Formula1 Gran Premio De Espana Telefonica 2008

[CVT]

The long wait is over! Formula1 is back in Europe this weekend:

Saturday(26 April) 8PM,- Qualifying
Sunday(27 April) 8PM,- Race Day

5909:burn:

[Monseratto]

What is that horrible fin at the back of Alonso's car? It's even bigger than the one on the Red Bulls. I hope it won't be a trend...

[CVT]

They call it a shark's fin, bro.,

Anyway, here are the results of qualifying last night.

Again FM was frustrated when FA and then KR pipped him.

5909:burn:

[jeff1101]

If on the race Alonso pits on or before lap 3 then that 2 place qualifying position was made purely to appease the Spanish crowd. Regretfully I think Nelsinho Piquet's pace is truer to Renault's race form as I think he's running on a full race fuel.

[CVT]

If on the race Alonso pits on or before lap 3 then that 2 place qualifying position was made purely to appease the Spanish crowd. Regretfully I think Nelsinho Piquet's pace is truer to Renault's race form as I think he's running on a full race fuel.

I agree with your theory bro.

Anyway, I sincerely hope that Renault has found the magic formula and is now back to form, so that it will be Ferrari-McLaren-BMW-Renault fighting for the top spots.....

Note: 8:00PM-9:30PM is reserved today....

5909:burn:

[CVT]

It was a Ferrari 1-2 (KR-FM), with LH coming in 3rd. RK was 4th.

FA was indeed light on fuel, by about 5-6 laps compared to the Ferraris and the McLarens. Sadly, he retired later in the race at 6th place due to engine problem.

Big accident with HK. For a while, we thought that was it for him as the race stewards were frantically calling for heavy equipment assistance as the car barrelled through the barrier, because his left front tyre disintegrated. Thankfully, he looked okay when he gave the thumbs up while being carried away from the crash scene. He was later airlifted.

Costly mistake for NH as he went into the pit when it was deemed 'closed'. He was running 5th at that time, behind his team mate RK. He was meted a 10sec stop/go penalty in the pit and finished out of the championship points.

DC was again into some race incidents (with SB)/ and close calls (with TK)...

5909:burn:

[CVT]

By the way, here are the results of the race last night (from www.formula1.com):

5909:burn:

[niky]

The McLaren was still way off Ferrari pace in practice, and was still half-a-second behind at times in qualifying, but you wouldn't know it from how well Lewis clamped onto the rear ends of the Ferraris in the race... that means it's race on again, for McLaren.... though it would prove absolutely impossible to catch up or even pass Massa during the race. Worryingly for McLaren, the BMWs don't look that far off their pace, either. The big disaster for McLaren was Hekki's devastating shunt... I was worried while they were trying to extricate him. The car was relatively undamaged, but Hekki took a facefull of tirewall at over 100 mph... straight on his helmet. Without the HANS device, I think he might have died.

Alonso was within the top five, and with his defensive abilities, should have been able to hold onto third place from Hamilton all race. Then his engine blew. Agh. And the Renault apparently wasn't on an ultra-light fuel load to keep up with the Ferraris and McLarens.... just a moderately light fuel load... It still looks a bit slower, but I'm happy to say... "They're ba-ack"... the Renault of five races ago wouldn't have even been able to qualify halfway up the pack.

Here's my take on the race yesterday...

FORMULA 1 GRAN PREMIO DE ESPANA TELEFONICA 2008

Pos No Driver Team Laps Time/Retired Grid Pts

1 1 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 66 1:38:19.051 1 10 - no problems all race

2 2 Felipe Massa Ferrari 66 +3.2 secs 3 8 - Lewis got pretty close at times, but Felipe drove brilliantly

3 22 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 66 +4.1 secs 5 6 - Frustrated guy. Got held up by Alonso after he overtook Kubica at the start... may have grained his tires trying to get around the Spaniard, thus ruining his chances of effectively attacking Massa.

4 4 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber 66 +5.6 secs 4 5 -Good car, good drive

5 10 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 66 +35.9 secs 7 4 - Points by default... with the one zillion retirements, he got lucky. But the car is quick.

6 16 Jenson Button Honda 66 +53.0 secs 13 3 - Lucky, too... But the car is garbage.

7 8 Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 66 +58.2 secs 12 2 - Williams - Toyota, in front of Toyota? Where have I seen that before?

8 11 Jarno Trulli Toyota 66 +59.4 secs 8 1 - Lost in the pits

9 3 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 66 +63.0 secs 9 - Had a good run, lots of action. Ran out of fuel behind the safety car, so had to pit in the "closed" pit lane, and took the mandatory drive-through penalty.

10 21 Giancarlo Fisichella Force India-Ferrari 65 +1 Lap 19 - Car looked like garbage, but he managed to keep it in one piece.

11 12 Timo Glock Toyota 65 +1 Lap 14 - Forgettable race, really.

12 9 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 65 +1 Lap 17 -How many racing incidents did you have today, David? I like this guy, but this was a
terrible race. He's going to get penalized, most likely.

13 18 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 65 +1 Lap 22 Wow, they actually finished!

Ret 7 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 41 Mechanical 15 - crying shame.

Ret 5 Fernando Alonso Renault 34 Engine 2 - Why, dear Lord, why! But the car was fast... the next few races are going to be great.

Ret 17 Rubens Barrichello Honda 34 Accident 11 - Rubens will want to forget this day... to get clobbered on the way out of the pit lane? Then to drive limping around the entire circuit before getting back to his garage? I would have said f*** it and just parked it.

Ret 23 Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 21 Accident 6 - This was the scary one. Heikki's left front tire disintegrated and he flew into the tire-wall at full speed. Instead of stopping the car, the tire wall rode over the top of his McLaren, and Hekki was buried under a couple of hundred pounds of tires. Lucky guy, I thought he was dead. Without the HANS device, he might actually have broken his neck.

Ret 19 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 8 Radiator damage 21 - Not a good day.

Ret 14 Sebastien Bourdais STR-Ferrari 7 Accident 16 - What's that? Who's there? Whoops.

Ret 6 Nelsinho Piquet Renault 6 Accident 10 - What hit me?

Ret 20 Adrian Sutil Force India-Ferrari 0 Accident 20 - Woohoo! I took somebody else out!

Ret 15 Sebastian Vettel STR-Ferrari 0 Accident 18 - Not his fault, this time... But I think he'll want to have words with Sutil... and maybe fisticuffs.

[jeff1101]

I really thought Kovaleinen was dead when they were extricating him. That was a looonnngg 10 minutes he was stuck in that tire wall. At first I thought he made a rookie mistake (seemed I underestimated him, like Renault under estimated him) by flying off the curve until I saw the replay footage of his tire bursting moments before his car hit the wall.

Reminds me of that incident with Raikkonen when his suspension broke and the wheel (still attached to the safety cable) flailed wildly and "nearly" hit him in the head. If it did he would surely be a goner.

Wish Kovaleinen well and a speedy recovery for his race in Turkey. Its a freakin shame Renault let him go. I think people blame rookie drivers (Hamilton, Kovaleinen et al) a bit too harshly for a teams bad performance but in many instances its the hardware too that is failing them.

[jeff1101]

BTW, any of you guys hear from BoyFerrari? I think CVT scared him when he invited the three of us for drinks. (hey its a j/k BF!)

I surely miss our tit-for-tat my friend! This thread will not be the same without your witty, intelligent and to the point remarks.

I hope you drop by and say hello. (And I promise to shut-up for a change, promise!!)