Montoya wins UK GP

**empy** · July 10th, 2005 11:52 PM

from Yahoo! News:

SILVERSTONE, England - Juan Pablo Montoya won the British Grand Prix on Sunday for his first victory of the season and fifth of his career.

The McLaren-Mercedes driver was followed by Formula One points leader Fernando Alonso of Renault and Kimi Raikkonen of McLaren.

Montoya led nearly the entire race. The Colombian started third on the grid and swept into the lead seconds into the race, passing pole-sitter Alonso.

It was Montoya's first victory since he captured the last race of the 2004 season in Brazil. The former Indy 500 champion missed two races early this year with an injured shoulder and had not had a top-three finish this season, his first with McLaren.

Giancarlo Fisichella of Renault was fourth, followed by Jenson Button of BAR-Honda. Button, who has yet to win a Formula One race in five seasons, was trying to become the first British winner since David Coulthard in 2000.

Alonso leads the standings with 77 points from 11 races. Raikkonen stayed in second place with 51 points and Michael Schumacher, who finished sixth, stayed in third with 43. Montoya improved to 26 points.

The McLaren cars — with Raikkonen finishing third — had the best speed, which was evident from the first seconds when Montoya passed Alonso on the opening lap.

Raikkonen was the second-quickest in qualifying but was penalized 10 places on the starting grid after he blew an engine in practice. The same thing happened a week ago in the French Grand Prix.

It was another disappointing weekend for Ferrari. Schumacher, the seven-time series champion, was just a second ahead of teammate Rubens Barrichello. They finished on the same lap as the winner but 75 seconds behind.

The crowd of about 100,000 observed a moment of silence before the race in tribute to the victims of the bombings in London on Thursday.

wow, i didn't realize JPM has only won 5 races in his entire career! maybe the hype machine is a bit stronger than the actual talent, eh? ;)

**pixelparadigm** · July 11th, 2005 12:03 AM

Again, if only Raikkonen started at the front... he would have won. Pero galing nya at ng team McLaren, he managed to climb from 12th to 3rd place (4th lang sana kung di lang nag-stall si Fisichella nung last pitstop nya).

**BoyFerrari** · July 11th, 2005 12:31 AM

Montoya was able to grab the pole from Alonso at the start of the race because he turned out to be carrying less fuel load (remember, teams do not know how much fuel load their competitors have during race day). But despite Montoya's win, the real dagger was The Iceman. He climbed from 12th place to grab a podium finish !!!! I think Boy Band Kimi is going to be the next star of F1.

Siyanga pala, sabi ng maraming gurls, gwapo daw sana si Kimi Boy, kaso bisaya daw kung magsalita.

**mazdamazda** · July 11th, 2005 11:36 AM

Originally Posted by pixelparadigm

Again, if only Raikkonen started at the front... he would have won. Pero galing nya at ng team McLaren, he managed to climb from 12th to 3rd place (4th lang sana kung di lang nag-stall si Fisichella nung last pitstop nya).

he had some good breaks...

first... Scuderia Ferrari's cars weren't upto pace in this event.

second... Button stalled on his last pitstop... which costed him a podium finish.

and again... it was Trulli who held back Schumi & Kimi during the early laps.

**niky** · July 11th, 2005 12:32 PM

Agh... Jarno... he's mucking up some really good racing... grrr...

It's about time Montoya got on the boards... He's the one who seems to be absorbing all the bad luck for McLaren, but now the shoe is on the other foot. I've been watching JPM since his US CART days, and I'm getting very impatient... I want to see CART drivers up on that podium!

Again, good drive from Jenson... the BAR is not up to Renault or McLaren pace as of this season, but it's getting there. I don't doubt we'll be seeing him on a podium or two before the end of the season. When Jenson gets a set-up to match Kimi, Juan Pablo and Fernando, sparks are definitely going to fly (literally). :D

**bad driver** · July 15th, 2005 12:32 AM

can someone walk me through how F1 races start? I saw them driving side to side for a moment (heating their tires?).... while some others are left behind, others moved forward..... It seemed that they didn't care much for positioning during the start of the race... tho it turned out that the leaders of Lap one ended up leading the whole race.

Sorry po, not familiar with F1.

...and OT, Stock ba talaga ang CArs sa NASCAR? hehehehe.... guess not.

**nugundam93** · July 15th, 2005 01:23 AM

f1 races usually do a standing start from the starting grid. the one you saw that was the warm-up lap, to let the cars heat their tires to optimum operating temp to give them the best grip possible. after the warm-up though, they need to get back to their proper position on the starting grid.

nascars (hehehe) only resemble the stock cars in terms of profile. otherwise, they're as far off from the production version as a normal car is from a pushcart. oh okay, that's pushing it but you get the drift.

**niky** · July 15th, 2005 01:34 PM

No, it's the difference between a Honda Civic and an old Volkswagen Beetle funny car. The Civic (production car) is plainly more technically advanced, but the Beetle dragster is clearly faster. Production Impalas, Tauruses and Monte Carlos have about as mucn in common with their NASCAR versions as the Civic and Beetle do... most production vehicles that NASCAR cars are now based on are Front Wheel drive fuel-injected V6s with fully independent suspension and ABS, while Nascars are beam-axle Rear Wheel drive carburated V8s. :D

**squala** · July 16th, 2005 01:56 AM

Finally, a win for Monty! It's about time after a talent like him is caught napping for a good number of races now. It's also nice to know that his car is as good as Raikkonen's unlike in other teams. Too bad though he will most likely end up supporting Kimi for the title against Alonso, as his chances are very very slim now.

As for NASCAR, I just don't get it why their technology is primitive. Pushrod, carbureted engines, 4-speed manual gearbox, solid axle suspension and likely no ABS, traction control whatsoever, it's simply against the trend of production cars.

**BoyFerrari** · July 16th, 2005 02:10 AM

Originally Posted by bad driver

can someone walk me through how F1 races start? I saw them driving side to side for a moment (heating their tires?).... while some others are left behind, others moved forward..... It seemed that they didn't care much for positioning during the start of the race... tho it turned out that the leaders of Lap one ended up leading the whole race.

Sorry po, not familiar with F1.

F1 starts with a warm-up lap as mentioned. Yup, to warm up the tires. You cannot overtake any cars during the warm-up lap. The car you saw that was left behind in the last Grand Prix was Takuma Sato - he had a problem with his car. If a car got stuck during the warm-up lap, you can overtake him. A car that has lighter fuel load can accelerate much faster, so it is possible that a car on P4 on the grid can charge ahead to P1 at the start of the race. Depends on the fuel load and maneuvering skills of F1 drivers. Fuel load of each cars is a secret between competitors, it's part of the race strategy.

When the race circuit is tight with few opportunities for overtaking (like in Monaco or France), the P1 car "usually" wins the race because he can easily go flat out and doesn't need to worry about getting bottled-up. If he gets to catch up with cars that are a lap down, race officials will give those cars the "blue flag" to signal them to get out of the way so the race leaders can pass through.

If you don't get out of the way quick enough, you can either earn a penalty or a dirty finger from Alonso, or both.