Formula 1 Jam

It doesn’t take much to inspire rumors in the Formula one business. This latest one by far takes the cake…

DailyF1News.com is reporting that, there are rumors about Ferrari and Hamlinton might be cutting a deal after the Monaco Grand Prix. It was clear that Hamlinton did not enjoy following the World Champion home but could it inspire a team switch?

Hamlinton has a long contract till 2011 with Mc Laren, lets not forget that its Ron Dennis that put his faith in Lewis and got him a drive… Would he be contemplating a switch so early in his career?

On the other side could Ferrari be even considering replacing Kimi after just 2 failures? Ferrari fans have been showing their displeasure for the past few weeks on the unfortunate Finn but is that a similar situation inside the camp.

What does seem interesting is the price tag. A Whooping 80x rise in salary to the Briton is speculated($500,000 to $40 Million)

Original Story

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Domination is probably a subtle word to describe the incidents at the Monaco Grand Prix for 2007. Alonso and Lewis finished a predictable one-two for Mc Laren but the way the did it was far from predictable. Alonso led the race from the start only challenged by his rookie team mate who for the first time finished lesser than first in a race at Monte Carlo. Massa drove home third in a race which he clearly had no chance of getting a better result. The Brazilian drove mostly a race of his own hardly ever bother by anyone.

Fisichella was my drive of the day. Giancarlo’s super drive saw Renault’s fight back and a hint that in the coming races they could clearly challenge the top two teams. Kubica and Heidfeld came in following the Italian, the German struggling in the earlier stage of the race with super soft tyres and holding up the pack for most of the stint.

Wruz and Kimi made up the last of the point scorers. The Finn having a tough race after the disappointing qualification and then being held up clearly by slower cars in a track that was impossible to overtake on. Still Ferrari and Kimi have to try and get their act together else the top 3 drivers will just run away at this pace.

The expected rain never arrived at the track and devoid the race of any possible action. Even the pitlane poker was pretty flat at the end of the day. Hopefully in Canada we will get to see a much more action packed race…

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Mc Laren stamped its domination over the Monaco Grand Prix qualification by sealing first and second. Alonso sealed his first pole of the season in dramatic fashion after an impressive Lewis Hamlinton’s final attempt was disrupted by a slowing car.

The biggest incident of the evening was Kimi Raikonnen crashing out of Q2. The Finn brushed the wall at Rascasse and nearly caused a major shunt when Massa who was following him almost tagged him from behind. The contact damaged his steering and ended his qualification session.

The session resolved to less of a lottery after the rain seen in Saturday practice moved away. Q1 was run mostly on a green track and early in the session pole changed multiple hands until the top cars came out. Mc Laren and Ferrari stood out as the class of the field in a session which saw Albers, Sato, Ralf, Sutil, Speed and Davidson eliminated. Heartbreak for Super Aguri which looked very good in recent races.

Q2 had loads of drama, it started by the Kimi’s unfortunate incident and later a charged up Heikki was blocked by David Coulthard. Heikki who was fighting to make it the final session looked like he had almost managed it untill the Scot who was on a warmup lap refused to move over. David was later penalised by the stewards who demoted him to the bottom of Q2. The drivers who failed to make the final cut were Coulthard, Kimi, Heikki, Trulli, Liuzzi and Wurz.

Q3 saw the comeback of Renault of sorts. The World Champions finally looked like they were fighting with the best as Fisichella held third for almost the length of the session. Fisichella’s performance in the past few races has raised quiet a few eyebrows, the Italian was once again impressive here challenging the Ferrari of Massa. But it would be the Brazillian who would seal third ahead of the Italian. Followed closely by Rosberg and Webber. Heidfeld, Kubica, Barrichello and Button made up the rest of the top ten.

Honda finally look like they have got their act together but we need to see the fact that Button would have not made it to Q3 if not for Coulthard’s unfortunate demotion.

So everything looks set for an impressive Monaco Grand Prix. The rain and the jumbled grid has truly made this race a spectacle to be looked forward to.

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Apologies for the pun but Massa literally did almost get burnt when his car caught fire. But more on that later.

The Spanish Grand Prix of 2007 was one of the best races in the past few years with incidents, excitement and disappointments all through the race and across the teams. Starting from a first corner contact between Massa and Alonso causing the latter to lose his second place, falling to fourth, there were incidents all through the race up and down the race track.

After that incident at the first corner, Massa takes a comfortable lead, pulling away from Hamilton who along with Kimi capitalized on the off track excursion by Alonso. Alonso tried to pass Kimi but was held off by the stronger Ferrari of Kimi who maintains his third place till lap 9 when the Ferrari engine cut out all power and Kimi barely manages to crawl downhill to the pits, his race sadly over for the day.

By lap 13, 4 cars had already retired - Wurz (involved in an accident), Webber (sadly continued hydraulics problem), Trulli (fuel pressure problem) and Kimi (Engine failure)

Massa pitted for his first stop on lap 18. As he tried to get away, some of the fuel vapors from the fuel pump leaked out and caught fire for a brief moment. As Massa sped up, the flames thankfully died down but it must have been a scary moment for him and the team. Thankfully the fire caused no lasting damage to his concentration or the car.

Soon after, Alonso and Hamilton pitted retaining their positions at third and second respectively.

On lap 22, Button makes his pit stop, exiting from which, he makes contact with his team mate, Barrichello, losing his front wing in the process. A couple of laps later, Heidfeld’s pit stop goes haywire as a wheel nut on his front right is not fixed in place and hence he has to return to the pits immediately. This causes him to drop to the back of the grid and eventually causes enough damage to his car making him retire from the race itself.

The second stint of the race is quite incident free with most drivers consolidating their positions in the front though the mid-runners did have some racing and overtaking moves. The second round of pit stops goes through around lap 42 to lap 48. Around lap 46, Ralf retired his Toyota ending the team’s race in Spain.

Felipe Massa easily won his second race in succession with Lewis Hamilton coming in second and Fernando Alonso third. They were followed by Robert Kubica in a fine fourth, David Coulthard, and to my joy, Nico Rosberg in sixth. And for the first time in their history, Super Aguri scored a championship point as Takuma Sato secured the eight and final championship point behind Heikke Kovalainen and ahead of a charging Fisichella and Rubens Barichello.

The rest of the finishers were Anthony Davidson, Jenson Button, Adrian Sutil and Christian Albers in that order.

With the second place secured by Hamilton today, he has created history by being the first rookie to lead the formula 1 championship at 30 points followed by Alonso on 28 and Felipe Massa on 27. The formula 1 season for 2007 looks very exciting indeed.

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It was a complete Scarlet and Silver fest today in the qualifying for the Spanish grand prix. The first two rounds in qualifying were dominated by the black and silver of McLaren. The third round was vastly different and one of the best qualification runs in recent years (more on this below)

The first round was pretty lackluster with both the Spyker Ferraris, the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher, the customer Toyota of Wurz and most disappointingly, Mark Webber being relegated to the absolute back of the grid.

The second round was much more interesting with the McLarens and Ferraris trading the provisional pole and Takuma Sato’s Super Aguri stalling in mid lap. Anthony Davidson had a scary moment when he spun his Super Aguri, barely missing the wall. Regrettably Nico Rosberg failed to make the cut for the final round of qualifying ending up at the eleventh position. Both the Hondas also finished their day in this round, failing to make it to the last qualifying round.

The final round was the most exciting round of not just the day but the past few seasons as well. Lewis Hamilton was the first to line up at the lights to get ahead of the others, just ahead of Kimi Raikonnen. Hamilton waited in the blistering sun for most than a minute, putting his engine to a significant risk of overheating. But it was worth it as he went out ahead of Kimi who tried his best to overtake Hamilton before the start of their flying laps. Hamilton drove defensively at low revs to try and cool his engines a little bit before he went all out.

Hamilton gained the first provisional pole, followed by Kimi. Both were soon beaten down as the speeds increased during the fuel burn phase. As the other drivers set their qualification times, with just 4 minutes to spare, both the Ferraris and McLarens came out again to go for the top positions, with Lewis again beating Kimi by an inch coming out ahead of the Ferrari. It must have frustrated Kimi a lot but he had the last laugh when he went faster than Hamilton. But both were beaten by the seemingly master of qualification, Felipe Massa followed by Alonso who just missed the pole position by three hundredths of a second.

The race now is set for another exciting start with Massa, Alonso, Kimi and Lewis in the lead and in that order. The renaults only managed to finish at the tail end of the top 10 separated by Coulthard.

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