Author: Pat W

Delayed Race Notes: Hungarian Grand Prix 2009

[Preface – Due to accountancy studies I fell behind with the editing of these posts. They were written during the live BBC coverage as usual, save for the race result and points. Anything in italics in square brackets was written during the edit, just like this paragraph.]

Formula 1 ING Magyar Nagydig 2009
/ 2009 Formula 1 ING Hungarian Grand Prix
Circuit: Hungaroring
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Distance: 70 laps

Coverage: BBC One / BBC Radio 5 Live[*]
Anchor: Jake Humphrey
Analysts in the paddock: David Coulthard (DC) and Eddie Jordan (EJ)

R5 commentary[*]: David Croft (Crofty) and Anthony Davidson (Ant)
R5 pitlane[*]: Holly Samos

Tyre selection (red): SS / S / M / H

[*for many years the BBC has held the UK radio rights to F1. In ’09 they also picked up the TV rights and they now offer an alternate feed on digital television, combining TV pics with radio commentary. I tend to use this feed.]

Coverage begins at 12.10pm. Update on the season so far.

Hungaroring is 14 corners in roughly 3 miles. I can’t see how that many corners in such a small space can produce good racing – and it doesn’t at this track.

Massa is in a stable condition after his horrible accident yesterday.
Ted reports. Felipe didn’t need another lap as he was already through, but went again to make sure. Failure on Barrichello’s car when a spring fell off at 140mph, 3 seconds later Massa drove into the path of the spring.
It cut a 4″ groove out of the helmet shell but it remained structurally intact.

Luca Colajanni, Ferrari – He was concious when he arrived at hospital, he went through medical checks, he had a cut in his forehead, bone damage to his skull, brain concussion. He has to undergo and operation.

Ross Brawn – Heavy object, 1.5 – 2 pounds, a kilo, at those speeds its a serious impact. Spring is from the gearbox. It is part of the assembly, we’ve raced it all season, it is subject to a lot of testing. Not happened before, first occurrence. We need to understand what happened.

Ted says surgery was successful and he remains stable in intensive care.

Colajanni again, live this time – He went for a CT scan which had a negative outcome, which is positive, now he sleeps. His family have just arrived from Brazil. Now he sleeps, we just have to wait.

[Thankfully, as we all know now, Felipe is well on the way to recovery! He’s very lucky.]

David Coulthard – It’s been a freakish week [with Surtees the week before]. We just have to look at the positive side of this, Felipe should make a full recovery, we should move on and try and stop things falling off cars in future.

Eddie Jordan has a spring from a GP2 car to illustrate the size/weight, says the F1 version is very similar.

DC – Felipe is a well-liked member of the drivers’ association. Ironically enough the part that has fallen off has been used since the invention of racing.

Qualifying update with Lee
Alguersuari struggled in his first Q session.
Force India had to repair Sutil’s car after a big hit in practice. He says 18th is not so bad..
Button could only do one Q3 run because they were changing the spring on his car after Barrichello’s failed, the team and the FIA wanted to make sure it was safe.
Hamilton starts 4th, his best of the season.

Then the official timing system went down! Alonso was going to each driver asking their time! Each driver gets their own time on the dash so they knew that, but not what others had.

Vettel (P2) – Our biggest threat is coming from behind with the KERS cars.
Alonso (P1) – Car worked fine in qualifying, the most stressful time was in parc ferme afterwards asking ‘what time you did’, what time you did’!

Pat Symonds – We knew what we’d done, it was a little bit better than we expected but we didn’t expect pole.
DC – Did you think you went too short on strategy?
PS – We came here to be aggressive, we knew tyres would be a big part, they are marginal here and a three stop is not a silly thing to do.
He says Piquet has the same car as Alonso this weekend, completely identical.

Nelson has been complaining because his drive is under threat. Yesterday in the quali show we learned he must score half the points of Alonso to keep his drive and he hasn’t done that – but he says he hasn’t had the car.

The grid has moved forward to fill Massa’s space, so only the top 9 ran their fuel load in qualifying.

Grid from BlogF1 (thanks for the shout!):
http://blogf1.co.uk/2009/07/25/hungary-2009-the-grid/

Ollie puts together a great grid line-up which you should check out before each race. My little summary pales into comparison:

Alonso, Vettel
Webber, Hamilton
Rosberg, Kovalainen
Raikkonen, Button
Nakajima, Buemi
Trulli, Barrichello
Glock, Piquet
Heidfeld, Fisichella
Sutil, Kubica
Alguersuari

Piece with Mark Webber cycling with Jake. Says winning was “total emotion” and the next two races will decide the championship. [erm, maybe not!]

12.30 and the pitlane is open, cars are leaving for the grid over the next 15 mins.

Refuelling piece with Martin Brundle and Force India. Refuelling was reintroduced to F1 in 1994.
The refueller delivers ‘clean’ fuel (road fuel with a small amount of biofuel) at 12.1 litres per second.
Sometimes the first rig fails, a reserve rig is on standby. Force India have a reserve crew ready. At Brawn they hand the spare hose to the main refueller.
The filler on the car is designed for the height and angle of the man doing the refuelling – assuming the car stops in the right place it should make things as smooth as possible.
Martin – Enjoy it while you can, refuelling is banned for 2010.

GRIDWALK – Jake, Eddie, David
The Hungarian GP attracts fans from across Europe, there are flags from everywhere in the stands. Martin joins them briefly and then walks off to start the Gridwalk proper – with EJ! This can only go well.

Martin says it has been 26 years since EJ was on a Formula 3 grid telling MB he’s going to beat Ayrton Senna.

EJ – Your thoughts are with Massa but you have to put it to one side and focus on your job.

Little argument already! Martin saying he was upset in the Imola ’94 race when he wasn’t told what was going on, EJ defending his situation saying the teams didn’t know either, they were told he was okay, until they got on the plane to come home.

Button: We’ve got a lot of fuel on board. The KERS cars are in front of me, which is good because they are aiming at the Red Bulls. It would be lovely to win this race but the most important thing is to finish in front of the Red Bulls, I’m not sure Alonso is going to be a factor in this race.

Martin asks EJ about championship strategy. Let them race or focus on one driver, shouldn’t RBR concentrate on Vettel?
EJ says RBR haven’t made that decision yet, and with Mark Webber’s recent races you can’t rule him out, he could be the dark horse.
MB – Absolutely.

Webber: Its a long race. Different people have different ideas about tyres. I’m looking to get away clean and get in Alonso’s tow and try and get Sebastien. The Williams is no slouch off the line either, it’s going to be aggressive to turn one.

MB: KERS. Ferrari have got it, McLaren is the only team who’ve made it work.

They find Flav and Bernie!
EJ (arm around Bernie): Do you remember me?
BE: No.
EJ: Why haven’t you done signed Concorde yet?
BE: I can’t write.
MB: Flavio, is Alonso driving with you next year?
FB: For the moment he’s with us, we see race by race.

Evasive Bernie.. Martin bails out to go to the Hungarian National Anthem. Probably a good thing, that interview could have been even more embarrassing than it was. (not for the first time this year, there is no singing with this anthem.. maybe it doesn’t have words?)

Ferrari mechanics gathered with a pitboard: Forza Felipe

FUEL LOADS
Alonso only has 29kg of fuel on board. Fuel-corrected, the Red Bulls were fastest with Vettel on pole, then Webber. Button is well placed because he saved 4 laps of fuel compared to the others in qualifying.

Martin Whitmarsh saying they hope the KERS will help them jump a few cars at the start, they want to challenge for a podium with both drivers.

Guys are filling again to hit the next mark.. A check of the points shows Button leading Vettel by 21 points, and Brawn ahead of Red Bull by 19.5 points.

Pick a winner in one word?
DC – Have to go with Red Bull, Vettel.
EJ – Hamilton by a big margin.
JH – That wasn’t one word but it was quicker than usual.

FOM Intro

BBC One crosses to Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle.
I cross to Freeview channel 302 to have the same pictures but with the BBC Radio feed of David Croft and guest commentator Johnny Herbert – Anthony Davidson is at Spa for the FIA GT 24 Hours.

Cars are away for the formation lap. This will be a 70 lap race.

Extreme tyre warming as they arrive on the grid!

1.2.3.4.5…GO!

Banging wheels at the start, Kimi tries to barge his way through the Red Bulls and Lewis touches wheels with a Red Bull as well.

Start of Lap 2. Adrian Sutil pits with damage, he’s being wheeled back into the garage.

Replays:

Lewis and Kimi both try for the same space in the gap between RBRs. Kimi backs out and Lewis passes both.
Onboard LH: KERS off the start. Webber repasses him out of turn one.

After the shake up of the start the order is:
Alonso, Webber, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Rosberg, Kovalainen, Vettel, Button, Nakajima, Trulli, Piquet, Glock, Kubica, Buemi, Heidfeld, Barrichello, Fisichella, Alguersuari
Sutil is listed as RETIRED on the live timing. What happened to Rubens?

Holly Samos on 5Live says Sutil’s car is overheating, they will try to go back out later.

L5 Hamilton on the KERS passes Webber with ease.

L6 Raikkonen with KERS is catching Webber now.

Hamilton just set Fastest Lap.

L8 He’s done another FL and is 3/10ths faster than Alonso, Webber and Raikkonen.

L9 The reverse situation a little further back with Vettel on the tail of Kovalainen – but Seb can’t pass because Heikki can defend with KERS.

L11 Button on the radio. Seems to have tyre problems? Hard ot hear him through the noise.

“Incident involving Car 4 under investigation”
That’s Kimi – the wheel-banging start?

L13 Alonso pits after completing 12 laps. He’s out in from of Piquet, behind Trulli. Immediately he’s off the road, vibrating front right.
The wheel has come off! It is bouncing down the road, and luckily comes to a rest by a barrier before anyone else comes along – that could have been much much worse. Yellows in that area only.

He slowly makes it back to the pits for a replacement but he is now last.

L16 Hamilton leads and is setting fastest laps every lap now the yellows are clear. He’s 4.2sec up over Webber.

Alonso pits once more and it seems his race may be over.

L18 Nakajima is catching Button but Jenson is much lighter on fuel.

L20 Both Webber and Raikkonen pit. Webber is slow away, he almost hits Raikkonen!! Expect a penalty for dangerous release. Webber under pressure and passed by Glock.

L21 Hamilton pits, so does Rosberg. Rosberg slots in between Glock and Webber but Webber passes him!

L22 Kovalainen and Vettel come in together. Sebastien has a very long stop – we saw RBR struggle with Mark Webber’s stop, same problem here or did they fuel Vettel long?

L23 Naikajima in – wouldn’t normally mention it but he could get points this week!

Piquet vs Nakajima! Piquet wins that battle.. for 14th..

Button radio: We have to go long, would you like prime or option? “We know the car doesn’t work with prime.”

Button pits and emerges behind Barrichello – and Fisichella passes him in turn one as well. Button will probably be trapped behind Giancarlo for some time now, Crofty says Fisi isn’t pitting for another 6 laps.

L27 Vettel is on the radio saying something broke on the car.
Replays: Smoke from the car. Barrichello passes him. The car seems to be dropped down at an angle.
Vettel pits and they are changing the front wing. They are carefully checking the front left wheel.
He’s back out.

L29 Alguesuari pits, a nice solid first F1 pit stop!
Fisichella is in one lap later.

L31 Something still wrong with Vettel’s car, looks very hard to control. He pits and the team rolls it into the garage, day over.

L32 Button is complaining again. “How, how can this car be so bad??”

L33 Glock pits from 3rd, he’s got himself ahead of Button with that long run.

Barrichello has pitted and drops back from 7th to 13th.

Order at half distance (lap 35)

Hamilton, Raikkonen +6.6, Webber +18.6 to LH, Kovalainen +19.5, Rosberg +21.1, Glock +35.3, Trulli +41.0, Button +44.9, Piquet +45.9, Nakajima +46.8, Heidfeld, Kubica, Barrichello, Buemi, Fisichella, Alg.

Lewis team radio: Pace is good. We’ve got 3 or 4 tenths on Kimi.

Kovalainen is pressuring Webber, which is good to see. Heikki seemed to be nowhere earlier – although is this down to Mark being on the soft tyre and the others still on the supersoft?

L40 Buemi runs wide on his in-lap. He is the first of the second-stoppers and is now last.

Shots of small boy having his pass autographed by Bernie. RUN. RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN

Holly with Vettel: In the first corner I had contact with Kimi. He hit my front left and that was the reason the pit stop took very long, to change the front left tyre, all of a sudden it was game over and the front left suspension gave up.

L45 Kovalainen pits and takes the soft, which is the harder of the two compounds this week.

L46 Kimi Raikkonen pits but he can’t get going again… he’s slow away and rejoins having lost 4 or 5 seconds.

L47 Lewis Hamilton pits and rejoins still leading.

Everyone is changing to the soft tyre for the last stint – except Mark Webber who can use the faster supersofts.

L50 Rosberg pits, is out in 5th. Good points for he and Williams this week!

L51 Mark Webber pits and is out just ahead of Rosberg for 4th, he actually maintains 3rd position because Glock got ahead of him in that stop, and he’s soon to pit.

L54 Glock is right on the tail of Raikkonen but does need that stop. Kimi is actually costing Timo time.

L56 Hamilton radio – he’s turning his engine down.
Since he has a 17 second lead over Raikkonen that’s probably a reasonable thing to do.
Button pits, a lap later Nakajima pits.

L58 Barrichello pits now.

L59 5Live discussing whether Glock is pitting. He’s taking his time over it. There’s no way he could have run the supersofts this long though.

Trulli pits, so Glock should be next. Trulli is out just behind Button.

10 laps to go.

L61 Timo Glock pits from 3rd and gets out on a clear track, other than a lapped Toro Rosso a little way behind him.

Holly Samos: The aim for Rubens Barrichello is to overtake the two cars ahead of him on soft tyres, he is on supersofts.

Rubens is 10th, behind Trulli and Nakajima. Points to 8th remember. Finally, Trulli has developed himself a little train. He just can’t help himself.

L66, 5 to go. Mark Webber just set the fastest lap its too late now Mark. He’s 5 seconds behind Kimi but there aren’t enough laps to make the move.

The last 10-15 laps have been really dull.

2 to go.

Final Lap. Obligatory pointless shot of his dad and girlfriend. Crofty says Hamilton hasn’t even scored a point for six races (Bahrain).

Lewis Hamilton wins!!!

Raikkonen 2nd, Webber 3rd

Parc Ferme
Lewis is bouncing around!

Green room thing.

Podium
Anthem
Trophies… really very strange trophies..
Champagne!

We await the result of the stewards investigation into Kimi’s incident – he could yet be DQ’d or dropped back.

Back to BBC1 for Jake/DC/EJ.

Button with Lee:

Friday our pace was good on the option, everyone else struggled with graining. Today after 4 laps my tyres were destroyed, I had rear graining and couldn’t keep with the cars in front. I don’t know why we’re graining the tyres today. We’ve had two updates on the car but they shouldn’t unbalance the car in any way. The other teams have improved but our car is not what it was to drive a few weeks ago.

Press conference with James Allen:

Lewis in his shiny suit:

An incredible feeling to be back here after what seems a long time away. I’m so proud of the guys, they never give up. We didn’t expect to win this weekend.

Kimi in his oversize hat:

I made a very good start, that defintely helped. The gap stayed more or less the same all the time, then I has some issues on the last pit stop. Its difficult to challenge for the win right now but we’re closer than expected. Difficult weekend for the team but this is something positive at least.

Mark, the orange squash hog according to @SniffPetrol:

I was worried about the length of the stint so it was difficult to know what tyre to put on. Our guys and Renault have a lot to be proud of.

BBC1 are out of here ASAP to cross to Donington Park for live MotoGP, I’m hitting Red Button for the F1 Forum post-race debrief which I won’t note-take as it is quite long.

Race Result

Pos Driver Gap Pts
1 Hamilton 70 laps 10
2 Räikkönen 11.5sec 8
3 Webber 16.8sec 6
4 Rosberg 26.9sec 5
5 Kovalainen 34.3sec 4
6 Glock 35.2sec 3
7 Button 55.0sec 2
8 Trulli 68.1sec 1
9 Nakajima 68.7sec
10 Barrichello 69.2sec
11 Heidfeld 70.6sec
12 Piquet 71.5sec
13 Kubica 74.0sec
14 Fisichella 1 lap
15 Alguersuari 1 lap
16 Buemi 1 lap
DNF Vettel 41 laps suspension
DNF Alonso 55 laps fuel pump
DNF Sutil 69 laps engine
DNS Massa n/a accident

Drivers’ Championship

Driver Prev HUN Total
1 Button 68 2 70
2 Webber 45.5 6 51.5
3 Vettel 47 47
4 Barrichello 44 44
5 Rosberg 20.5 5 25.5
6 Trulli 21.5 1 22.5
7 Massa 22 22
8 Hamilton 9 10 19
9 Räikkönen 10 8 18
10 Glock 13 3 16
11 Alonso 13 13
12 Kovalainen 5 4 9
13 Heidfeld 6 6
14 Buemi 3 3
15 Bourdais 2 2
16 Kubica 2 2

Webber overhauls Vettel for 2nd.
Rosberg and Trulli pass the out-of-action Massa.
Lewis and Kimi finally make some in-roads into the field, pushing Alonso back.

Constructors’ Championship

Constructor Prev HUN Total
1 Brawn 112 2 114
2 Red Bull 86.5 6 92.5
3 Toyota 40.5 4 44.5
4 Ferrari 29 8 37
5 McLaren 14 14 28
6 Williams 20.5 5 25.5
7 Renault 13 13
8 BMW 8 8
9 Toro Rosso 5 5
10 Force India 0 0

Red Bull closes on Brawn for the 4th consecutive race.
Ferrari are beginning to challenge Toyota for 3rd.
McLaren make their first big gain of the season to double their score and leap into 5th.
Williams are establishing themselves in 6th with a consistent string of results.

That’s it from Hungary! Hope these notes were in some way useful. The next race is the European Grand Prix around the harbour of Valencia after the summer break, on 23rd August.

Hungarian flag courtesy of 4 International Flags

Weekend Preview: 5-6 September 2009

September already! I hope you like the tweaks I’ve made to the blog layout, they should make things a little easier for you to read and for me to format. Added side-bonus: Unintended Racing Stripes! I also updated the links. On with the preview…

Feature Events


MotoGP

– GP Cinzano di San Marino e Della Riviera di Rimini
– Misano
– Misano Adriatico, Rimini, Italy
– (13/17)
– www.motogp.com

The MotoGP paddock has had to make a mad dash across the Atlantic from Indianapolis in just a few days to be ready for this race. Who puts these schedules together? Expect Vale’s fans to be out in force.

TV Guide:
UK – LIVE on BBC TWO at 12.30pm BST Sunday
USA – DELAYED on SPEED at 2pm ET Sunday
with 250cc, 125cc, etc

Other Events


DTM

– Brands Hatch
– Brands Hatch, Kent, England, UK
– (7/10)
– www.dtm.tv and www.dtm.com

The DTM pays it’s now annual visit to the little 1.2 mile Indy layout at Brands Hatch for some panel-bashing. For these fast tintops it is as close to an oval race as they have and they treat it as such.

TV Guide
UK -Apparently this is live on the new ESPN, who bought the defunct Setanta Sports. You can hopefully see it live at 12.30pm if you are a subscriber to the channel.
You can also follow along at www.dtm.tv which has a live video stream. There may be delayed highlights on Sky Sports but I don’t know when.

Joined by the F3 Euroseries and UK FFord.


NASCAR Sprint Cup

– Pep Boys Auto 500
– Atlanta Motor Speedway, S.Hampton, Georgia, USA
– www.nascar.com
– US TV: ESPN, Sunday 7pm ET
– UK TV: Sky Sports 2, Sunday night 12.30am


NASCAR Nationwide Series

– Degree V12 300
– Atlanta Motor Speedway, S.Hampton, Georgia, USA
– www.nascar.com


NASCAR Camping World Trucks

– Lucas Oil 200
– Iowa Speedway
– Newton, Iowa, USA
– www.nascar.com


FIA WTCC

– Race of Germany
– Oschersleben, Germany
– www.fiawtcc.com
UK TV – British Eurosport – Race 1 live at 11.45am and Race 2 live at 1.30pm


FIA Formula 2

– Oschersleben
– Oschersleben, Germany
– www.formulatwo.com
UK TV – British Eurosport – Race 1 delayed at 3.30pm Saturday and Race 2 live at 12.30pm Sunday
– with F.Master


Superleague Formula

– Estoril
– Estoril, Portugal
– www.superleagueformula.com
UK TV – highlights on Eurosport at 6:30pm Sunday


FIA WRC

– Rally Australia
UK TV – Daily updates on Eurosport and a roundup at 6pm on Dave


FIM World Superbike

– Nurburgring
– Nurburgring, Germany
– www.worldsbk.com
UK TV – British Eurosport – both races live



* * * *
Sources
FORIX (sub req.)
Live Sport on TV
RadioTimes.com
Series websites as mentioned
Autosport magazine

Catch-Up: GP2 Asia – 5&6 – Bahrain

GP2 Asia Series
Rnd 5, Bahrain Feature
Held 23 Jan / Watched 31 Aug

This is GP2 Asia’s first of two visits for the 2008/’09 winter series, the second visit will come as the support to the F1 race in April. As always, first up we have the feature race which today is for 34 laps. These are my ‘short notes’ – I want to cover lots more racing and I’m still working out the best way to do it, either short-form versions of the notes posts or more general impressions like the recent A1GP post.

I’ve got the Eurosport commentary team of Martin Haven and Gareth Rees. Haven is the 2nd tier / junior series extraordinaire, he seems to do commentary on literally *everything* outside of F1 in Europe. Rees is an experienced driver at this level having competed in F3000 for a while before running out of money.

Gridded. Long hold on the start..
Hulkenberg leads into turn one. Kobayashi 2nd. At least 3 stallers.

Stallers are clear as leaders complete lap one, either got fired on the grid or were pulled into pitlane for refiring..

Lots of action back in the pack. GP2 cars, particularly in the Asia Series, are not easily identifiable and less so the drivers. No standout colour schemes. The cameras being so far from the race track don’t help, they aren’t zooming in enough.

Top 5 after 2 laps: Hulkenberg, Kobayashi, Mortara, d’Ambrosio, Rodriguez

Haven on Hulkenberg: “Willi Weber will try and talk him into being the next Schumacher, whether that’s Michael or Ralf remains to be seen.” Ha!

Dive-bomb into turn 1! Cars left, right, everywhere as they try and lap a backmarker who was delayed when he stalled at the start. Backmarker should have eased off and let the leaders through, he just got in the way.. d’Ambrosio ahead of Mortara in the melee.

After 8 laps, Hulkenberg and Kobayashi have checked out on the rest of the field. Kamui is pushing hard and is only 0.37sec behind Nico, trying to pressure the F3 Euroseries champ into a mistake. Commentary guys earlier made the point that Nico won’t be used to the race lengths and the higher g-forces of these cars compared to F3, and that’ll come into play in the second stint.

We’re not really seeing what’s going on with the rest of the field, which is a shame. This earlier generation car is more entertaining than the current European series car, we’re bound to be missing something good back there.

Eventually we see it.. just a long line of cars. I’m disappointed.

Kobayashi passes Hulkenberg into turn 1! Very late on the brakes, nice move.

Pitstops, 14 laps done 20 to go.
Wheels bang, Perez and Villa touch!
Top six are running longer on their stops.

Problem for Hulkenberg’s tyre changer, long stop on the right rear. Cost him a position to Mortara.

Hulkenberg is faster than Mortara, he’s trying it on Mortara with Rodriguez & co closing in.

Valsecchi passes van der Garde, caught him completely unawares, good move.
Ricci got tagged into a spin.. put himself on the apex and someone clouted him. Not sure of his position in the order..

Kobayashi leads d’Ambrosio by about 8sec, with Mortara and Hulkenberg 6sec further back.

Pretty poor driving standards in this field, particularly Razia weaving all around, looking like ramming his opponents off the track.. I know the Asia Series attracts new drivers rather than series returnees but this is silly.

Valsecchi has passed Rodriguez, working his way up the field from 10th, doing a good job. Rodriguez could have a problem because van der Garde is catching fast as well, or is he just slow.. commentary is saying he was an early stopper, could he have worn his tyres out?

Kobayashi wins!! – despite there being no flag until the 2nd place man crosses the line… oops.

Points go to D’Ambrosio, Mortara, Hulkenberg, Valsecchi, Rodriguez, van der Garde, and the reverse grid pole to Perez.

Pretty boring race after the stops, seems to be a theme for these Asia Series races, action early on then gets dull quickly. The two DAMS cars hammered the field here, good job from them. Kobayashi is still at racing speed on what is meant to be the cooldown lap… he didn’t see a flag so he’s carrying on! Eventually he gets the message and heads to parc ferme.

Truly awful standards on the last lap when someone tried to run Yamamoto off the track, could have been Razia again! Let’s hope things are better for the Sprint, and also for the F1 visit later in the year. Keep scrolling for the next one..

****
GP2 Asia Series
R6, Bahrain Sprint
Held Jan 24 / Watched Aug 31

23 lap sprint race, no stops, reverse top 8 on the grid, points only to 6th in this race.

Good start from Perez, has a healthy lead through turn 1. Cars 3-wide after turn 1! Another stalled car on the grid.
Van der Garde pitted at the end of the formation lap but seems to be running now.
Nunes comes out of the pits after missing the start, he may have been the staller left behind this time.

Replay of a great start from Villa, up from row 5 to brake ultra-late into turn one and is now 4th. Courageous! Of course had he got it wrong he’d looks stupid..

D’Ambrosio passes his teammate Kobayashi.
Ooh, lots of action all down the field!
Petrov and Yamamoto going at it, Petrov coming off better.

Wow, 4-wide, nearly 5-wide for a short while! I think this is the same group, Yamamoto, Petrov, Gonzalez, Bonanomi and a couple of others – people keep catching this group which is being held up by Gonzalez.

Perez leads, Valsecchi, Hulkenberg, Valles are the top 4.

Al-Fardan proves he’s completely out of his depth as he wanders all over the road, then fails to brake for the corner, hits Razia and loses his front wing – has to pit for a repair. Razia wasn’t at fault at all, perhaps unusually.

D’Ambrosio has passed Villa for 4th – switchback move, good stuff!

Valsecchi is catching Perez who may be struggling for grip. d’Ambrosio passes Hulkenberg with less than a lap to go!

Perez wins by 0.7 seconds!

Perez, Valsecchi, D’Ambrosio, Hulkenberg, Villa, Kobayashi (who seemed a little off-pace).
D’Ambrosio started 7th, good job to get a podium. Bamber finishes 7th, Mortara 8th but no points for those in the sprint race.

Good entertaining stuff this one.

Points:
1. Kobayashi 34
2. Valsecchi 24
3. Rodriguez 22
4. D’Ambrosio 17
5. Villa 12
6. Perez 10
7. Hulkenberg 10
8. Bamber 8

Next up is Losail, Qatar – which is GP2’s first night race – and then a visit to Malaysia to hook up with F1 before the finale which is back here in Bahrain.

Delayed Race Notes: German Grand Prix 2009

[Preface – Due to accountancy studies I fell behind with the editing of these posts. They were written during the live BBC coverage as usual, save for the race result and points. Anything in italics in square brackets was written during the edit, just like this paragraph.]

2009 Formula 1 Grosser Preis Santander von Deutschland
/ 2009 Formula 1 Santander German Grand Prix
Circuit: Nürburgring
Location: Nürburgring, Eifel, Germany
Distance: 60 laps

Coverage: BBC One / BBC Radio 5 Live[*]
Anchor: Jake Humphrey
Analysts in the paddock: David Coulthard (DC) and Eddie Jordan (EJ)

R5 commentary[*]: David Croft (Crofty) and Anthony Davidson (Ant)
R5 pitlane[*]: Holly Samos
Tyre selection (red): SS / S / M / H

[*for many years the BBC has held the UK radio rights to F1. In ’09 they also picked up the TV rights and they now offer an alternate feed on digital television, combining TV pics with radio commentary. I tend to use this feed.]

Coverage begins at 12.10pm.

Focus on the 5 German drivers. Soundbyte-style. Nick says his first pole position was at this track, Sebastian says he should know the circuit off by heart, Adrian says his first F3 win was here, Timo says Michael Schumacher made F1 huge in Germany in the 90s, and Nico says it was because of MS that he got a whole bunch of sponsors. Seb: “German drivers are just bloody quick!”

Jake, pink shirt, pitlane.

Qualifying report with Lee:
Drivers were sent out early in Q2 to avoid rain, but everyone got caught out on a greasy damp track, spins aplenty.
Heikki turned his engine off in qualifying because he was given tyres he didn’t want.
Confusion at Ferrari where they fitted the wrong tyres, had to delay getaway to fit the right ones.
Piquet outqualified Alonso for the first time.
Webber threw down the challenge, Vettel could not respond, he blames himself not the car. Barrichello beat Button.

Webber (pole), Barrichello
Button, Vettel
Hamilton, Kovalainen
Sutil, Massa
Raikkonen, Piquet
Heidfeld, Alonso
Nakajima, Trulli
Rosberg, Kubica
Buemi, Fisichella
(gap), Bourdais
Pitlane: Glock

Glock had a grid penalty for blocking Alonso in qualifying and so Toyota elected to start from pitlane.

Jake is talking to Lewis. He and McLaren are very happy that their new improvements to the car are working. Jake says Lewis has been bouncing around the paddock like Tigger! Optimistic of getting a couple of positions at the start.
Lewis has a new diffuser but Heikki does not, yet Kovy lines up alongside the Ham.

Recorded segment, DC with Mark Webber after quals.
‘It all came together at the crucial time, guys did a great job. 20% of the job done, its a big part of it [but got to get] track position early in the race.’
He still has metal in his leg from his pre-season crash, he was on a mountain bike when he hit a car. Says he’s on the mend and confidence is high. ‘Red Bull have been very patient with my injury.’

The pundits, DC and EJ, are saying it is Webber’s race to lose.

Ted Kravitz: No more rain for 30 minutes. Track is bone dry, not a huge crowd but plenty of money spent on the new complex to driver’s left of the main straight, including a rollercoaster running alongside the track, reaching over 135mph before doing ‘it’s rollercoaster bit’.

Pit feature with Brundle – the driver:
In the 50s a driver had to stay out of the way of the fuel hose, grab a drink, clean his own screen, etc.
These days you think about the in-lap, the stop and the out-lap – and drivers don’t always agree with the radio call. Footage of Nick Heidfeld disagreeing with the pit call at Silverstone to change his wing settings. Driver has to have a fast in-lap, you’re still against the stopwatch, remembering to hit the pitlane speed limit of 100km/h (62mph) or be penalised. Sweep in at the limit to a garage of your own guys. Remember to release pit limiter in the right place..

Lots of pit features from the BBC this year..

Straight into a discussion between Jake Humphrey and Michael Schumacher… with David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan sat right there!
Says he didn’t dream much of F1, seemed too far away. His manager Willi Weber convinced Eddie Jordan that Michael knew Spa, when he didn’t.. Eddie pipes in to say he answered the question correctly, Eddie had asked “Do you know Spa?” – they answered ‘yes’, everyone knows of Spa…

On Spa ’98 and THAT collision with Coulthard (DC raised the subject!), he says in that sort of spray you have no chance, you see nothing, no feeling of distance. He’s still sure David is responsible for the accident. He apologises to David for saying it was McLaren’s fault, he thought McLaren had arranged it because Mika Hakkinen in the other car was his title rival..
Eddie Jordan thanks both of them for allowing Jordan to take a 1-2 finish that day. Schumacher jokingly says it was a gift for giving him his first F1 drive!

On prompting from DC, he says it took a long time for him to build up the trust of people, fans, media, which is why he maybe didn’t come across so well personally.

His favourite moment from his career? He says he has too many! The most important was 2000 to win the championship, it took away so much pressure.
On working with Ross Brawn again? ‘If I had wanted to work I had all the options, I may even now have options, its not what I’m looking for.”

Back live in the paddock.. David says he was glad to still have his helmet on when MS was seeking him out in that Spa pitlane in 1998..

Cars are leaving pitlane to head to the grid.

With Martin Whitmarsh, who says this season has been painful. Eddie Jordan says he thought their car was a dog, apologises to Martin and is impressed by the rate of improvement this year.

Gridwalk

MW’s car hit a wheel gun as he parked on the grid. “I’m not happy with 2nd or 3rd place, I want to win”. Brundle can’t see why he won’t get this race done. 28 years since the last Aussie winner.

JB says the circuit feels better. Car felt stable, circuit is 10 or 12 degrees hotter than yesterday. Got a bit of stripey paint on his grid spot, that’ll make the wheels spin up, not too happy with that. Not sure if he’ll win this but he’ll give it his best shot.

We try and talk to Vettel, no, but watch as Seb grabs the Bridgestone man for a discussion… Martin speculates it is about the change in temperatures and how it’ll affect grip, says it is unusual to have that kind of talk this late on.

Mclaren people. Pat Fry. Kudos to BBC graphics team, caption straight up despite us maybe speaking to him what once this year, twice maybe? Planned? Fibreglass on the front wing…

Adrian Sutil: “Lot of fuel on board, heaviest car in top ten qualifying, looking good! The car improved in the last few races, today we have to show it in the race. Rain maybe would be easier for us. Two Ferraris, lot of KERS cars around, going to be harder to start but nobody wants to crash into my back especially not the Ferrari guys! Top ten would be good, maybe one point will be the dream.”

German National Anthem
A very American-style rendition there with the OTT emphasis on the words, is that the new trend?

Fuel-adjusted qual report:
Webber was still quickest and deserves his pole position.
Hamilton would have been 3rd on the same fuel. Button struggled.
The picture was clouded by the damp conditions.

GRID

Webber, Barrichello
Button, Vettel
Hamilton, Kovalainen
Sutil, Massa
Raikkonen, Piquet
Heidfeld, Alonso
Nakajima, Trulli
Rosberg, Kubica
Buemi, Fisichella
(gap), Bourdais
Pitlane: Glock

Engines fired.

FORMATION LAP

Legard insists on calling this the new Nurburgring despite it being 25 years old. He says we are only 15 miles from Belgium and 15 miles from Bonn.

Alonso spins. I have switched to 5Live.

Grid… 1.2.3.4.5… go!

Webber and RB bang wheels, Rubens leads through turn 1!

Lap 2, Button passes Massa into turn 1!
Right rear puncture for Hamilton on the first lap, he’s pitting. He’s going to lose a lap if McLaren aren’t quick.

Replays: Webber comes across and hits Barrichello.

Onboard Hamilton: Passes everyone at the start but runs very wide and gets the puncture, Ant Davidson says possibly on the drain off the circuit. David Croft says it could have been by touching Webber’s front wing.

Lap 4. Kovalainen found his way through the start nicely.
Barrichello, Webber, Heikki!, Button, Massa, Vettel, Kimi, Sutil, Rosberg, Kubica.

The Ferraris both got Sutil, presumably with their KERS.

Lap 5. Webber told to look after his tyres.
Button tries several times to get Kovalainen, not quite!
Hamilton is lapped by this group of cars now.

Holly: Trulli is running 19th after changing a wing after collision with Nakajima.

Very nicely positioned onboard camera with Vettel, just over his left shoulder – a much better driver’s eye view than normal! Traditionally the camera is mounted on the ‘t-bar’ above the engine air intake.

Lap 9. Heidfeld concedes to Fisichella. Fisi now 12th.

No sign of the predicted rain!

Lap 10. Vettel makes a move into the chicane! Wheel to wheel but Vettel ran out of road.
“Race Control: Incident involving cars 14 and 23 under investigation by the stewards”
That’s Webber and Barrichello!

Lap 12. A drive-thru penalty for Webber, for causing a collision! Replay from RB’s car: Big bang from Webber. I’d still call that a racing incident, Rubens’ race was not interrupted (say for repairs or a DNF).

Lap 14. Button on the radio to complain about his tyres – he pits now.
Lap 15. Both Barrichello and Webber are in. Mark is taking his penalty.
Rubens is out behind Massa and ahead of Vettel. RB and MW built up a nice margin over Kovy.

Lap 16. Kovalainen pits. Webber leads but he does need to make his first fuel stop soon.

Lap 18. Replay: Button passes Buemi around the outside, through the Mercedes section for 12th.

Lap 19. Fisichella pits from 9th position, Force India should have a good day today. Meanwhile Button continues to work his way through the slower traffic who are on longer, heavier stints. Taken Heidfeld.

Bourdais is off the course, he rejoins and makes his way very slowly to the pits. His fault or a technical problem? This could be his last day in a Formula 1 car if Alguesuari takes his place as rumoured.

Lap 20. Mark Webber makes his scheduled stop, takes the hard tyre and gets out ahead of Button.

Lap 23. Webber is caught behind Kubica which is allowing Button to catch up, Jenson looking left and right but can’t quite make the move.

Lap 24. Bourdais goes to the STR pit wall and practically says goodbye to his race engineer – hugs are involved.

Lap 25. Raikkonen pits from 5th. Massa leads but has yet to stop, he should be up next.
Holly with Bourdais:
“We had a good strategy, we had the primes on the car and we were still in contact with the guys ahead of us so it was looking good, we’ll look forward to Hungary.”
Holly: You’ll be in Hungary?
Seb: “I have a contract so yeah.”

Lap 26. Massa is in, and out behind Vettel.
Adrian Sutil hasn’t pitted but he is 1.2 sec behind Rubens and catching fast! What price an underdog podium??

Lap 28. Sutil pits, out with Kimi outside of him, they touch!! Adrian’s front wing is damaged by Kimi’s left front tyre, lots of debris comes off both cars.

Lap 29. Sutil pits for a new nose.

Lap 31. After all those stops Webber has emerged up front again:
Barrichello, Webber, Button, Vettel, Massa, Rosberg, Raikkonen, Kovalainen, Nakajima, Fisichella.

Incident involving Kimi and Adrian will being investigated after the race.

Lap 32. Button makes his second stop.
Lap 33. Rubens in now, so Webber leads once again! Long stop for RB, he’s beaten Raikkonen for 5th.

Jenson didn’t beat Kimi in the pits and now passes him on the track! Davidson says he saw smoke from Kimi’s car, sounds okay but something is wrong.

Turns out Rubens’ long stop was down to a fuel rig problem, they had to switch to the spare.

Lap 35. Raikkonen pits. He’s out of the car. Helmet off, oversize cap on.

Lap 37. Webber is absolutely flying, he’s setting Fastest Laps every lap now and he’s 1sec/lap quicker than anyone else.

Kimi with Holly:
“We kept losing power, [the thing with Sutil] was more or less a normal racing incident.”

Black clouds have been seen by Lewis Hamilton – he’ll hope it will rain because he’s still a lap down.

Lap 42. Kovalainen pits.
Replay: Heidfeld passes Kubica for 9th position.

So both Brawns have pitted twice and the Red Bulls only once. Webber leads Vettel, Massa (1 stop), Rosberg (1), Barrichello (2), Button (2), Alonso (1), Heidfeld (1), Kubica (1), Piquet (1).
Kovalainen has dropped back because after his second stop.

Lap 43. Mark Webber pits with a 20 second lead over his team-mate. Good stop. Vettel takes the lead temporarily.

Lap 44. Vettel is in and out, falls behind the Brawns.
Button is having to weave from left to right to get some heat into his tyres, yet he’s catching Barrichello.

Lap 45. Massa pits, he’s back behind Vettel for 6th.

Lap 48. Lots of midfield pitting over the last few laps.

Lap 49. Alonso just set a 1m33.744s laps! That’s a third of a second faster than Webber’s best which itself was miles faster than the others.

Brawn are getting ready again, a 3-stop race for them.

Lap 50. Alonso just went even quicker, he’s working on catching Rosberg 9 seconds ahead of him.

Lap 51. 10 laps to go and Barrichello pits.
Brawn getting ready for Button as the clouds look ominously dark. Will we get this race completed before the rain comes, or will the whole thing be turned to chaos?

Button pits, will he beat Rubens out? Yes he does!
Jenson put in a good lap.

Lap 53. Alonso is right behind Barrichello now – those stops put both Brawns between Rosberg and Alonso. Will Fernando make the move?

Order:
Webber, Vettel, Massa who I’ve hardly mentioned, Rosberg, Button, Barrichello, Alonso, Kovalainen, Glock, Heidfeld.

Kovalainen is slow and holding up a train of four cars, but he’s seems able to hang on for that point for 8th – he and McLaren need that point!

Lap 56. Sutil is now 15th after that wing change. This is the second time Raikkonen has ruined a good points finish for Sutil, after Monaco 2008.

Lap 57. Fernando Alonso is pushing the Brawns hard.

Lap 58. Webber has backed it off to save the car, the gap has dropped by 5 seconds. Vettel is now only 10sec back but with 3 laps to go there will be no change.

Lap 60. FINAL LAP

CHEQUERED FLAG – MARK WEBBER WINS!!!

Absolutely brilliant drive from Webber! Top class.

Radio – he shouts in delight! screams even! Brilliant!

The first Australian win since Alan Jones in 1981!

Parc Ferme

Big congratulatory hug for Mark from Seb Vettel.
Shame the mechanics are kept so far back from the drivers, that sorta sucks the life out of it.

Podium

Advance Australia Fair for Mark.
The Austrian one for Red Bull.
Horrible corporate trophy.
Champaaggnee!!
Seb and Felipe soak Mark in the stuff, and deservedly so.

Conference

Webber, winner:

“The only thing that was going to beat me was the rain and that held off. It was a bit testing, I lost Rubens at the start and moved over and hit Rubens, I got a drive-through for that. Sebastien showed what the car could do in winter testing while I was hurting a lot, it keps my motivation going.”

Vettel, 2nd:

“Congratulations, today he was unbeatable. I am very happy with the result, all the KERS cars around me, it was quite difficult to start 4th and go into the first corner maybe 8th.”

Massa, 3rd:

“To be honest I missed to be in the top three. Fantastic race, passed many cars, struggled with soft tyres like most people. Put down a good pace with 2nd set of tyres. Very happy. Podium will help the people to push hard.”

BBC Interviews:

Rubens, where did it go wrong?:

“On the strategy. It was a good show from the team for how to lose a race today. I’m upset. I did all I had to do, get first on the first corner that’s all I did, they made me lose the race. If this is what’s going on we’re gonna lose both championships and that’s even more terrible. I feel sorry for myself, I feel sorry for the team. I wish I could get on the plane and go right home. All the team will be bla bla bla bla and I don’t want that.”

Does this mean they are favouring Jenson?

“I’m not saying they are favouring anyone.”

Wow! Harsh stuff from Rubens. He may well be right but you don’t do this in public! Anyone think there will some driver shopping for that seat for next year? Maybe he already knows?

David Coulthard says it is ‘remarkable’ that he’d say such things, he’s very surprised.
Eddie Jordan knows him, Rubens drove for him for 4 years. ‘He wears his heart on his sleeve, he’s not to know the fuel rig gave up, that there was a mechanical error. He’s made a mistake, he’s opened mouth’.

I don’t note-take the F1 Forum after the race, just to say Sir Frank joined the guys and watched Rubens’ comments with them: “That’s a red card job.” Says he’s not impressed with an outburst like that – you save it for behind closed doors.

Okay that’s enough from me for this race, let’s round things up:

Result Result

Driver Gap Pts
1 Webber 60 laps 10
2 Vettel 9.2sec 8
3 Massa 15.9sec 6
4 Rosberg 21.0sec 5
5 Button 23.6sec 4
6 Barrichello 24.4sec 3
7 Alonso 24.8sec 2
8 Kovalainen 58.6sec 1
9 Glock 61.4sec
10 Heidfeld 61.9sec
11 Fisichella 62.3sec
12 Nakajima 62.8sec
13 Piquet 68.3sec
14 Kubica 69.5sec
15 Sutil 71.9sec
16 Buemi 90.2sec
17 Trulli 90.9sec
18 Hamilton 1 lap
DNF Räikkönen radiator
DNF Bourdais hydraulics

Drivers’ Championship

Driver Prev GER Total
1 Button 64 4 68
2 Vettel 39 8 47
3 Webber 35.5 10 45.5
4 Barrichello 41 3 44
5 Massa 16 6 22
6 Trulli 21.5 21.5
7 Rosberg 15.5 5 20.5
8 Glock 13 13
9 Alonso 11 2 13
10 Räikkönen 10 10
11 Hamilton 9 9
12 Heidfeld 6 6
13 Kovalainen 4 1 5
14 Buemi 3 3
15 Bourdais 2 2
16 Kubica 2 2

The two Red Bulls have overtaken Barrichello, pushing him down to 4th. Massa makes up a position on Trulli while Rosberg lines himself up to do the same.

Constructors’ Championship

Constructor Prev GER Total
1 Brawn 105 7 112
2 Red Bull 68.5 18 86.5
3 Toyota 40.5 40.5
4 Ferrari 23 6 29
5 Williams 15.5 5 20.5
6 McLaren 13 1 14
7 Renault 11 2 13
8 BMW 8 8
9 Toro Rosso 5 5
10 Force India 0 0

Red Bull score more than double Brawn in Germany, hopefully making the title fight last as far as possible. Ferrari and Williams are gradually moving their way closer to Toyota who’s advantage was built up early in the season.

That’s all from Germany! The next race is the Hungarian GP on 26 July.

German flag courtesy of 4 International Flags