Formula 1 Jam

Michael Schumacher produced one of the most brilliant pieces of driving combined with smooth strategy to win the 2006 Chinese Grand Prix. Fernando Alonso came in second after leading for almost half the race untill a flawed decision to change his front intermidetes in his first pitstop. Giancarlo Fisichella came in 3rd to put Renault ahead of Ferrari in the constructors race.

The race started on a wet track which dried right thru the session throwing up more than a few surprises. The start was perfect for Alonso as by lap 15 he was leading way ahead in the distance followed by Giancarlo and Kimi. Micheal made a great start as well and the Bridgestones looked like they had got the intermidiates right.

Kimi looked really threatening as he stormed up to 3rd within the first 3 corners. Giancarlo felt the brunt of the challenge fending from side to side against a lighter Mc Laren. Kimi’s race came to an abrupt halt after the first pitstop with mechanical problems.

The Bridgstones by now were working perfectly and Michael was slowly reeling in Fisichella. Alonso on the head was still defiant and was the fastest man on the track. But all that was about to change. Alonso pitted after Michael and chose to swap his front tyres for new ones. This was his undoing as he lost over 3s a lap for 10 laps after that. The intermidiates needed to be worked over before they could perform and what normally took 3-5 laps took 10 laps and saw the champion’s lead squashed.

Fisichella and Michael did short work of Alonso and resumed thier battle on the head. Alonso decided to pit in to swap the inters for dry weather tyres and for a few laps again suffered firstly coz a wheel nut fell and cost almost 10 more seconds and the track was still too wet for dry tyres. Michael in the mean time was all over Giancarlo’s back. The next pitstop proved cruital as Michael pitted couple of laps before Giancarlo and ambushed him as he tried to negotiate corner 1.

Michael then ran away into the distance but Alonso’s fight back was only starting. Alonso resumed in 6th place and produced the best string of fastest laps(almost 3s faster than anyone else) to come back to 2nd. He was reeling in Schumi to only realize that the time was running out and ended only 3s shy of the german.

The only question running on each and every member of the Renault F1 team will be “How did we lose this one?”. They were the fastest at all times and yet they could not manage to get the maximum. Michael later descibed this victory as a ‘miracle’, well that was modesty from the multiple World Champ… The gesture later repayed back by Alonso saying:

The winner is Michael and he deserves the victory because he finished in front of the other drivers and that’s it.

Everything said and done that statement is what is important at the end of any race… finishing ahead of everyone. Renault managed to get there almost except that Michael took victory. With 2 races to go and the top two locked, the only way the championship can be decided in Japan is if Michael wins and Alonso finishes out of the points. In any other case we will have to wait till Brazil…