Formula 1 Jam

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.

This year so far Qualification has always been ruled by the Red cars, Bahrain apparently was not going to change this. Massa stormed to secure the pole position ahead of Lewis Hamlinton. The Brazilian was the fastest in each section of qualification, an amazing testament to Ferrari’s speed over a single lap.

Followed by the duo were their team mates Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso. Both looked comparatively heavy to the top two an indication that this race might just be strategic fight at the Pit lane.
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kimi said in his interview that,

“The whole weekend was quite difficult but I think we needed to compromise too many things and we lost too much speed because of those things, but it was one of those weekends where we needed to do what was most important and try to get as many points as we could. We just didn’t have enough speed today and couldn’t do much more.”

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Lewis Hamlinton (post race press conference):

That was the most difficult race I’ve ever had. To see two Ferraris behind you, two red blobs in the mirrors, knowing that they’re slightly lighter than you and slightly quicker than you, it’s very, very difficult to keep them behind. Felipe had a couple of moves, I think he tried into turn four a couple of times, but fortunately I was able to trick him into out-braking himself and get my car stopped and it was very fortunate that I was able to cut across and get back in front of him, to the point where he eventually went off, so I apologise for that but at the end of the day, we got the points, so it doesn’t really matter.

Two Red Blobs… Intresting description for the Scarlet cars!
“Trick him”… Talk about adding salt to the wounds.

Great race Hamlinton watch out for the two red blobs in Bahrain too

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Mc Laren F1 team exorcised the race win demons that followed them in 2006 with a scintillatingly immaculate drive from two time world champion Fernando Alonso and Rookie Lewis Hamlinton. The duo took control of the race from the first corner and did not relent despite pressure from Massa initially and towards the end by Kimi.
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Ferrari and Mc Laren cleared all doubts on which teams are on the top of the pecking order by the ominous presence at Sepang. Massa stole pole from Alonso’s crutches seconds before Qualification could end. Kimi Raikonnen settled for a second row starting position with Lewis Hamlinton showing a well controlled performance to qualify 4th.

Earlier in the day everybody expected Ferrari to be unbeatable just weeks after their domination of the Australian Grand Prix, interestingly it was the Mc Laren of the two time world champ that set the pace. Alonso clocked the top of the times in Q1 and Q2, staying over four tenths of a second clear of anyone on track in Q2. Ferrari were right behind the Spaniard splitting the Mc Larens.
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AutoSport.com is reporting that FIA have moved to change its regulations on the movement of bodywork around the floor of the car. The change was prompted after Mc Laren chief Ron Dennis complained that some of the teams had chosen to interpret the rules in a way which his team did not agree to.

The article 3.17.4 of Formula One’s technical regulations states that no bodywork, such as the floor, can deflect more than 5mm vertically when exposed to a 500 Newton load upward. Some of the teams (Ferrari and BMW) had chosen to put a spring device allegedly calibrated to have enough resistance to allow the floor to pass this FIA flexibility test when the car was in the garage, but then give way when the car was exposed to higher forces out on the circuit. Allowing the car to be a bit more aerodynamic at higher speeds.

The changes in the rules state that

We have no objection to a device in this area which is fitted to prevent the bodywork from moving downwards, provided it is clear that it is not designed to circumvent the test described in Article 3.17.4. Therefore, with immediate effect, we will be testing bodywork in the relevant area with any such devices removed

This could in all probability forbid Ferrari and BMW from using the same system in future races dealing a blow to their advantage over other teams. How much of advantage is still a question that needs to be answered but it seems obvious that the change would work in Mc Laren and other teams favor.

Related Article: FIA acts on movable floor controversy

The Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix was a debut to forget for Heikke Kovalainen, the rookie Renault driver. As if that misery was not enough, his drive has been labeled as “rubbish” by none other than Flavio Briatore, the Renault Team boss.

To quote BBC Sports:

“If I say it was good, I’m a complete idiot. It was rubbish,” Briatore said.

Kovalainen was modest enough to accept his failure but I seriously feel that Briatore’s comments were uncalled for. At the least not publicly to international media. What did he expect from Heikke? Come out and beat the pants of Alonso in a much better McLaren or out race Kimi Raikkonen in the meanest car on track? It was his Formula 1 debut after all. And he was in a car much off the pace of that of the other rookies, Lewis Hamilton.

While I am not arguing that Kovalainen drove a good race, far from it. But I believe that going public with such lashing and criticism towards a rookie, young, and entirely inexperienced driver is not the right morale boosting technique.

The first race of the season is behind us and its time we look at who stepped out of the shadows to claim the limelight… Who over promised and fell short on delivering and Who impressed and who simply did not matter…
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Warning: Race results and spoilers in this post.
A fantastic start to the Formula 1 Grand Prix season for 2007. With yesterday’s excellent qualification,Kimi Raikkonen continued his excellent form onto the race day.

Qualifying in the pole position, Kimi had an excellent start maintaining his position at the front of the pack. Running light on fuel, he quickly got down to business and pulled clear ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Nick Heidfeld both of whom beat Fernando Alonso to the first corner, pushing him down to fourth place. After the initial shuffle at the head of the pack, it was mostly formation running up till the pit stop window.

Massa who started the race at the back of the grid as a result of an engine change penalty had a brilliant overtaking 2 cars in the first lap and then picking his way through the back of the field to come up to 16th position by lap 4. At this point, his progress was impeded first by David Coulthard and then by the Hondas of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button. The Hondas were the big disappointment of the day, severely under performing, especially compared to their performance last year. Massa managed to pass Button (who had earlier been passed by Barrichello) on lap 17 and starts chasing Rubinho once again.

In the meanwhile, Kimi Raikkonen continued to put in some extremely fast laps to prepare for his first pit stop which was expected around lap 18-20. Lap 18 was the fasted of the race so far by Kimi who immediately pits in the next lap from the pole position, relinquishing it, in a historic moment, to debutant Lewis Hamilton who briefly led the race till his own pit stop on lap 23, one lap after Alonso’s pit stop. With that, Kimi reclaimed the lead. He continues to put in the fastest lap times to further increase the gap between himself and Hamilton.

Felipe Massa finally pits for his only pit stop on lap 30 for a new set of harder tyres and fuel worth 12 seconds, enough to take him to the chequered flag on the single stop. With the pit stops completing, Massa breaks into the top 10 after starting from the back end.

Next Kimi Raikkonen moves into the pit late for his second and final pit stop on lap 42 and comes out just behind the McLarens and regains the lead within four laps when both the McLarens pit. The order changes for them though with Alonso coming out in front of Hamilton after a super quick pit stop and a particularly slow outlap by Hamilton. This sets the order for the top 4 in the order Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton and Nick Heidfeld.

With the second round of pit stops finishing up, Felipe Massa moves upto the sixth position and starts hunting Giancarlo Fisichella in his Renault for the fifth position. It was one of the best fights of the race with Massa constantly trying to overtake Fisichella but never being close enough.

In the end, Massa had to settle for the 6 place, a much better result than expected at the start of the race. And with that, the first race of the season was won by Kimi in his Ferrari debut at Melbourne Australia.

Complete Race Results:

Race timings courtesy Formula 1.