2008 Formula One Spanish Grand Prix

[Jack_Bauer]

Kimi Raikkonen took an easily predicted pole position in Saturday's qualifying session in Barcelona, but there were surprises aplenty behind him as Ferrari weren't quite as dominant as they were expected to be. Indeed, Kimi's fifteenth career pole came at the expense of home favourite Fernando Alonso, who came within a whisker of providing the shock of the season so far. Still, the Spanish fans will be going home extremely happy after that result!

The first session passed largely without incident for the first 15 minutes or so, with Ferrari's predicted dominance showing. But in the final seconds of the session things went crazy as the times started tumbling. It appears that the track had lost a bit of pace and took the first 15 minutes or so to "rubber in" and start yielding the truly quick times.

It would be nigh on impossible to relate all the changes in position in those final seconds, but as a reference Jenson Button was in P9 about ten seconds after the chequered flag dropped, but by the end of the action he was right down in P16, only just making it through to the second session! David Coulthard was the big loser of the session. He was second quickest in practice this morning but could only manage a lowly 17th place. Fisichella, Vettel, Sutil, Davidson and Sato joined him on the sidelines for the rest of the session.

The second session again showed the Ferrari's pace, but BMW started to come to the fore with Kubica especially putting in a great lap. All of the main players made it through to the final session without too much fuss. Again, things were ridiculously close in the midfield. Sebastien Bourdais, probably the star of Q1 was the slowest man out on track, and in the final shake up he was joined by Rosberg, Glock, Button, Nakajima (out-pacing his teammate for the first time ever) and Barrichello.

The final session caused the real talking points of the day though, with a sensational finish. Kimi Raikkonen had a poor first hot lap, struggling with understeer in his car. Massa too wasn't impressing and it looked for a short while as though Ferrari were about to fumble the ball at the vital moment. The McLaren's looked decent, but they will be a tad worried as to why their obvious one-lap pace didn't translate to good pace with heavy fuel loads. They had to settle for fifth and sixth place for Hamilton and Kovalainen respectively.

BMW were again showing they had the measure of the McLarens with Kubica looking to repeat his brilliant performance of a few weeks ago. It looked for a while as though he had a shot at front row grid slot as he made it to P2 behind Massa who recovered reasonably well. However, the big surprise was to come in the dying seconds after the clock had run down to zero. Fernando Alonso sent the thousands of Spanish fans wild with a brilliant lap to take first place on the time sheets. I don't think anybody could quite believe it, especially the likes of McLaren and BMW who had their thunder well and truly stolen.

The dream was to be shattered for Alonso just seconds later though, as Kimi Raikkonen finally got his act together to take pole at the final moment. We all knew that Renault had taken a big step forward during the Easter break, but I don't think anyone thought they had jumped that far forward. In all honesty we have to assume that they will be very light on fuel and will struggle to make it to the podium for the race tomorrow. However, having the Renault up there on the front row really throws the cat amongst the pigeons for the race tomorrow, with things being made very difficult now for the BMWs and McLarens to be able to challenge the Ferraris.

Kimi Raikkonen will be the red-hot favourite for the race tomorrow, but it should be a fascinating battle behind him due to Alonso's incredible performance.

[faksta]

Kimi fans unite faksta!

Yeah, truth! Go on like this

[Zytek_Fan]

Looks like I won't be able to watch this one because SpeedTV has to be ****ing dumb and only show it live and then never show a replay.
It's live at 4:30am PST.
I hate you SpeedTV. Thanks for ****ing over everyone who doesn't like watching NASCRAP

[Jack_Bauer]

Looks like I won't be able to watch this one because SpeedTV has to be ****ing dumb and only show it live and then never show a replay.
It's live at 4:30am PST.
I hate you SpeedTV. Thanks for ****ing over everyone who doesn't like watching NASCRAP

"The Video Home System[1], better known by its abbreviation VHS, is a recording and playing standard developed by Victor Company of Japan, Limited (JVC) and launched in September 1976, with The Young Teacher being the first movie to be released and A History of Violence, released on home video in 2006, being the last in the North American market.[2] By the 1990s, VHS became a standard format for consumer recording and viewing, after competing in a fierce format war with Sony Corporation's Betamax and, to a much lesser extent, Philips' Video 2000, MCA's Laserdisc and RCA's Capacitance Electronic Disc."

It ain't rocket science, just tape it...

[faksta]

Looks like I won't be able to watch this one because SpeedTV has to be ****ing dumb and only show it live and then never show a replay.
It's live at 4:30am PST.
I hate you SpeedTV. Thanks for ****ing over everyone who doesn't like watching NASCRAP

Same thing. I won't see this GP. I planned to visit a jeep-trials event tomorrow, and there will be no replay on TV.

^^ About VHS - it's possible (I have many 2004-2005 races taped), but I don't think I'll find an empty tape until tomorrow

[Zytek_Fan]

"The Video Home System[1], better known by its abbreviation VHS, is a recording and playing standard developed by Victor Company of Japan, Limited (JVC) and launched in September 1976, with The Young Teacher being the first movie to be released and A History of Violence, released on home video in 2006, being the last in the North American market.[2] By the 1990s, VHS became a standard format for consumer recording and viewing, after competing in a fierce format war with Sony Corporation's Betamax and, to a much lesser extent, Philips' Video 2000, MCA's Laserdisc and RCA's Capacitance Electronic Disc."

It ain't rocket science, just tape it...

Tapes are rubbish quality

[Jack_Bauer]

Tapes are rubbish quality

So? It's better than nothing at all surely?

[Zytek_Fan]

So? It's better than nothing at all surely?

True...
but I can never get them to tape at a timer set time.

I'll try to get up at 4:30, watch the race, and go back to bed

[jugga]

red bull ftw!!! should be a gd race

[Jack_Bauer]

Kimi Raikkonen cruised to one of the easiest victories he will ever earn in today's Spanish Grand Prix. After securing pole position with an excellent lap in qualifying yesterday he was the clear favourite for the 10 points, and he didn't disappoint with a flawless lights to flag victory. The 130,000 strong Spanish crowd were left deflated as their hero Fernando Alonso didn't make it to the chequered flag, whilst Lewis Hamilton returned to the podium after his dismal weekend last time out in Bahrain.

In truth it was a fairly dull race, as they usually are at the Circuit de Catalunya. There were a couple of safety car periods which inevitably closed the field somewhat to keep things quite tight in the top four places, but without those it would have been a truly awful race.

Off the start line Kimi Raikkonen made a decent start which enabled him to reach turn one in the lead, which perfectly set up his race win. Crucially, behind him the man with the best start was Felipe Massa who was able to squeeze around Fernando Alonso and into second place. Lewis Hamilton put his nightmare start in Bahrain behind him and made a great move on Robert Kubica to take fourth place.

Going into turn four Adrian Sutil in the Force India tried a ridiculously over-ambitious move on David Coulthard which resulted in contact and a spin. Sadly Sebastien Vettel was left with nowhere to go and collided with Sutil's stricken car. Rotten luck for young Vettel as it saw the end of both of the young German drivers' races. This brought out the first safety car of the day and allowed the pack to close up behind Raikkonen.

From the restart there was little movement in the field, largely due to the high speed, high downforce nature of the Barcelona circuit. Raikkonen was setting fastest laps out front, Massa was in tow, and Alonso was able to keep Hamilton at bay (much to the delight of the Spanish fans).

Nelson Piquet had another disappointing race in what is proving to be a tricky debut season for the Brazilian. He had an off braking into turn 10 losing him numerous places, and then whilst attempting to recover he made an ambitious late move on Sebastien Bourdais in the same corner. They came into contact and both cars ended up retiring with broken front suspension. Both Toro Rossos were out after just a handful of laps, completing a miserable weekend for the team.

As indicated by Alonso's remarkable qualifying performance, the Renault was the lightest car on the grid and he was first to pit. However, Alonso didn't appear to be quite as light as we may have expected - only a couple of laps lighter than Massa - so it seems Renault really have made a huge leap forward in pace. Inevitably the early stop for Alonso allowed Hamilton to gain a position into third, and he now had the Ferraris in his sights and a mirror full of BMW.

Everything was routine for the Ferraris in the first round of stops and they rejoined comfortable first and second. Davidson sadly had to retire due to a punctured radiator after some track debris, and then came the biggest incident of the race. Whilst approaching the super-fast, blind right-hand Campsa corner Heikki Kovalainen suffered a freak failure on his front left corner. This sent him spearing off across the gravel trap at close to 140mph, and he eventually came to a sickening halt by diving underneath the tyre barriers. The scene was reminiscent of Luciano Burti's horrible accident at Blanchimont, Spa in 2001, and the level of obvious concern shown by the track marshalls was also similar.

The safety car and medical car were immediately deployed, and there followed around 10 minutes of anxious waiting for any news of the fate of Kovalainen. There were huge sighs of relief all round when the cameras picked up Heikki Kovalainen being stretchered away giving a big thumbs-up to the applauding crowd. All the news so far suggests that he has no serious injuries.

The safety car was terrible news for Nick Heidfeld as he was the last man yet to stop, and was running out of fuel. He had to come in to refuel while the pitlane was effectively closed, meaning he would have to take a penalty once the race resumed. It completely ruined his race, putting him in last place on the track. This rule really needs to be changed as it seems to serve no real purpose, and penalises those like Heidfeld purely out of bad luck.

As the race got underway Hamilton was close to the Ferraris and Kubica was still keeping him honest. Those front four gradually disappeared into the distance leaving the rest of the field miles behind. The pattern of the rest of the race was now set with Hamilton able to keep in touch with Massa and Kubica able to hold onto Hamilton, but whenever they got within a second of the man in front they were hit with terrible understeer from the dirty air in front. This track simply does not provide good racing. There are too many high speed corners and not enough long braking zones for drivers to make moves.

This was highlighted by the fact that Nick Heidfeld was having a torrid time getting past Fisichella despite having a massively quicker car. It eventually took a mistake from Fisi in the final corner for Heidfeld to be able to get a run on him down the main straight and make an excellent move around the outside of turn one. On most circuits it would have been like taking candy from a baby for a BMW to get past a Force India, but not here. In fact, the stats now show that it is EIGHT races in a row where the pole sitter has cruised to victory here. Let's hope the new European Grand Prix down the road in Valencia will be a bit more interesting!

With a dozen or so laps to go Timo Glock made a silly move on Coulthard which damaged both of their cars, and will probably result in him having a penalty of some sort handed down to him at a later date. Again, the nature of the track meant Coulthard found it difficult even to get past Sato despite having a car that was about 4 seconds a lap faster at that point in the race!

Whilst making his record equalling 256th race appearance Rubens Barrichello somehow managed to knock his own front wing off while pitting. This eventually caused damage to his car and resulted in a retirement. Then the Spanish crowds were hearbroken by a massive engine failure in the back of Alonso's R28. It was rotten luck for Alonso who was driving a decent race and was probably due a fifth place finish. That meant Rosberg inherited a points paying position, but that wasn't to last long as his Toyota engine blew and the Williams ground to a halt on the main straight.

You could almost sense the frustration of the likes of Kubica and Hamilton as they were both pushing extremely hard but didn't really have a hope in hell of getting close enough to try a pass. They both drove great races but weren't really able to put on much of a show for the crowd. However, they will both be heartened as they showed good race pace and were not crushed by the Ferraris as some had expected them to be. Ferrari clearly have the upper hand at the moment, but McLaren and BMW are both still in there fighting hard, and it's not over by a long shot.

Behind the front four Webber, Button, Nakajima and Trulli all had good but very quiet races to round out the rest of the points paying positions. The unlucky Heidfeld wasn't able to recover after his penalty and finished ninth, losing his second place in the driver's championship in the process. Fisichella put in one of the performances of the day to come tenth after running as high as eighth place at one point. Encouraging signs for Force India.

So moving on to Turkey, the Ferrari team cemented their advantage in both championship races, and Kimi Raikkonen will now be on very short odds to take his second consecutive WDC. However, there were encouraging signs for McLaren (freak accidents aside) as they seem to have gotten over their little blip last time out. BMW too are still consistently there or thereabouts. It's still all to play for...


Provisional Race Result

1. Raikkonen
2. Massa
3. Hamilton
4. Kubica
5. Webber
6. Button
7. Nakajima
8. Trulli
9. Heidfeld
10. Fisichella
11. Glock
12. Coulthard
13. Sato
ret Rosberg
ret Alonso
ret Barrichello
ret Kovalainen
ret Davidson
ret Bourdais
ret Piquet
ret Sutil
ret Vettel

[faksta]

I haven't seen it, damn! But what's with Kovalainen? How is he?

[RacingManiac]

Left front wheel rim failure at 140mph in a fast right hander.....he is quite lucky he didn't get seriously injured....

Ferrari basically ran the race at BMW and McLaren's pace....I'd imagine they were saving the engines and the gearboxes....

What's with Coulthard and keep cutting people's nose off.....

[adamfraser]

The scene was reminiscent of Luciano Burti's horrible accident at Blanchimont, Spa in 2001, and the level of obvious concern shown by the track marshalls was also similar.

Jeez i remember that very well with Eddie Irvine, was one of those moments where you dont want to watch, but you cant stop.

Good to hear that Kovalinen is ok though.

[dydzi]

saw the race. nothing really exciting, apart from some single moments - kovalainen accident including. pleased to see two ferraris in front. Kimi for World Champion!

[Zytek_Fan]

Nice job from Kubica to do the best he could.

Though I'm not pleased with another Ferrari win.