Blog

Bits and bobs

Just a few things you can expect from me in the next few weeks:

F1
Race notes on the remaining F1 races this year, starting with the Italian GP this weekend. If I think about it tomorrow or Friday I’ll do a race preview but it won’t be as good as the Belgian one. I liked that preview. I guess I could gloat about having been to Monza.. Nobody likes a show-off, least of all me, but everyone likes to show off…. so that sounds like a plan. Consider it done.

Then there’s Singapore, Japan, China and Brazil. I think that’s the right order. I haven’t been to any of those so the previews would probably be a bit rubbish.

MotoGP Indy
A little after the Italian GP this Sunday is the MotoGP race at Indianapolis. If last Sunday’s IndyCar madfest at Chicago and F1 craziness in Belgium didn’t get you going, then how about back-to-backs at two of racing’s most storied venues? Shit if these 8 days don’t do it for you, you don’t like racing, and if you don’t like racing what are you doing reading this? Go away!

GP2
I keep promising to watch (and post about) some GP2 – and then I end up doing something else entirely. I’m not watching the races and ignoring the blog updates, I really haven’t seen the races yet. Basically this means I’m like 8 weeks behind on GP2. So yeah I need catch up with that, now the IndyCars are done I should have an extra couple of hours a week for doing that. Any bets on when I’ll *actually* watch the things?

A1GP
I said I’d do a series preview for A1GP. Their first race of the new season was due ten days from now but it got postponed, apparently indefinitely. I think there’s a clear weekend in there somewhere so I’ll see if I get time to knock something up but I’m not promising anything.

I’ve just realised I have no clue why I’m posting this, yet I’m going to hit Publish anyway. Does this mean I’ve become a Blogaholic? Is that a word? Help!

By the way, on the whole Lewis vs Kimi thing:
Both put in great drives and I’d have been happy for either to win – ON THE RACETRACK. Post-race decisions disappoint me, especially ones which make no sense at all.
Glock got the same penalty as Hamilton but I understand that, he passed under yellows, that’s a No-No. Fine. Yet Hamilton backed off enough that Raikkonen was ahead by a nose. The position was returned in accordance with accepted precedent.
Hamilton was faster on the straight because he had been faster for the whole of the previous lap. The McLaren is just better in the rain on this type of track.
What about all of this did the FIA stewards miss? Even Charlie Whiting of the FIA told McLaren it was safe – twice! The stewards are independent of Whiting..
The FIA’s structures are too rigid and old-fashioned, and they always have been. Time for a rethink.

2008 Chicago Indy 300

2008 Chicago Indy 300, or..
2008 Peak Antifreeze & Motor Oil Indy 300
Chicagoland Speedway
Joliet, Illinois, United States
Round 17 of 17 points races
Round 17 of 18 in total

I’m guessing the TV name is what you’d call it if there were no sponsors. Maybe PEAK didn’t want the TV exposure.

Held: 7 September 2008
Watched: 8 September 2008

Coverage: ESPN world feed
Commentary: Gary Lee & Larry Rice
Pitlane: Jack Arute, Brienne Pedigo, Vince Welch

Here we go for the final points-paying round of the 2008 season – there will be a non-points event at Surfers Paradise a few weeks from now, a later addition to the schedule.

Scott Dixon has a 30 point headstart over Helio Castroneves going into this round, this means Dixon only needs to finish in 8th position even if Castroneves scores the win and the bonus points for most laps led.

Cars are lined up on pit road.
Drama in qualifying! Drivers were told NOT to go under the white line which marks the change from racetrack to the warmup lane or whatever it is. Helio crossed that line on each of his 4 qualifying laps – and was sent to the back of the grid.

Vince with Helio, who had a long talk with Brian Barnhart: “I want to thank all the fans who emailed their support, they keep pushing me, they have a great spirit. Its going to be a great show. We’re ready to race.” Vince keeps asking him about Barnhardt, lots of deflections from Helio! He never did answer the question.

Video about Scott Dixon getting married, both of them speaking some boring mushy crap. You can tell they are loved up. You can tell I’m a bitter singleton. Basically the whole of this five minutes is to make the point that he’s more laid back than he used to be. Brienne is with Chip Ganassi who makes similar points.

Jack is with Scott: “Tough couple of weeks. Credit to the team for the whole season. We got our fingers crossed.” Major concerns today? “Biggest problem is a DNF, a mechanical failure will destroy our day. Keep doing what we’ve been doing all year and win the race.” Had to get up at 6am on race morning to run the dog to the vets!

Gary Lee says if Dixon wins he’ll set a record of 7 wins in one season. I think he may refer only to the IRL rather than all of US open wheel history – they really need to unify the histories for 2009 because going back to 1996 now just sucks. They unified the teams, drivers and tracks, let’s do the histories too, right? If someone sets a record for wins I want to be sure that it goes right back to the era of the first Indy 500. The days of fighting ‘the other side’ are over. Run two sets of stats if you must: IRL and overall AOW. Personally I’d rename the series for 2009 and merge the overall stats, noting which series the stats were scored in when relevant.

Ryan Briscoe: “After all these road courses it will be nice to be back on an oval! Got to keep the momentum of the season.”
Briscoe starts on pole.

Cross to public address system, who’s announcer mentions ‘race fans’. He means ‘racing fans’, to use real English.
Some old guy called Tom Hervis (sp?), we are told nothing more than his name: “Ladies and Gentlemen – Start Your Engines!”

Engines are fired!

Biggest starting field since Texas. Sarah Fisher is back! So is Tags!

START ORDER

Briscoe, Dixon, Patrick, Kanaan, Andretti, Wheldon, Scheckter, Meira, Roth(!!!), Power, Mutoh, Servia, Carpenter, Rahal, Foyt IV, Hunter-Reay, Camara, Fisher, Tagliani, Duno, Wilson, Rice, Manning, Perera, Junqueira, Viso, Moraes, Castroneves

Franck Perera is in a second AJ Foyt entry, he started a few races early in the year for Conquest but got bumped for Camara.

Race distance: 300 miles / 482.803km / 200 laps.

Kanaan in a yellow car, usually green, blue last week. Stop changing it! Makes you look amateur. Field-fillers change their liveries every week – top teams do not.

Start was waved off despite being in good formation. Larry says Race Control tells them the cars were not spread out ENOUGH! They actually want the bad starts.

Okay here goes.

GREEN FLAG

Small onboard Window on Helio. He’s up several places already before they hit lap 2.

Kanaan outside of Briscoe. Y’know that paint scheme reminds me of the old Team Rahal car in Shell colours, the one driven by Kenny Brack in CART in about 2001.

Dixon and Patrick fighting with Wheldon in proximity. He’s in his last race, moving to Panther possibly as soon as Surfers Paradise. Dario Franchitti back in the IRL in Dan’s current seat!

L6 – The laps tick by quickly here. We’re only a couple of minutes in. Roth is at the back already, was he moved there or did they all pass him?

L8 – Helio just passed someone, think it was Wilson, VERY closely. Now he gets a red CDW car and then Mutoh. Who’s got CDW? Looks like Servia. Wilson’s colours from last year – nice to see them back.

L10 – Wheldon washes out, Larry Rice suggest his air was taken away.

L13 – Ed Carpenter has been passing cars, he’s up to 4th now. Just got Patrick. Wheldon is trying a move. Alongside.
Helio has got half the field already, more than that, he’s 12th. Wow he closes down on Rahal as if Graham is not moving!
The big problem with the ticker on an oval is it gets in the way during onboard shots, because of the banking and curvature of the turn. I like the position ticker, unlike the vanishing F1 ticker it keeps you up-to-date constantly – but maybe they could shove it at the bottom like the F1 ticker so we can see where we’re going.

L19 – Gary is explaining the Franchitti/Wheldon/Meira shenanigans.

L25 – Viso is trying to go outside of Scheckter. This is for 12th. Larry says Tomas has understeer. Helio is ahead of them and Rahal ahead of Helio – Graham got the place back!
Wilson is catching all of these cars it seems, but this whole group is falling away from the group ahead of them.
They’ve gone single file in this group now.

L30 – Helio gets the tow from Rahal, tries to pull out and go outside but can’t make it. Tries again, alongside, s.l.o.w.l.y. goes around the outside of him (relatively) and makes it stick this time.
Now Viso goes to the inside of Rahal. Gets him. Not sure I like this aero package. They get alongside and hit the air, it matches the speeds of the two cars. It comes down to who can get away with not lifting the throttle. I’d prefer to see the cars a little faster but having to brake into the turns – whoa Carpenter in the wall! Orange flames.

YELLOW

That was a shame, he was running well. Car comes to a rest. He’s struggling to get out.. the marshals get the fire out but Ed still can’t get out. That’s bad. You should be able to extricate yourself very quickly.
Replays. Larry immediately says something broke, the car bottomed out. Sparks. Can’t see what broke because of the camera angle.
Pits are open. What lap are we on? We lost ticker a while ago during the Viso/Rahal racing.

Gary says we’ve gone 38 laps. Like he read my mind despite the race being recorded 24 hours earlier. Cars enter pitlane. I should note that for the first time in 3 races I go into this not knowing the result – I saw spoilers for Sonoma and Detroit.

TK and Dixon up 2 places, Briscoe drops 2 places, that’s for the lead.

Order: Kanaan, Dixon, Briscoe, Wheldon, Patrick. Although there is an orange Conquest car between TK and the pace car. Is he lapped or did he not stop?
Marco Andretti is 11th after starting 5th.

Gary says this is their last international broadcast after doing it for 7 years. Sad for those guys, feel for them here. Larry thanks everyone around the world for watching for the last 7 years, and Gary thanks “the guys in the remote truck that let us talk about all the action”. Nice touch.
So.. who’s doing Surfers in the world feed? Will that race even get coverage outside of Oz and the US – or do we get the US domestic for that one?

Jack Arute with Dario yesterday (err, Saturday), leads in with a mention of a domino effect as if it had just been referred to by someone – when was the deal done? “Deal was done Sunday in Detroit, Chip and I started talking about it Thursday. Thought OK we’re gonna talk about the 41 NASCAR but we went on to talk about IndyCar.”
Gary says it will be nice to have Dario back, ‘he has been a good ambassador for the sport, he ‘gets’ Indianapolis, the history, because he was a fan of Jimmy Clark.’
Larry: “I’m not sure he ever liked ovals, he prefers road courses, but some of his best races were on the short ovals like here and Richmond.”

Are we still yellow? This is taking ages to clear up. Lap 44 now.

Graphic – 2008 win list: Dixon 8, Briscoe & Wheldon 2 each, followed by Rahal, Patrick, Kanaan, RHR, Helio, Wilson all tied on 1. Does this include Long Beach? I know Meesh questioned IRL’s stats at her blog.. It goes back to what I was saying about stats earlier.

GREEN
Not sure what lap, my coverage jumped from lap 45 to 52.
RHR vs Viso vs Rahal, and Rahal looks faster. The other two are side-by-side and Graham doesn’t have room to pass. Power comes up now. We’ve got 2 x 2 wide!

L54 – Power lost momentum and drops back, but gets the tow behind Scheckter to stay with them. There’s so much going on its hard to take notes! This is NOT a complaint.

L58 – Gary says Danica is on the radio complaining about Wheldon. I’m not sure why we don’t get radio on the world feed. She’s behind Dan right now, Helio behind her.
Helio drives around Danica and Dan! Now here comes Vitor fast, he gets Patrick. Wheldon and Patrick must have slowed each other!

Helio is 4th now. There’s a big freight train led by Rahal. Loads of them there. Larry: “There’s a whole bunch of ’em there, I don’t know exactly how many!”
L62 – Larry: “Helio appears to be the fastest guy on the racetrack.”
Gets a run – Helio alongside Dixon. Can’t make it, drops behind again.

L66 – Lapped traffic, Helio goes around Dixon because Dixon had to lift in the queue. Someone further ahead had to lift for slow traffic, it had an effect along the line of cars.
Kanaan leads Briscoe, Helio, Dixon, Wheldon. Will Briscoe let Helio through or stay ahead to help Helio save fuel? Helio wants those bonus points for leading, remember..

Foyt passes Wheldon – next up for him is Dixon.

L73 – Power gets Rahal, Wilson gets the draft from Power and gets a nose alongside Rahal briefly, but lifts. Scheckter is the current leader of the freight train.

YELLOW

Meira is in the wall. His last race for Panther ends in the wall, this isn’t how he wanted to end his time with them. Lap 74. Gary Lee says if Panther can get another car next year Vitor would be the likely driver.

Gary: 37 laps since last pit stop, everybody will be in.
‘Thank You Vitor’ on the pitwall of Panther. Nice touch. I was quite hard on them in a comment at MyNameIsIRL for firing Vitor by email. Maybe that was the agreed method? They seem to think fondly of him and if he’s thinking of staying.. okay pitstops are here.

We get pit-car radio here.

Helio +2, TK -2, Power and Viso also up 2.

Penske 1-2! Helio JUST ahead of Briscoe coming out of the pits, very close at the exit line.

Top ten on Lap 80 – Helio, Briscoe, TK, Dixon, Wheldon, Foyt, Patrick, Power, Viso, Rahal
Some ‘transition’ guys in good places which means they are making progress. We are going to get some incredible oval races next year. They’ve been pretty good this year. Penske vs Ganassi (with Dario) vs AGR vs NHL vs KVR vs Panther. Not bad at all.

Jack Arute reports with Mike Hull, Dixon’s strategist, who calls his opponent Heeelio. “Lot of credit to Heeelio, heck of a segment for him, mark of a true champion no matter what happens today.” Jack talks of fuel conservation. Mike: “The numbers are good, it’s as good as what we’ve seen it’s not any better, let’s see what happens.”
Vince with Tim Cindric of Penske: “Try and win the race and lead some laps, we’ll just do things we can control.”
Brienne with Vitor as we’re about to go green: “Something on the right rear, a puncture or the suspension, got loose and crashed it. Appreciate the 3 good years I’ve had with Panther.”

GREEN FLAG on lap 84

TK mixing it already, Briscoe has him covered.

Wheldon has passed Dixon and is working on Kanaan.
Foyt is outside of Dixon. No.
Slow car on the apron.
Foyt is going again, Larry says Dixon will not be enjoying this! Dixon wants to see a parade with no passing. Viso is there too. He’s the last one Scott wants to see.

Championship ‘as of right now’ tracker is at 10 points, advantage Dixon.

Moraes is 8th, he passed Patrick.
L91 – are laps like 20 seconds or something?

Briscoe alongside Helio with Wheldon there. Shit this is close.
Gary: “Larry this is a crash waiting to happen. If these guys don’t crash they missed a wonderful opportunity.”
THREE ABREAST for one whole lap.
This can’t happen. Shit I can’t look.

TWO lots of 3-wide now.

Someone restores sense to the field and they go to just the two wide..
Who is where..
Viso is 4th or 5th now..

L98 – Dan credited with the lead of one lap. According to the scoring, Tags in 23rd place is only 9.5 seconds behind the leader. That’s just crazy! That’s not possible. This isn’t NASCAR, you can’t do that in open wheel cars.

HALFWAY – LAP 100 – crossed flags green and chequered furled flags.. don’t see that in other series, I like the meaning.. doubt the drivers can see it but what the hey.

Dixon is suddenly 10th now. He dropped back in traffic.

Gary and Larry are saying this is the best race they’ve seen in the seven years they’ve covered it. Gary was tracking the leaders, writing them down each lap, he stopped because it changed so often.

YELLOW for debris
Gary: “I’d like to see the debris. Was that a debris yellow or was that to slow everybody down? I want to see the safety vehicle pick something off the race track”
I think he’s been reading Pressdog.
Cut to debris! “Wow we do have something out there!”

Okay.. calm it down.. where is everybody? It was too hard to keep up with the position changes.
Pits are open so let’s sort it out in a minute. The debris was Servia’s mirror. Again.
Cars are in the pits.

Helio emerges in the lead but CRASH – Rice has contact in the pitlane. Wing damage.
TK, Viso, Patrick, Dixon all +2 places. Moraes -4. Foyt -2.
Rice has new sponsorship I think – I’ve never seen those colours before (or heard of the sponsor ‘Dad’s Root Beer’ – you couldn’t make it up!).

Replay: Someone hit Rice hard and spun him around, can’t tell who it was right now, camera is too far away. Gary: “Rahal made contact we are told.”
View from Wilson’s car, the camera doesn’t track around quickly enough though.

Lap 112 – top ten after the stops: Helio, Briscoe, Wheldon, Kanaan, Viso, Foyt, Patrick, Dixon, Moraes, Wilson.
Larry says they should pit Rahal to check for damage. Gary shortly after that tells us the IRL have ordered Rahal to the back. Larry: “We’ll now they should bring him in, they’ve got nothing to lose.”

Points As Of Now tracker: Dixon 630, Helio -4
Gary and Larry talking of Larry’s visit next week to Brisbane, Australia for a classic car event and Gary tells him to take lots of pictures!

L115 – Rahal is in for a damage check. Servia is in for a new mirror.
L116 – Pace car pulls in, one lap to green. We are told Mutoh currently leads the Rookie of the Year standings with Wilson close behind.

L117 – GREEN FLAG

Cars are more spread out now.

YELLOW again

Sarah Fisher out! Bummer. She’s on the tri-oval section with a broken rear wing and damaged front wing. Europeans: She’s the Susie Stoddart of the IRL. A likable fan favourite.
She’s out of the car, but limping.. Tough break for the small family-run team.

During this yellow a Conquest car ran through the pits but we don’t know who or why.

L123 – top ten under yellow: Helio, Briscoe, Wheldon, Kanaan, Foyt, Viso, Patrick, Dixon, Wilson, Moraes. Foyt passed Viso and Wilson passed Moraes on that one lap of green.

Aerial shots of Chicagoland, nice to see a good crowd in the stands.

L125 – GREEN FLAG

Wilson goes around Dixon. Briscoe is keeping Wheldon back. Dixon got back past Wilson.
Larry: If Helio doesn’t get the most laps bonus, Dixon only has to finish in the top 10.
This is useful information, could have used that earlier.

L130 – Where did Wilson go? He’s suddenly dropped back.
Dixon gets a run on Patrick, passes her and is now among the next group. He had to lift.

T131 – Tony Kanaan! Passes both Penskes on the inside, great move.
Tony gets clear but Helio gets into the tow again and closes in.
Dixon now passes Briscoe for 3rd. Not sure where Wheldon is now.. looks like 7th.

L136 – TK, Helio, Dixon, Briscoe, Patrick, Wheldon, Foyt, RHR, Wilson, Power

L137? – YELLOW

Ernesto ‘EJ’ Viso in hard contact with the wall. Rear wing and suspension major damage AND the whole left side.

Gary: “Viso was 18th, last car on the lead lap.”
He’s okay, waves to the crowd.
Larry: “It’ll be interesting to see how many laps this yellow is, if it is 6 or 7 laps somebody may attempt to stretch the fuel.”

Replay: Viso alongside Manning.. he lost it himself, it came around. Not sure it was his fault. Just snapped on him.
Larry: “On the second look it looked like the front end got away from him.”
Pits open, cars coming in. Several stayed out.

Helio first, Briscoe 2nd, Patrick 3rd?

Marco +4, Moraes +4, Patrick +3, Kanaan -3, Dixon -3
Mechanic not happy.

Replay of Dixon stop: Tyre rolled away, mechanic had to recover it.

L142 – Milka Duno leads! She did not stop so will have to in a little while, which makes zero sense unless they are only after sponsor airtime.

Duno, Helio, Briscoe, Patrick, Wheldon, Kanaan, Dixon, Moraes, Andretti, RHR.
Milka Duno is leading her first laps in her IndyCar career, she managed to stay on the lead lap until now. Foyt has fallen back to 14th.

Marty Roth is between Duno and Helio, Roth is 2 laps down. Two slow cars to negotiate although she is much faster than he…

L145 – GREEN

3 wide on the restart between Dixon, Moraes and Kanaan.
Roth is dropping back but Milka holds on to lead another one. The Penskes held back for a bit there to take it easy past the slower cars.
Helio now leads.

Larry says the only stops now will be a splash and go, no tyre changes. (apart from Duno)

L150 – 50 to go Wheldon tries Briscoe but it doesn’t go.
L151 – Dixon almost collects Patrick! Moraes goes by Dixon. Dixon takes it back.
L154 – Dixon now gets Kanaan and then goes alongside Patrick, he’s working for the win.
Both Penske cars vs both Ganassi cars! 2 AGR cars just behind.
Wheldon is harrying the two Penskes who are running side by side at times, or at least an overlap. Dixon holding station behind them.
L160 – Very slow car on the track which the frontrunners fly past. Larry says it was Mutoh.
3 wide with Wheldon in the middle. He broke them up!
Dan side by side with Helio now.. with Briscoe bouncing back as Kanaan trying to pass Dixon.
Moraes has got Patrick (unseen).

L164 – They are still at it! We have a five-car breakaway now, Penske and Ganassi with Kanaan as the interloper in 5th. Patrick has dropped away but has got ahead of Moraes again, he may have held her up and she’s giving chase again.

L169 – Mutoh is in the pits having work done, long stop and they aren’t hurrying.. May lose his Rookie of the Year if Wilson moves up a few places..
2 x 2 at the front.
Patrick, Moraes and RHR are catching the leaders again, who may be holding each other up by running side by side as they are.

L175 – They are STILL 2 x 2 wide, haven’t moved single file for several laps now.
Ryan Hunter-Reay is now 6th and closing.

Gary saying the racing used to be like this 2 or 3 years ago but we haven’t seen it lately because of the harsh winters and the way the track changes year to year.

L178 – Danica has pitted. Leaders with Milka again, she stays in the middle! They go either side. Top Gun – break!

L179 – Larry: If there is a yellow and the others pit, she’ll be leading.
I’ve had enough of the shots of Emma Dixon now.

L181 – YELLOW

Danica’s prayers are answered.

Moraes has made contact with the wall. He was running well, his best race of the year easily.
Larry: Patrick should be leading after these stops but she doesn’t make good restarts.
Gary: Patrick lost a lap on that pitstop so she’ll go to the back of the lead pack.
Larry: Guess not so smart after all.
Gary: That’s why we’re in here and not calling the strategy!

Gary shouts out to Johnny Rutherford in the pace car.
Tongue-in-cheek Larry: “And he only crashed it twice!”

Gary again saying this is their last race for the IRL, the two have covered IRL for the last 7 years but have worked together for 19 years, thanks Larry for his friendship and his brotherhood.
Larry – “same to you and thanks to all our listeners in Europe, UK, South Africa, South Pacific, Australia, New Zealand.”
They have a great rapport, it would be a shame for them to break it up. Versus should consider them for the 2009 international feed.

Pitstops. Big traffic jam getting out.
Dixon +3 to lead, Foyt +1, Power +1, Wheldon -2, Helio -1, RHR -1, Manning -1

New top 10: Dixon, Helio, Briscoe, Wheldon, Kanaan, Foyt IV, RHR, Power, Manning, Wilson.
Interesting names in there from Foyt down.

Gary: “If Dixon can lead 5 laps he sets a record for most laps led in one season.”
Again, is that ever in AOW or just in the IRL since 1996? I assume the latter.

14 laps to go. Dixon leads with a mass of cars between him and the pace car, they will get the wave by. This is going to be a sprint finish for the championship, however I’m not sure why we are still yellow for what was only a whitewall for Moraes.

Danica is now back on the lead lap, the last car on the lead lap running in 14th but physically at the back of the pack with all those lapped cars mixed in.

L189 – GREEN FLAG

Rahal touches the wall, whitewalls it.

YELLOW – really, for that?

FFS. All the cars cleared him, he dived for the apron, he was out of the way – STAY GREEN. Short yellow. One lap slowing down, one behind pace car, one speeding up.

RESTART…. no. They waved it off for no apparent reason. Larry says Helio wasn’t nose-to-tail so they waved it off.
They do the same again! This is stupid – you should allow him to get a run as long as he doesn’t pass before the line. This is nuts! What a stupid rule.

L194 – we finally get RESTARTed

Helio is making several attempts, an attempt every lap into turns 1 and 3. They are pulling away from everyone else. This isn’t for the title, this is for honour. Bragging rights.

White flag as they are side by side.
Almost touching!
Briscoe comes up to push Helio.
THIS IS VERY CLOSE

A PHOTO FINISH!!

I thought it was Helio on the line, scoring shows Dixon so commentary says Dixon, someone spins on the tri-oval grass. No idea who.
Dixon wins by 0.001 seconds. Unbelievable.

I want to see the photo-finish, that looked like Helio. Here we go on the replay.
Too close to call.. too fast..
Freeze-frame shows Helio winning!! That’s got to be conclusive. If Scott is scored as winning, his transponder was mounted in a different place on his car, compared to Helio.

They say it is the closest finish in IRL history whichever way it goes. This I can believe.

Jack Arute with the Champion, Scott Dixon. Jack says we are still awaiting the photo finish. “I can’t believe it, we were back and forth, some of the guys we didn’t expect to be racing with were super-fast today.” Jack on machine-gun questioning.. Scott responds same way.. You are the Indy 500 winner and championship winner. “It’s been amazing. My year in general, getting married, having the season we’ve had has been amazing.”

Vince with Helio – ‘We just found out YOU have just won this race’. He goes crazy! Jumps around with Briscoe! “I knew it I knew it!!” He thanks the team and leaves Vince, probably to look for a fence.
Confirmation that Helio is the official winner.

Larry makes the point I just made about the transponders being mounted differently in the cars – he says they are supposed to be in the same place on every car for this very reason.

Gary: “For the final time, from Larry Rice, I’m Gary Lee, so long from Chicagoland Speedway.”

And that’s it, the coverage bailed out here. Goodbye to Gary and Larry, they will be missed, I wish I’d watched more of their races this year instead of US domestic super-patronis-a-vision. We don’t see Helio climb a fence, or the championship trophy being presented. That’s a shame, maybe those yellows were too long for the allotted time. I look forward to seeing the video in the pre-race montages for Surfer’s Paradise.

RACE RESULTS

1. Castroneves 200 laps
2. Dixon +0.0033sec
3. Briscoe +0.0788
4. Kanaan +0.6095
5. Power +1.3580 [where he come from?]
6. Wheldon +1.8729
7. Manning +2.3224
8. Andretti +2.4627 [despite being crap all day]
9. Hunter-Reay +2.7993
10. Patrick +2.9276 [got a couple at the end]
11. Wilson +3.0218
12. Tagliani +4.2072
13. Foyt IV + 1 lap [he was the last lap spinner]
14. Duno + 1 lap
15. Perera + 2 laps
16. Roth + 3 laps
17. Servia + 4 laps
18. Camara + 13 laps
19. Rahal + 14 laps
20. Junqueira + 16 laps [any ideas why he’s out?]
21. Moraes + 19 laps
22. Mutoh + 23 laps
23. Viso + 64 laps
24. Fisher + 84 laps
25. Rice + 90 laps
26. Scheckter + 113 laps
27. Meira + 126 laps
28. Carpenter + 164 laps

Results from Autosport.com

Scoring monitors showed 0.001sec gap initially, and the official results as declared several hours after the race confirmed it at 0.0033sec for the second-closest finish in IRL history.

Whenever scoring monitors show a margin of victory of 0.006 or less, IndyCar officials revert to photo evidence to determine or clarify the winner and the precise margin of victory. Within minutes of the cars reaching the finish line and Dixon being declared the unofficial winner, Castroneves was declared the official winner – after Dixon had already celebrated in Victory Circle.
– Jeff Olsen on Autosport.com

Points (top ten)
1. Dixon 646
2. Castroneves 629
3. Kanaan 513
4. Wheldon 492
5. Briscoe 447
6. Patrick 379
7. Andretti 363
8. Hunter-Reay 360
9. Servia 358
10. Mutoh 346

I may come back with a separate post with the full list of points later in the week, depending on the time I have.

That concludes the points race for this season but we’re not finished yet – the next event is the non-points race at Surfers’ Paradise along with the unspoken debate about where to put the apostrophe, if indeed there is one. It will be interesting to see how many cars make the trip to Australia.
Right I’m out of time – I gotta get to bed else I’ll be late for work tomorrow, and sorry this one has run on so long. I need to make the margins wider somehow. Someone let me know how. Catch you later in the week!

Race Notes: 2008 ING Belgian Grand Prix

2008 ING Belgian Grand Prix
Spa-Franchorchamps, Belgium
Round 13 of 18
7 September 2008

*LIVE* on ITV1
Anchors: Steve Rider & Mark Blundell
Commentary: James Allen & Martin Brundle
Pitlane: Ted Kravitz & Louise Goodman

12.05 Coverage begins and immediately we see the dark clouds – it isn’t raining but it looks like it will soon!

Steve – “We’ve had heavy showers followed by drying conditions.”
Mark – “Big concern for the teams.”
Obligatory ‘how will this effect Lewis’ question. Puhlease. Same as every other driver.

Points going in:
Lewis 70
Massa 64 (-6)
Kimi 57 (-13)
Kubica 55 (-15)
Kovi 43 (-27)

Season recap, short clips from every race.

While they do this.. there are six races to go including this one:
Belgium, Italy, Singapore, Japan, China, Brazil

All except maybe China are unmissable. Belgium and Italy are classics, Brazil is always exciting, Japan is effectively new because it was too wet last time to get a read on it, while Singapore is a brand new event and the first F1 night race. China has the longest straight and the championship pressures can cause some strange incidents so is worth a look but it isn’t one I’d make a point of watching if I were a casual fan.

BELGIAN GP START ORDER
Q3: Hamilton, Massa, Kovalainen, Raikkonen, Heidfeld, Alonso, Webber, Kubica, Bourdais, Vettel
Out in Q2: Trulli, Piquet, Glock, Coulthard, Rosberg
Out in Q1: Barrichello, Button, Sutil, Nakajima, Fisichella

Alonso (P6): We’re fighting for 5th & 6th positions after McLaren and Ferrari, we got one of those so we’re happy.
Heikki (P3): Nothing to compain about, good balance in the car.
Massa (P2): If I have the opportunity I have to try for sure.
Hamilton (P1): Going to be interesting off the start if a guy gets a run on you but I don’t intend to let anyone past.

Teams have driers pointed at the ground outside their pits. The circuit and pitlane are damp but drying. Don’t want a wet pit stall when the stops come around.

Martin’s circuit guide, onboard Lewis Hamilton. Longest track of the year.
190mph into Eau Rouge, negative G through the compression and then over the crest at Raidillon. [Yesterday he said Eau Rouge isn’t the challenge it was due to modern downforce]
Pouhon corner is the real challenge around here now.
Over 200mph into Blanchimont, full throttle, brake hard to 55mph for the chicane into the start/finish straight.

Ted with Gerhard Berger (Scuderia Toro Rosso, ex-driver): “It’s a gamble, typical Spa, I hope it starts raining, a bit more risk but more fun. If it is wet there is no secret, try and control your car, stay off the kerbs and white lines.” Paint is slippery when wet.
Mark B says Gerhard wants rain because Vettel is fuelled heavily. Other cars will have to pit earlier and make the tyre decision earlier, while Vettel can cover those bases and react to those decisions.

After the chaos at Valencia we take a look at Ferrari’s light system.
The fueller presses a button to change the light to green. There is an override from the chief mechanic, but he didn’t override for Massa.

Martin Whitmarsh (McLaren, Kimi’s old boss) on KR’s problems: “We think he was watching the fuel hose rather than the light. When the hose started to lift he went. This is why we tell our guys not to do that.”
Webber: “We’ve looked at the light system to reduce time lost.”
Heidfeld: “We have the quickest pit stops of everyone all year, we’re very happy with our pitstops!”
Kimi said something but I didn’t catch it.

The drivers’ parade (on the back of a truck) took place in the rain, bet they loved doing that at the longest circuit of the year!
Martin talked to Sebastian Vettel earlier (may have been yesterday after quals). Eau Rouge not the challenge it was? “Eau Rouge is a very nice corner, if it went we would miss it, same with Blanchimont.”
He says the team are improving. Moving to the A-team, RBR, next year. Regret the decision? Lately you’ve been beating them! “Not at all. There are only a few tenths in it.”
Where are you looking to finish? “Top ten. Cannot expect results every race, the midfield is a very hard fight.”

12:30 (13:30 local)
Pitlane is now open for cars to go to the grid. They perform recon laps by passing back through the pits, if they reach the grid that’s it, no more recon laps.

I swear I just saw a team member with a Tony Kanaan 7/11 racesuit on. It was only a fleeting glimpse. Ah, another shot, some of the Honda people have green and white overalls. Looked similar.

Recorded interview with Lewis: “I didn’t do the perfect lap, I locked up the tyres in turn 1. Massa said he did the perfect lap and they were behind us.” Replays of Lewis and Alonso last year off the start, both in McLarens, going into Eau Rouge two wide! Says he knows what to expect now.
Trickiest corner is Pouhon. “You can’t brake, you’re not allowed to brake, and you have to have reasonably big cajunes to do that!”
Title fight with Massa now? “Feels different to last year, we had all that negativity last year and this year is different, we’re ready to win the race.”
We’re live at the track again. Lewis may have clutch problems, could struggle off the start line.

Martin’s gridwalk! “We might be about as welcome as a toothache today, a lot of decisions (about weather) to be made.”
The last part of the track to dry has been the last few corners and the pitstraight – the new section. Massa’s car was late to the grid, may have gremlins. With a Red Bull team member: “We think the weather will stay about the same, quite dry at t8-t9, most cars will start on inters, will be brave to start on dries.” Webber: “Most of the track is dry except for this bit at the bottom here. Intermediates here but rest of the track is dry. Wouldn’t say its warm, it’s warm for the English mate!”
Martin pushing through everyone.. Trying to get Alonso.. Has to wait for another interviewer, tries to listen but he’s speaking Spanish!
How’s the track? Alonso: “Some parts are damp, some are dry. It will be a last minute decision (on tyres). If you are right on tyres you have a big opportunity.”
Martin trying to find Kubica.. he says no. Throws back to Steve because everyone is too busy, they won’t take an interview. He’s an ex driver so he knows when to push them and when to leave them alone.

Guitars on the grid! Belgian national anthem. ITV talking all over the host nation’s anthem as usual. Steve: “I don’t know what that band was on but it certainly wasn’t intermediates.”

Louise with a Toyota bloke: “We used the lap to the grid to give the drivers a feel. First half of the race will be like this, second half will be dry.” Since the drivers always use the lap to the grid to get a feel for the track methinks that was a deflection..

ITV’s Ted Kravitz gets international air on the FOM world feed, walking past Alonso! RBR are advertising Red Bull Cola. I’ve seen a lot of ads for it but never found it sold anywhere.

Lots of atmosphere shots of the fans from the FOM TV director, love it.
Obligatory shot of Lewis Hamilton’s dad Anthony, this time texting someone. No doubt we’ll see more of him later.
Caption: No rain expected during next 30 minutes.

New caption innovation: Graphic showing a driver’s results over the season. Like it but disappears too soon. Team personnel leave the grid.
Green light. Cars away. Formation lap.
The only man on intermediates now is Piquet, everyone else has chosen dries. Looks like the track has dried enough now.

Some cars have rain lights on. Wet at the end of the lap, Piquet will look to pass there. Everyone else will push through the lap and just hang on at the end.

This is a 44 lap race, low lap count because of the length of track but the total race time is comparable to other GPs.

Grid forming.

5..4..3..2..1..GO!

It has all gone crazy into turn one. Wheels banging. Cars wide. Awesome helicopter shot through Eau Rouge / Raidillon. Ferraris race each other. Kimi ahead of Massa! Alonso 4th. Where is Heikki?
Bourdais 5th. Replays. Lots of cars went wide at turn one. Piquet has gone from 12th to 7th, Kovi is 13th. Trulli spins, a Williams goes off.
Hamilton ran wide in turn one, didn’t see it but Kimi has a run and outdrags him!
It was a spin from Hamilton. Forced Kimi wide. Got back alongside and ahead, Kimi’s momentum carried him through up the hill.
Lap 3 – Kovi passed Glock for 10th.
I can’t get live timing fired for some reason. Kovi takes Heidfeld now.
Fisi had to stop for a nosecone change after contact on lap one.
Heikki takes Piquet AT SPEED. Piquet on inters needs a rain shower or he’ll drop back quickly.
We go to adverts for a breather.

Lap 7 – Kimi is going for 4 wins in a row at this track.
Fisi has been lapped already due to his stop for the nose change.
Massa is falling away.
L8 – Kovi is now 8th and catching Kubica quickly, just ahead of them Bourdais is with Webber.
I can’t make f1.com live timing work so I have no coverage during ad breaks. Java error. Annoying.

Kovi just drives by Kubica on the long uphill straight. Better run from La Source?
Sutil goes off road.

Kovi goes for Webber! Too late, Webber wasn’t ready, Kovi pushes him around. Kovi tries to back out of it but too late, Webber turned in. Half-hearted effort from Heikki, too far back, not committed enough so Mark took the racing line.

L11 – ITV guys say Hamilton is pitting shortly, Kimi in later. Here is Hamilton. Ted says this was a planned stop for Lewis. He emerges alongside Heikki, slots in behind.
Drive through for Heikki! For causing a collision with Webber. I call racing incident and no penalty but what do I know? Heikki backed out of it but it was too late. He should have backed out earlier or remained committed to the move.

L12 – Kimi pits now, only one lap more of fuel. ITV say ‘paddock wisdom’ had it at two laps more. Lewis had a 6.8sec stop, Kimi 7.1. Kimi emerges ahead of Bourdais who is ahead of Kubica and both McLarens.
Heikki trying to pass Kubica. Kubica is slowing Heikki, who in turn is slowing Lewis and possibly taking away a potential win. Heikki has 3 laps before he MUST take the penalty. He also needs fuel soon.
L13 – Massa pits. He’s out behind Hamilton and Heidfeld. Kovalainen stops for fuel and tyres, he’ll take the penalty next time.
DC is fighting Barrichello. They are old friends.

L16 – we’re back from an ad break. Bourdais and Kubica pitted during the break. Piquet spun off at the Fagnes chicane and into the wall. He’s out. Martin says that barrier used to be much closer and with only a short gravel trap – it used to hurt! Says Piquet’s only headache now is finding a way back to the pits and facing Flavio.
DC’s radio during an onboard shot: “Heikki has done his penalty, he’s now behind you.” HK took the penalty during our ad break. We cut to outside of the car and he’s RIGHT BEHIND Coulthard. Heikki is 14th. DC is still trying to get past Rubens, he does it now at Les Combes and simply drives away! He was being held up a lot behind RB.

L17 – Vettel pits. Out ahead of Glock and Heidfeld for 7th, that’s two places gained from running longer. Heidfeld moves on Glock around the outside at Les Combes and makes it work. Brundle says the outside has more grip, that move works in every formula.

L20 – The track has now dried everywhere. Bourdais is having an excellent run here, the Team B STRs are still faster than the Team A RBRs.
Kubica is told: “Bourdais is one lap shorter than you.” Martin decodes that: Stay with him, do a better in-lap.

ITV cuts to yet another ad break, not long after taking one, just as we see a Honda parked up in the garage with the driver getting out. Was it Button or Barrichello? We cut to ads too quickly to see which helmet it was.
This is a part I won’t miss about ITV when the coverage moves to BBC next year.

L22 – Halfway already?
Kimi is 5.8sec up on Lewis. The rest of the field is quite spread out but in groups it seems. The Honda out was Rubens Barrichello who is with Louise. “I lost 6th gear, with this [sequential] gearbox you have to go through 6th to get to 7th, it was overheating and damaging the engine so we decided to stop. We need this engine for Monza.”
Monza is very hard on engines so they need it in the best condition.

Top 8 at halfway: Kimi, Lewis, Massa, Alonso, Bourdais, Kubica, Heidfeld, Vettel
Just 5 seconds covers Bourdais to Vettel.

L24 – Kimi set fastest lap on L23. Shot of a camera helicopter following the cars, James says he’s been flying very close to the track all weekend, different angles.
L25 – Kimi pits! Lewis was expected to pit now and Kimi a little later. Lewis does indeed pit.
Ferrari would have known how much fuel Hamilton has because the fuel hose delivers at a standard rate for everyone. Pit Kimi at the same time and cover him. Kimi still ahead of Lewis. Gap seems a little closer now?

Rosberg pits. Ted says Massa has a sickening engine, he will go down to Ferrari and investigate. Kimi has a new engine here, Massa is using the one from Valencia. Kimi’s engine went bang in Valencia.
Now they are saying rain expected in 20 minutes. Massa has set a personal best lap but still needs to pit. Maybe they will soon turn the revs down a bit to protect the engine.
Raikkonen to Hamilton is now 3.8 seconds.

L26 – Glock pits and he is one-stopping. Hamilton took 8 tenths out of Kimi this lap! Looks like Kimi had traffic, there’s a Toyota between them. 17 laps to go, ITV take another break.

L29 – Pits to Bourdais: “Pit in 3 laps. Poosh! Poosh!”
L32 – Ted on Massa’s engine, they haven’t had to turn down the engine yet but they did have to change some parts before the race. He must have pitted during the last ad break.
Yet another ITV ad break. They are coming up fast today and they are all about car insurance or banking.
During this break Kubica and both STRs stopped but Kubica was delayed for some reason, meaning Vettel and Heidfeld got ahead of him. Bourdais was already ahead. No replays of this from ITV. Alonso is now running 4th again, then the two STRs, then Heidfeld and Kubica.
Alonso radio: “Build a gap in case we need to stop.”
Scheduled stops have been done, they are worried now about rain and possibly stopping for intermediate tyres. 9 laps to go.

L35 – Hamilton is 2.3sec behind Raikkonen now. Dark clouds are visible again, they had cleared for most of the race so far. It will rain, the question here is whether the race can be completed before then.

Massa is catching Hamilton. These three are miles ahead of the rest and it looks like every driver out there is pushing.
More Alonso radio, he asks: “What do you think about the rain?” Reply: “Still a possibility, it will be light.”

L37 – Kazuki Nakajima gets lapped by Kimi. Hamilton is closing down on Kimi, Massa seems to be catching both. Kaz jumps out of Hamilton’s way. Alonso says drops of rain in turns 1 and 14. Ted chimes in – there are drops here too. Red Bull’s Christian Horner has sent a guy on a moped to the other end of the circuit with instructions to call him if it rains there.
Webber is catching Glock for 10th. 13 cars on the lead lap with 18 running from 20 starters.

L39 – Both Kimi and Lewis are pushing hard. Lewis is still catching, the gap is now 0,9 seconds. Massa is 7sec back from Kimi, 4th is Alonso who is a massive 40sec back. No Safety Car periods and the field really spreads out on this type of track without yellows.

L40 – Hamilton slides at the last corner, he’s now 2 seconds back. It was a slower lap anyway and then the car slides.

Rain in the pitlane! Martin says it is too late for a tyre change unless it comes down torrentially. I’m not sure that’s a word but I know what he means. 3 to go.

Hamilton – He goes for it! Side by side! Bang! Hits Kimi, cuts the chicane, backs out to give Kimi the place back. He’ll get a penalty if he doesn’t. Straight away tries again, gets him in turn 1!!
Up the hill together. Raining up here now, cars sliding, somehow they keep on track. Kimi runs very very wide. Heidfeld pits for inters. Lewis is off! Williams in the way. Kimi also misses him. Evasive manouvres! Kimi spins!! Fuck me!! He’s in the wall. Out. No points. Lewis vs Massa now. Tiptoe the last lap, or pit? What do you do?
Man this is nuts. Replay: Kimi puts the power down and SPINS, then can’t brake enough on the wet surface, hits the wall, out, he’s done. Reports of cars pitting for wets except for Lewis and Massa who continue. Both are slow slow slow. They had a massive lead over the opposition so they are gambling on making it around. If there was another lap left they would have pitted but this is the last one.
They are 36 seconds slower than they were in the dry – THIRTY SIX.
Where are the guys on inters? They must be catching very quickly indeed because these two are crawling. I can go faster than this in my road car. Can Lewis make it around before they catch up? What of Massa surely he’s a sitting duck? Stop showing us pitstop graphics, show us timing!

Bourdais is third!! He’s also on dries on a wet track. Alonso stopped for inters.

HAMILTON WINS!

Amazing. The most action-packed ten minutes I’ve seen for a long, long time.

Massa 2nd. Kovalainen stopped on the grass before completing the last lap. Heidfeld gets 3rd, Alonso 4th, Vettel 5th, Kubica 6th, Bourdais 7th. Replay: Heidfeld goes outside of two cars! One STR and another. Then gets Bourdais. Both Heidfeld and Alonso stopped for inters and passed Bourdais and Vettel.
I’m not sure it worked for Alonso who was 4th anyway, if he’d stayed out would he have been 3rd ahead of Heidfeld, would Nick have caught him, or would he be in the wall?

Ron: “It was like talking in a jumbo jet with one pilot. Great job, fantastic race.”
Kimi walking back to the pits.
There’s no slowdown lap here as it would take too long, cars are straight into the pitlane in the wrong direction.

Martin Brundle: “Those who stopped for inters were half a minute faster on the last lap than those that weren’t.” I think that includes their pitstop. Amazing. I’d love to know what happened further back in the field, I look forward to reading about that.
Martin’s driver of the day: “Bourdais drove well but it has to go to Hamilton.”

Podium ceremony. Anthem. Champagne.

Steve and Mark in pitlane. Mark on Lewis: “He’s earned every penny of his retainer today.”
I’d say Kimi did up until the penultimate lap. Too much throttle when it counted.

Back from an ad break and ITV tell us both Lewis and Kimi are ‘under investigation’, speculating it was when they both cut the chicane. I thought only Lewis cut the chicane…

Press conference with Peter Windsor (of F1 Racing mag and Speed TV).
Lewis: “It was experience and a half. Could see Kimi ahead. I would catch up, then he would pull out a bit of time. I was like ‘please rain rain rain’. I know how to deal with it, then the heavens opened, Kimi backed off. I went wide and Rosberg was coming back on, he was coming back on at the place I was going off! Kimi pushed me wide. I had no room, he pushed me, I had to go on the escape route.”
You led at the start but half-spun.
“I got a good start, got away, feeling comfortable. Bits of the track were still wet. I think the last downshift locked the rears.”
“I think 3 or 4 laps from the end I thought, I can’t catch this guy. But then I thought what if he makes a mistake?”

Felipe – a difficult day?: “I saw many people going off including Kimi. I don’t want to risk 8 points so I was comfortable going slow [at the end]. Made a good start but then a mistake so Kimi passed me. All three of us were doing similar laptimes. We fight race to race to close the gap.” Talks about Kimi closing the door on him when he passed.

ITV cuts away here for a commercial break because we don’t want to hear from Heidfeld. He was only involved in a race-long tight four-car race until the rain came, before gambling on wets and passing 4 or 5 cars, what do we care what he has to say?

They only play one ad then come back to talk about Lewis again. Okay – so this time he earned it..
Ted with Ron again – what’s the investigan about?: “We don’t know, we assume Lewis & Kimi at the chicane. Lewis was ahead and got pushed wide. Was in the lead out of the chicane, we radioed him to let Kimi pass, then overtook him again before the line. We checked with Charlie [Whiting], who’s not the steward, he said it was okay.”
Charlie Whiting runs the race but doesn’t make the call on penalties, that’s the job of the Race Stewards. This frees Whiting to concentrate on calling yellow and blue flags instead of worrying about penalising someone.

ITV pretty much bail out of the coverage at this point. They ran a few replays but I had to take a phone call, sorry about that.

Results at the line [see below!]
1. Hamilton 1h 22m 44.933s
2. Massa +14.461 sec
3. Heidfeld +23.844
4. Alonso +28.939
5. Vettel +29.037
6. Kubica +29.498
7. Bourdais +31.196 (shame he got caught by those guys at the end)
8. Glock +56.506
9. Webber +57.237
10. Kovalainen + 1 lap
11. Coulthard + 1 lap
12. Rosberg + 1 lap
13. Sutil + 1 lap
14. Nakajima + 1 lap
15. Button + 1 lap
16. Trulli + 1 lap
17. Fisichella + 1 lap
18. Raikkonen + 2 laps
DNF Barrichello, Piquet

Points at the line
Drivers
Hamilton 80
Massa 72 (-8)
Kubica 58 (-22) [+1]
Raikkonen 57 (-23) [-1]
Heidfeld 47 (-33) [+1]
Kovalainen 43 (-37) [-1]
Kubica passes Raikkonen and Heidfeld passes Kovalainen.

Constructors
Ferrari 129
McLaren 123 (-6)
BMW 105 (-24)
etc.

Results taken from Autosport.com.

Next up is the Italian Grand Prix at the Autodromo di Monza in 7 days time. I will see you again for the Chicagoland IRL points finale in a day or two, and then the Monza preview later in the week.

* * * UPDATE * * *
After the race the stewards announced two decisions. In chronological order:
1. Timo Glock is penalised 25 seconds for passing Webber under yellow flags flying for Kimi’s crash. This moves him behind Webber who now claims the 1pt for 8th.
2. Lewis Hamilton is penalised 25 seconds for cutting the chicane when fighting Kimi Raikkonen.
(These were my words not those of the stewards. 25sec is a standard post-race penalty, the only other alternatives are a 10-place drop at the next race, or exclusion).

I understand Glock’s penalty. Passing under yellow isn’t on unless you are avoiding someone. But Hamilton gave the place back! He fell behind Kimi, okay they ran side by side but he didn’t just drive away ignoring it, he lifted off! Decisions like this suck and reinforce the opinion that the FIA stewards, whoever they are, remain favourable to Ferrari. Even if

The revised results are below, please note that these remain provisional because McLaren have lodged an appeal.

Results after penalties
1. Massa 1h22m59.394
2. Heidfeld +9.383
3. Hamilton +10.539 [inc 25sec penalty]
4. Alonso +14.478
5. Vettel +14.576
6. Kubica +15.037
7. Bourdais +16.735
8. Webber +42.776
9. Glock + 1m 07.045 [inc 25sec penalty]
10. Kovalainen + 1 lap
11. Coulthard + 1 lap
12. Rosberg + 1 lap
13. Sutil + 1 lap
14. Nakajima + 1 lap
15. Button + 1 lap
16. Trulli + 1 lap
17. Fisichella + 1 lap
18. Raikkonen + 2 laps
DNF Barrichello, Piquet

Revised gaps taken from GrandPrix.com.

Points after penalties
Drivers
Hamilton 76
Massa 74 (-2)
Kubica 58 (-18) [+1]
Raikkonen 57 (-19) [-1]
Heidfeld 49 (-27) [+1]
Kovalainen 43 (-33) [-1]
The gap to Massa has been reduced from 8pts to 2pts. Heidfeld gets 2 more points.

Constructors
Ferrari 131
McLaren 119 (-12)
BMW 105 (-24)
etc.

McLaren’s appeal goes to the FIA International Court of Appeal, a process which keeps the decision independent of the stewards of the meeting, this is a good thing, the downside being the length of time involved. The true result of this race may not be known for a couple of weeks yet.

Note – according to Autosport.com’s report on tyre strategies, with info supplied by Bridgestone, Piquet started on hard tyres not intermediates.

* * 2ND UPDATE * *
Comments taken from the ITV highlights show late this evening.
Lewis (paraphrased): “I cut the chicane, then moved clearly behind him.”
Kimi: “There is an investigation going on about it, clearly there’s rules about cutting chicanes.”
Massa: “I was driving really slow, like a grandmother, just to bring the car back.”
Heidfeld: “I called the team for wet tyres. It was obviously the right choice, it was pretty close, 2 laps. I didn’t see anyone for the first one and wondered if it was the right choice! But on the final lap I caught and passed some cars so it worked.”
Bourdais: “I don’t even know what position I finished because people pitted. There’s one thing you can’t do that’s crash the car. Frustrating.” He looked pissed off. Like his career depended on it and he blew it… Personally I think he might have saved his drive.
Matt Bishop, formerly of F1 Racing now of McLaren, looking very Ron-like, reads the press release which you can read on all the F1 news sites.
Martin Whitmarsh, McLaren: We will focus on the next race.
Ron Dennis, McLaren: Nothing that’s happened is new to us. We are leaving here totally focussed on Monza.
Steve Rider isn’t impressed. No doubt this one will run, more news during the week or in the Monza notes, whenever it happens.

Preview: 2008 Belgian GP

Race Preview: 2008 ING Grand Prix of Belgium
Spa-Francorchamps, nr. Francorchamps, Belgium
Round 13 of 18

Formula 1 heads to Belgium for the classic circuit at Spa-Francorchamps (or just Spa- its easier). This just-over-7km circuit in the Ardennes hills is famed for the rolling up and down nature of the track, for the driving skill required, and for the rain. The unique microclimate means it can rain at one side of the track and be dry at another – leading to strange calls from the pits if the rain is there and the rest of the place is dry, or vice versa!

The circuit used to be all public roads at 14.9km in length, until it was revised in 1983 to roughly the current length for safety reasons. Unlike other redevelopments, Spa retained it’s character in the new section between Les Combes and Stavelot. Only within the last five years or so has it become a full-time race track with traffic permanently diverted around it, allowing safety upgrades and a complete reprofiling of the last corner, the Bus Stop chicane, so-called because it used to leave the road and rejoin in the shape of the perimeter of a bus stop..

The pit facilities were demolished and rebuilt in time for last year’s event, with the start/finish straight actually becoming straight at long last! It used to be the back of the grid couldn’t see the start lights up front.

If you get a chance to watch a full onboard lap of this place – do so. Hell I’ll even provide the link.
Check this out: Mika vs Michael, Spa, 2000
Michael blocks him and tries to run him into the grass (for which he was widely criticised). This makes Mika mad. Watch him at Eau Rouge next time through, he almost loses it he’s so fast. He tries again next time. Enjoy the lap and the sound of those glorious V10s. I miss those, and I miss Mika fighting Michael.

Ferrari often dominate this race, but unlike other circuits where this happens, nobody minds at Spa because hey, we’re at Spa! Equally, nobody seems to mind only seeing the cars 44 times and having no victory / cooldown lap after the race, the cars are stopped after La Source. A cooldown lap here would take too long for TV. 44 laps of 7km is 308km, which brings us over the 300km per race guidelines. Personally I would like to see it extended it a little now the cars are more reliable than ever before.

My tip for the podium: Raikkonen to find some form and win, Hamilton 2nd, Kubica 3rd.
My tip for the weather: Dry qualifying – Wet race.
Let’s hope this doesn’t happen: 1998 race start with the biggest accident seen in years, luckily the worst injuries were to Irvine’s knee and DC’s pride. This is why the medical car follows them around and had already done so for years. Back in ’98 the teams were allowed one spare car between both drivers. Now they can’t have any which is a crazy rule.

Anyway, enjoy the race and let’s hope for more of the Mika 2000 and less of the DC 1998!

Check http://www.formula1.com to find out when the race starts in your local time zone and for kickass live timing replete with live text comments (Java needed for the timing), essential during those commercial interruptions.