perfectly right

Race Results

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Alonso blasted to Pole in the qualification for the 2006 British Grand Prix with an amazing 1m 20.253s lap. It was disappointment for British fans as Button managed only 19th after he was left without enough time to do a second lap thanks to a FIA weigh in. Webber was the other disappointment as he managed 17th, Rosberg managed a decent 12th as the Williams struggled.

Kimi woke up Mc Laren fans with a brilliant lap that split the top 2 drivers of the season. His last lap started bad with a possible mistake in the first sector costing him 3 tenths in that sector alone… he went on to post the fastest sector times in the next two sectors. He finished 0.15s off Alonso’s pace but that was good enough for P2.

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2 weeks after the shocking events in Monaco, Silverstone holds host to the 2006 British Grand Prix. This weekend holds the key to a lot of drivers and teams…

Firstly the obvious intrest of home teams…
Mc Laren the home team would love to win this one and prove that their performance in Monaco was no one off. Montoya will be looking forward to repeat his 2005 race win and Kimi looking for the top step after a brilliant 3rd last season.

Renault the other home team will be looking to improve their last year’s performance of 2nd and 4th. They will be keeping an eye out for the competition and would want to secure points looking ahead to the constructors championship. The next two races in the calender Canada and USA gave them 0 pts last year and that will clearly be on the back of their minds

Button will be looking again for his first career win but it looks very doubtful that it will be this weekend. The team that took over from BAR almost treat this as a home gp and would love to get back in the chase… its been almost a year and a half since BAR looked competitive.

Fisichella will look to build on his brilliant race in Monaco where he over took 3 top cars on track. I even herd that Flavio had made a statement saying that this race would be won by Fisi… He looks really confident and being 3rd on the championship he looks all set to give a fight to his dominant teammate.

Michael Schumacher will probably treat this race as one of the most important this year. Many Ferrari fans hv hailed his performance in Monaco as one of his best ever but I beg to differ… 22nd to 5th is great but you got to look at the bigger picture Kimi, Webber and Trulli retired, all 3 were ahead of him and if they had finished Micheal would hv ended up 8th. I know in F1 it only counts if you cross the finish line but frankly I hv seen much better performances by the 7 time champ to not think too high of this one.

This race for Micheal might become a do or die battle… Alonso’s unbelievable consistency has seen him finish in the top 2 in every race of this season and if he can do it for the rest of the season then the only way Michael can become world champ is to win every one of the remaining races (current pts diff 21 and races remaining 11). Frankly I would assume Alonso is the safest bet for the world champ this season… Despite all of Michael’s attics(parking his car in the costliest parking space in Monaco), I doubt Michael will win this one.

Alonso looks like the most confident of the lot right now… He has clearly matured into a more level headed driver than he ever was (and than most experienced drivers on the grid) and the results clearly show it. Every race day he looks more and more like a 2 times world champion.

Silverstone promises to be one of best races this season… Lets hope it delivers.

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We are sorry we could not update our site with the reviews of 2006 Monaco GP Qualification and Race. Due to unforseen circumstances we could not bring its details to you.

As most already know the incident(now infamous) that occured in Qualification… Here are some video replays of the incident

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUal0BU6tl4&search=schumacher
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRNSrGLgwok

Tell us your opionions of what you though happened there…

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