Category: Too Much Racing

Quick update

I’m currently revising for an exam I’m sitting on Friday (taxation, yay!), hence the recent lack of updates. I haven’t watched many of my recordings either. I did see GP2 at the Hungaroring a week ago, which was fairly tedious actually. The only decent racing at the Hungaroring happens when it rains, which is hardly ever. I ignored most of it while I was doing coursework. It was that sort of race. Think IRL at Sonoma, you won’t be far off.

Much more interesting was the Live Fast Racing podcast, and I’m still two behind, I listened to #19 about two days before they released #21. I will catch up! Jeff has one as well now, which I’m looking forward to hearing (sorry for not getting around to it yet).

After this exam I’ll catch up on podcasts and a couple of races, and write the first in a series of ‘top driver’ posts. I haven’t decided whether I’ll do Top Tens or just the ones I think did well, could be 8, could be 11… I mean what if there aren’t ten? Or what if it was a great year and the 11th is actually really good?
What I’d like to do is finish it off with the Top Drivers Of The Year (all series combined), a la the annual Autosport Xmas Bumper Issue. I feel I should do some form of quantitive analysis in Excel, a few years ago I would have. But I think I’ll do this the old-fashioned way – gut feel.

Music recommendation: Sigur Rós – Hoppipola
On condition you only watch that video on a cold night, with lights turned down low, preferably wearing headphones. It might be best to ignore the vid and just listen.

See also:
Untitled 1 [Vaka] and especially Svefn-g-Englar.

There are lots of others, go from there to the tracks page and press the little play buttons, anything at random.

I promise to suggest something more up tempo and rockier next time!

Catching up on some news

Check out Pressdog, MyNameIsIRL and other bloggers (as well as Sarah Fisher) on Trackside with Kevin & Cavin which is a weekly IndyCar radio show in the Indianapolis area and online. Proviso: I haven’t listened to it yet. I’m currently listening to Live Fast Racing podcast 18 which I know is a few weeks old now but also features Bill and Jeff and is really very good indeed.
Lots of chat about IRL, a little about F1, all good.

A busy week in the world F1 in this first week of the off-season. I’d intended to do smaller updates during the week but my accounts studies got in the way so I hope this works as a summary.

Force India
A big reshuffle in progress at the team formerly known as Jordan, with Colin Kolles (the dentist) and Mike Gascoyne (the rottweiler) both leaving at the behest of Vijay Mallya, a guy who makes Flavio Briatore look modest, but I like him. You gotta like a guy who owns a beer company and an airline. Force India will announce a new management structure on Monday.

Probably bigger news is that they have parted ways with Ferrari. Unannounced but expected is a switch to Mercedes engines and gearbox. Some sites suggest they’ll also take McLaren customer chassis. I don’t buy that because this team has been against customer cars for years regardless of what name was above the door.

Driver Update
Toro Rosso will be testing Takuma Sato again this month and it could be that he is being lined up to replace Sebastian Vettel.
Bruno Senna and Lucas di Grassi will both test for Honda which may lead to Barrichello losing his drive. This has led to suggestions of Rubens Barrichello moving to Toro Rosso. Sebastien Bourdais’ place isn’t necessarily fixed so they could take Sato AND Barrichello.
Nobody seems to be rumouring anything about Sutil’s seat at Force India which I’m sure is still available. I’m pretty sure Fisichella is locked in. Up and coming team (since 1991!) so it’s a seat that may just prove useful to someone.

TMR Rocks
So I rule all and that’s official. I mean what did I say the other day?
Check it out:

I propose a Superlicence for race stewards. I want these people to have had experience officiating F1 Grands Prix, or have performed a similar role in another top line or feeder championship for at least a year. I want there to be a permanent steward who attends every GP and chairs the stewards’ meetings, as Tony Scott-Andrews did.

Aaand what did the FIA announce this week?

The FIA also announced that trainee stewards – nominated by their nation’s governing body and selected by the FIA – will attend five grands prix next season in an observation role. Any national stewards officiating on a Formula One race for the first time must have observed at least one grand prix in this way to obtain their stewards’ super licence. A short CV of all trainee stewards will also be posted on the FIA website. The FIA also confirmed that ex-racers are eligible to obtain their national stewarding licence and graduate to the super licence.

So yeah, listen to me, I’m a pompous F1 fan who knows it all! Yeah. Or…not.

New Deputy
The FIA has appointed Nick Craw as Deputy President for Sport, replacing Marco Piccinini. Craw is the president of ACCUS, the American national sporting representative at the FIA (on behalf of NASCAR, IRL, ALMS, etc). This is a good thing for me because Piccinini is ex-Ferrari so to my mind that removes a layer of perceived bias. And there is again an American that has something to do with F1!

Yet Another Schedule
The FIA has released yet another version of the F1 calendar for ’09. I can’t remember the last time they’ve released so many of them. This time they’ve shunted China to April to fall between Malaysia and Bahrain. Everything at the end of the year moves up 2 weeks to fill in the gap.
There is no news regarding Canada, the last I heard a deal could still be done if the money can be found.

EDIT
I was playing around with Feedburner last night after I posted this. Let me know if it causes any problems as I’m not sure what I’m doing..

Race notes: 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix

2008 Grande Premio do Brasil
Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, Interlagos, Sau Paulo, Brazil
71 laps

*LIVE* on ITV1 for the last time

Anchor: Steve Rider
Analyst: Mark Blundell

Lead commentary: James Allen
Expert commentary: Martin Brundle

Pitlane; Ted Kravitz (strategy), Louise Goodman (DNFs)

I note there is no title sponsor for this race, just looking at the schedule list on f1.com and 4 of the 18 are unsponsored.

I’m watching ITV News before coverage begins, Gordon Brown says he and the rest of Britain are behind Lewis Hamilton. I feel better for knowing that and I’m sure Lewis does too.

While we wait there are 7 drivers on the second race in the two-race engine cycle: Hamilton, Heidfeld, Coulthard, Webber, Rosberg, Nakajima and Sutil. These guys may have to take it easy towards the end if they are worried about reliability. Everyone else can go for it without those nagging doubts in the mind about whether the engine will last.

Coverage begins at 16.04 (56 mins to go) and we immediately launch into the dramatic title fight montage. Nice way to set the scene.

There are storm clouds around the circuit, some of them look very dark! Mark says they can hear the odd crack of thunder.

Recap of what is needed: Lewis needs to finish 5th or better. Felipe needs to finish 1st or 2nd.

51 mins to go – Qualifying Review with James Allen

Massa (P1) / Trulli (P2)
Raikkonen / Hamilton
Kovalainen / Alonso
Vettel / Heidfeld
Bourdais / Glock
Piquet / Webber
Kubica / Coulthard
Barrichello / Nakajima
Button / Rosberg
Fisichella / Sutil

Rapid-fire post-qual chats:
Jarno: If I’m wheel to wheel at the start on the inside I won’t give up.
Kimi: 3rd is a good place to start, I’d prefer that to 2nd place, on the clean side so should get a good start.
Heikki: If I can help Lewis in any way I will do the best I can.
Lewis: Off pole it is always a bit easier, at P4 we are on the dirtier side, I’ve just got to keep my nose clean.

Steve thanks Lewis from ITV for all his help over the last two years.
Lewis thanks ITV for all their support going back to his GP2 days.

Cut back to Steve live in pitlane: “We shouldn’t be biased especially standing here in front of the Ferrari pits, but you all know that we are.”
Ha!

Circuit Review with Martin Brundle
We are onboard with Felipe Massa for his pole lap.
195mph into the Senna S turn 1.
Full power on exit on to the straight.
195mph into Decida de Lago.
Into the twisty stuff, good traction, he missed the apex of turn 10.
The compression in Mergulho knocks you out, hook into Juncao for the long run to the line.

44 minutes to the start, a review of last year’s start where Lewis messed up at turn 3 or 4.
Recorded segment with Louise talking to Lewis and clips of this and that. I don’t really learn anything new, we’ve seen all this before.
Lewis says he’s not concerned that Massa is on pole.

Over to Ted with clips of Senna winning at Interlagos. Says there’s a lot of pressure to live up to Senna for any Brazilian driver.
Emerson Fittipaldi: He’s A very good team player, a special year for him.
Kimi: For me it doesn’t matter who wins. For sure for out team it would be nice for Felipe but I don’t really think about it, whoever wins deserves it.

Ted is now on the grid… no he’s by the grandstand alonsgide the grid! The crowd smell of beer. Gets out a British flag and they all start booing, throwing a bit of beer over him!
Cut to Red Bull where there are cheers for DC. A lone piper plays Flower of Scotland!
DC: “It’s great to see the sentiment in the paddock. I may not have won the championship but I’ve made a few friends along the way.”

36 mins to go

Steve’s pretty emotional as he presented DC with the Autosport Young Driver of the Year award some 20 years ago.
“It’s also time to review ITV’s 12 years in the sport” and they replay the My Chemical Romance video I posted last night.

The ITV-F1 website will continue into the winter and all through next season. Competition time, win a trip to the inaugural Abu Dhabi GP.

30 minutes, engines have fired and cars are starting to leave the pits. Mark is rabbitting on about the pressure Lewis is under.

Ad break. First of the day after half an hour, nice going.

Louise with Vettel: We’ll try and survive the first lap then anything can happen. It will be an interesting race, anything is possible.

Martin is on the grid alongside the safety car. Says there is less chance of rain now, the cloud is breaking up and moving away. Short run to first corner.
Walking back through the grid, finds Trulli: “It’s nice to be on the front row, I will do my race, I have no sympathy for anyone I want my best possible result, try to score as many points as possible.” Said with a smile and cheeky grin!
Martin says Jarno could play a major role, Kimi will be desperate to get past him. Expects Kimi to back Lewis into the pack, slow him down.

Left-hand side is the clean side of the grid, the racing line with the rubber.
Finds a random mechanic from McLaren. His job is to move tyres around. Worthwhile interview Martin…
He goes to Ron Dennis, what did you say to Lewis: “Avoid trouble, follow instructions, this is as much about the team as it is him.”
With Bernie, 25 of 58 championships have come down to the last race, how do you do it? “It’s not easy, more difficult every year!” Crowd? They were booing earlier. “It’s not good to boo anyone, cheer but not boo.”

Can’t get anyone else, they are too busy. Back to Steve.

15 minutes

Ted with Alan Permayne of Renault. They are trying to get a podium.

Louise with Anthony Hamilton who has his fingers crossed, says Lewis loves the car and the circuit, it’ll be a really good day.

10 minutes – Drivers are suited and booted, helmets are now going on.

Ad break.

5 minutes – F1 ident graphics, track map.
We hand over to James and Martin in the commentary box above the pits.

James: 12 years since the last British champion, 16 years for Brazil.

RAIN!! It is raining on the grid!!
Martin: “That surprised a lot of teams. Everyone I spoke to on the grid said it was breaking up.”

This is heavy rain.

START ABORTED
Race Control – Formation lap will start at 15:10 local (that’s 12 minutes from now).

Ted says this is Intermediate weather. FIA man is soaked through.

Chaos on the grid as teams change tyres but look, the rain has stopped already and the guys are saying when it stops it evaporates very quickly because it is so hot.

The Safety Car had left the grid and took up station at the end of the lap in case it needed to pick up the field at the start. They’ve now brought it around to the front of the grid in case an SC start is needed, in which case the extreme wet tyres will be required under the rules.

Reminder: In F1 the official ‘wet’ tyres everyone calls ‘intermediates’. The ‘extreme wets’ are known as just ‘wets’. F1 teams like to name things as they’ve always been known rather than the supplier’s marketing reasons.

Alonso radio: Radar is clear for 40 minutes.
Ted agrees as he’s seen Ferrari’s radar. All the teams have the radar data from Meteo France.

ITV have taken the opportunity for an ad break.
I’ve taken the opportunity to grab a beer. Carlsberg Export.

The Safety Car has been around for a sighting lap. It is wet in places, bone dry in others.

Martin tips Toro Rosso for a good result, they won at Monza in the rain.

Tyre warmers are coming off the cars, what do people have?

Lewis is on full wets. Red lights flashing on the cars, when you run wets you MUST have your rain light turned on.

17.10: Cars pull away on the formation lap, lots of spray.

Starting order: Massa, Trulli, Kimi, Lewis, Heikki, Alonso, Vettel, Heidfeld, Bourdais, Glock, Piquet, Webber, Kubica, Coulthard, Barrichello, Nakajima, Button, Rosberg, Fisichella, Sutil – No penalties!

Martin: It has rained mostly around the pit straight area. Kubica is on dry tyres. The Bridestone inters have a very wide operating window, it can be quite dry and they still work.

Grid forming. Kubica has pitted.

5.4.3.2.1.GO!

They ease through turn one, crash in turn 2. DC spun with another car.

Kovy has been taken by Vettel and Alonso.

Safety Car for the incident at turns one and two. This is what I said earlier about parking it at the end of the lap.

Piquet is out with a broken wing. Ah shit, Coulthard gets out of the car, he couldn’t recover it. That’s hugely disappointing for two reasons: this was his last race, he deserved a good race, the whole paddock seemed to want him to do well. Secondly he was the guy running the camera inside the helmet!

Ad break. Order as they circulate on Lap2:
Massa, Trulli, Kimi, Lewis, Vettel, Alonso, Kova, Bourdais, Glock, Webber, Barrichello, Heidfeld, Rosberg, Button, Sutil, Fisi, Naka, Kubica

Fisi pits at the end of L2.

Replay of Vettel and Alonso passing Kovalainen.

DC is talking to his guys on the pitwall to help Webber’s race. Martin thinks DC took a hit from Nakajima. Piquet was out a little further around the corner.

Replay of the start: Heikki blocks Vettel to let Hamilton away.
Rosberg tags Coulthard who was knocked into Nakajima.
Helmet cam, he’s just pushed off. Rosberg’s fault entirely.

Lights out on the SC. Track is largely dry apart from the main straight, turns one and two, and the pitlane.
Fisi pitted a lap ago?

L4 – RESTART

Heikki overtook Alonso on entry to turn one but Alonso repasses in 2.

L5 – Heidfeld passes Barrichello for 11th. Fisichella had taken dry tyres on his stop and is last, 6 seconds per lap slower. Will it pay off for him later or will it cost too much time?

L7 – Massa leads Trulli by 1.8s.
Louise with DC: “Took a cautious approach, left plenty of room, Rosberg hit me and spun me around, then Nakajima continued our crashing love affair. I wanted to get to the chequered flag and do some donuts which I think I would get fined for!” He thanks his parents and his fiance.

Raikkonen goes for Trulli but doesn’t make it.
Rosberg pits, so does Button. Both take dry tyres as Fisichella is setting reasonable times now.

Martin says this is the first wet running of the weekend.

Replay: Heidfeld passes Webber for 10th.

L9 – Bourdais and Glock pit, so do Sutil and Nakajima. I’m getting this from live timing, the TV is a few seconds behind on noticing.

A Honda and Williams have a fight exiting the pits.

Martin: The treaded tyres fall away quickly when they overheat.

Vettel, Alonso, Webber pit. Barrichello too.

Fisichella sets a purple time in sector 2!

A fire extinguisher has gone off at Honda! No car there..

L10 – Massa pits, Kovalainen and Heidfeld also in.

Trulli leads from Raikkonen and Hamilton. Kovalainen was sat there for a long time, problem on the right rear, he’ll lose a lot of places.

L11 – Trulli, Raikkonen and Hamilton now pit – the last to do so.
Wing adjustments.

Trulli beats Hamilton, just. Raikkonen beats the pair of them.

Ted says they don’t need to use the soft tyres now that it has been raining.

Hamilton is behind Vettel, Alonso and Fisichella! Fisi is 7th! GREAT call from him and Force India.

Massa had a big slide at turn one.
Nakajima spun it at turn one, continues.

Hamilton passes Trulli at turn one and spuns, continues. Fisi is hustling Kimi!

L14 – Massa, Vettel(!), Alonso, Kimi, Fisi(!), Hamilton, Glock, Bourdais, Trulli, Heidfeld, Webber, Kovalainen, Barrichello, Button, Rosberg, Sutil, Kubica, Nakajima

Hamilton 6th, if it ends now Massa would win the title on the tiebreak.

Kimi is slow, does he have no pace – or is it deliberate?

L16 – Vettel and ALonso are matching Massa’s lap times. Massa is 0.9s ahead of Vettel, then another 1.1 to Alonso, and live timing has chosen this moment to freeze.

Radio to Vettel, Massa is ten laps longer.

Timing is back.

L18 – Martin notices that Fisi is on the softer rubber, gives more speed but wears out sooner.
Hamilton passes Fisichella on the wet part of the track on dry tyres!

He jumps to hyperspace, he’s practically out of Fisi’s vision already.

McLaren mechanics clapping, very happy.

Sebastien Vettel sets the fastest lap of the race!

The top 5 cars are somewhat faster than the rest of the field. Several cars are now backed up behind Fisichella, costing them time. Glock has cleared Fisichella.
Bourdais is now trying it.

L20 (where is the time going?) – Bourdais alongside, Fisi resists.

Trulli pushes Bourdais off the track at turn 1, he loses 5 places.

Martin: “I don’t know how the stewards will see this one, it’s bordering on rude.”

Vettel has been faster than Massa for two laps now. Factory Ferrari outclassed by customer Ferrari engine. Sebatien waves at Adrian Newey as he goes by (he doesn’t but he should).

L23 – Ad break.
L25 – We’re back. Fisichella now has Trulli and Kovalainen behind him. Heidfeld is catching them.

Vettel sets another fastest lap.

Glock is catching Hamilton by a couple of tenths per lap. Hamilton is 5th and isn’t catching anyone.

L27 – Kovalainen passes Trulli on the front straight.
L28 – Vettel pits. Commentary thinks this may have screwed his day.

Kovalainen sweeps past Fisichella on the main straight, Kovy on a charge. He’s 17sec or so behind Hamilton with only Glock between them.

L29 – Alonso radio: “Vettel was fuelled much shorted than we thought, your race is with Massa.”

Massa is catching a Williams to lap it.
Ted reports that Toyota did NOT fuel Glock when they switched to dries so McLaren’s day will get a little easier.
It gave him a good position but he’ll get the cost of that now.

L31 – Ad break.
L33 – We’re back.

Glock set the fastest lap of the race a lap ago.

Martin: “If Hamilton wants the championship he’s got to get on the programme. He’s matching Massa’s times at last.”

As he says that Massa smashes the fastest lap! Yet we’re still 1.5sec or so off a completely dry lap time. Nobody else is anywhere near Massa’s time.

L34 – Button pits.

L37 – Glock pits. Martin asks James if they can get to the end of the race from here.. James says yes, he thinks they can. It is a very long stop.
He’s out alongside Rosberg in 14th, losing 9 places.
Ted says the fuel nozzle was out of position so they lost a lot time resetting the position.

L38 – Felipe Massa pits. Ferrari’s garage is at pit entry this week so he’s straight in. 9.4sec stop, Martin says he’ll need to come in again.
Fisi and Bourdais are also in.

So Alonso leads, we expect him in over the next couple of laps.

L41 – Alonso is in, so is Hamilton.
We don’t see Alonso rejoin. Both will have to stop again
Hamilton is out ahead of Trulli, he’s now in 6th position.

L42 – Renault tell Alonso that Vettel will stop again.

Martin says the cars don’t all have the same fuel tank size so some cars can go significantly further than others.

L43 – Kovalainen pits. 8.8sec stop.
L44 – Raikkonen pits. 5.1sec stop. Not sure if the clock was wrong there.
James: He’ll only be the champion for another 28 laps.

Raikkonen is out ahead of Hamilton.
Button passes Barrichello for 11th, team-mate pass.

L45 – ad break.
Let’s recap the positions from live timing:

Massa 4.1s ahead of Vettel who will need to stop shortly, then another 3.2 to Alonso, 10.7 to Kimi, 2.7 to Hamilton in 5th, 6.0 to Webber, 10.0 to Kovalainen, then Glock, Trulli, Heidfeld, Button, Barrichello, Rosberg, Bourdais, Kubica, Nakajima (lapped), Fisichella, Sutil.

BMW are having a very flat day. Webber and Nakajima have stopped once, everyone else twice, although obviously the picture could be masked because of the switch to dries.

L47 – we’re back.

L49 – Webber is now in. Hamilton has Kubica on his arse but Robert is a lap behind.
Ted says the fuel consumption is lower than expected because laptimes are slower than they have been in practice. It is changing the fuel strategy.

Vettel is catching Massa again and is just 1.9s behind now. We expect Vettel in but not sure if the others will definitely stop. They may have saved fuel at some of the stops, not pitted on empty.

L52 – Vettel pits. 20 laps go to. Vettel comes out behind Hamilton (and the lapped Kubica).

Kubica is 16th because of the wrong decision on tyres at the start.

L54 – Vettel is 2.2sec behind Hamilton.
Martin is thinking maybe they can all now squeeze the fuel to the end of the race, maybe that’s why laptimes are so much slower.

L55 – ad break.
L57 – we’re back with 15 laps to go, sorry 14 now.
Renault to Alonso: There may be rain soon.

Hamilton has picked his pace up to match Vettel who is now right behind him, 1.0sec.

Kubica radio: Could rain in ten minutes.
Martin says: “Stay tuned, this is a long way from over. 13 laps is about 15 minutes!”
I say this could be Spa all over again!

Kimi is catching Fernando quite quickly, the gap is 3.1 seconds.

L60 – Ted is watching the weather coming in. It will hit the main straight first and may not hit the rest of the circuit.
Eleven laps to go.

Massa grew up around here and hung out at the kart track just over the wall after turn 2. I remember the same thing being said of Barrichello in recent years.

Massa, then Alonso 12.3sec back, then Kimi 1.7sec back from Alonso, Hamilton is 12.2sec behind Kimi.

Alonso laps Bourdais into turn one.

James speculating whether Ron Dennis will step down from his role at McLaren if Lewis wins.
L64 – Radio to Nico Rosberg: “As soon as you seen rain on the visor let us know and we’ll change tyres.”
We’re told there is light rain in the paddock. Nakajima pits. We don’t see it. Did he gamble on wets? He’s at the back with a damaged car from the Coulthard incident, so he may as well.

Positions 11th down have been lapped.

L66 – Raining halfway around the track. Heidfeld takes the gamble he did at Spa.
Barrichello, Button, Rosberg, Bourdais, Fisi all in for inters.
Who whole back of the field has pitted!! It is raining on the main straight.
Vettel attacking Hamilton.

Martin is calling for intermediates for everyone. Ferrari are scrambling for tyres.

Raikkonen is in, Massa did NOT pit. Alonso is in. Hamilton is in with Vettel.

Will Glock and Kovalainen make it to the end without pitting? There are FIVE LAPS to go.

L67 – Massa pits. Getting dark at Interlagos. We can’t see where Hamilton rejoined. Timing hasn’t caught up.

Martin: If it doesn’t rain Hamilton doesn’t get the championship, no Vettel is still behind, he needs to keep Vettel behind him to win it.

L68: Massa, Alonso, Kimi, Glock, Hamilton, Vettel, Trulli, Kovalainen, Webber, Heidfeld (top ten)

If Vettel passes Lewis then it is all over. Hamilton has a lot of traffic.

L69 – Kubica pushes past Vettel! To unlap himself, then gets Lewis.
VETTEL passes Lewis!! Now raining harder.

Can Glock handle the rain on his dry tyres?? Can Hamilton retake Vettel?

Massa has started the last lap. Glock 15sec up on Hamilton.

FINAL LAP

Felipe Massa wins the race! Fuck I can’t type. Lewis passes Glock!!!

Hamilton wins the TITLE!!

Fucking hell how did that happen? Where did Glock come from?

Ferrari celebrated early.

Martin: “To be fair the kid did everthing right.”

Louise with Anthony: “What can I say. I can’t find any words. Great. Absolutely great. It’s a shame the crowd is booing this. We got the championship, now on to the next one.”

James: “We’ve done 206 with ITV and we’ve never seen a race like this, I hope we get to work together again.”
Martin: “Glock lost 18 seconds on the last lap.”

Radio – Massa thanks his team, crying.

Felipe is out of the car.

Fire in the pitlane! Button’s car is alight. Cameras catch up to Hamilton.
He can’t seem to get the steering wheel back on.

Look at the pitlane! Packed with media.

Martin: Thank you to every single person who’s worked on F1-ITV over the last twelve years.

Lewis with his crew at last. Chanting his name.

Straight to the podium, which is lit because of the darkness of the clouds.
Massa, Alonso, Raikkonen.

Brazilian anthem. Flags are raised and look like they’ll blow away!
Italian anthem. Shots of Hamilton with the British flag over his shoulder as Massa on the podium nearly breaks down in tears.

He collects his trophy which looks possibly Klingon.

Martin’s driver of the day: Massa.
Martin’s driver of the year: Hamilton – just.

Ted is with Lewis: “Lewis Hamilton World Champion, how does that feel?” There’s so much media he can’t speak, mic’s in his face, his dad tells everyone to back off let him get a drink. We cut away.
Champagne on the podium.

James and Martin sign off for the last time and we go to an ad break.

ITV have to get out of here because of a new series ripping off High School Musical so they’ll probably whizz through the post-race, even though it is their last.

We’re back with Dave Ryan of McLaren talking to Steve and Mark. “Well you said some champagne, it isn’t going to be some it’ll be heaps. I’ve never experienced anything like it. For a minute we thought ‘not the same thing again’. This is really special. He’s something special. You won’t see me sober again for a while!”

Lewis Hamilton wins this race by one point. Steve says if Massa had won we would have reflected on some strange stewards decicions.

Review of the race.
Hamilton went too wide which let Vettel through.
Mark: “Whatever happened to Glock changed the outcome of the race and the championship, for the better I think.”

Press conference:
Massa – “The race was just perfect. We did everything fantastically. Such difficult weather at the beginning. I’m so proud about the race, the team, the people who support me more than ever, much more than I expected. But then we saw Lewis passing Glock again and that’s a really mixed lot of emotion. Unfortunately we missed [by] one point but that’s racing, we need to be proud about our job, our race, our championship. It’s one more day of my life I’m going to learn a lot.”
ITV cut the conf to go to Martin Whitmarsh of McLaren – “we said to Lewis take it easy, we knew we were racing Glock, we had the GPS so could see him coming back towards us, we kept telling him Glock’s on dries.”

Nobody cares about Fernando and Kimi in the press conf do they? Nah didn’t think so.

To Lewis – “It’s been such a long journey, the team has done such a good job all year. Before it started to rain I was quite comfortable, my tyres were a bit shot, then Vettel got past me and the team told me I had to pass him, then I saw Glock and they said I had to pass him. I crossed the line and was like ‘have I done it have I done it?'”
Anthony interjects – “this is the dream from young kids everywhere. Huge respect to Mr Massa Senior and Junior, fantastic people.”

To Ron Dennis – “That was one hell of a call [on tyres]”. More platitudes.
Is there another Lewis? “We’ve got another couple of young guys we’re looking after. But Lewis is something else.” Wow look at the rain now!!

Steve – “A great way to end our coverage on ITV.”
Mark – “It’ll take a lot to beat us on the other channel but I bet they’ll try.”

Closing montage reviewing the season to the Kings of Leon.

And that’s it, we’re done for 2008.

Goodbye ITV. You gave us a lot of good things, you also sucked enormously in several ways. It will now be for the BBC to see what they can do.

Congratulations Lewis Hamilton, and Ferrari for the Constructors’ title.

Anyone else think Vettel is auditioning for a Ferrari drive?

Race Results
01. Massa 71 laps [10 points]
02. Alonso +13.2s [8]
03. Raikkonen +16.2s over Massa [6]
04. Vettel +38.0s [5]
05. Hamilton +38.9s [4]
06. Glock +44.3s [3]
07. Kovalainen +55.0s [2]
08. Trulli +68.4s [1]
09. Webber +79.6s
10. Heidfeld + 1 lap
11. Kubica + 1 lap
12. Rosberg + 1 lap
13. Button + 1 lap
14. Bourdais + 1 lap
15. Barrichello + 1 lap
16. Sutil + 2 laps
17. Nakajima + 2 laps
18. Fischella + 2 laps
19. Piquet DNF
20. Coulthard DNF

A well-driven race from Massa, Alonso and Vettel. Kubica picked up several spots with the tyre change. Both Glock and Trulli set a 1m44 time on the final lap because they were on dries, everyone else on inters.

Final Points Standings
01. 97 Hamilton *champion*
02. 96 Massa
03. 75 Raikkonen
04. 75 Kubica
05. 61 Alonso
06. 60 Heidfeld
07. 53 Kovalainen
08. 35 Vettel
09. 31 Trulli
10. 25 Glock
11. 21 Webber
12. 19 Piquet
13. 17 Rosberg
14. 11 Barrichello
15. 9 Nakajima
16. 8 Coulthard
17. 4 Bourdais
18. 3 Button
No score: Fisichella, Sutil, Sato and Davidson

Lewis Hamilton is the 2008 Formula One World Drivers’ Champion.

Final Constructors’ Standings
01. 172 Ferrari *champion*
02. 151 McLaren-Mercedes
03. 135 BMW Sauber
04. 80 Renault
05. 56 Toyota
06. 39 STR-Ferrari
07. 29 RBR-Renault
08. 26 Williams-Toyota
09. 14 Honda
10. 0 Force India Ferrari
11. 0 Super-Aguri Honda

Ferrari is the 2008 Formula One World Constructors’ Champion.

Right that’s it for the final live race of the year. I’m off to wait and see what penalty the FIA will dream up for Hamilton, in the meantime the brand new run of Top Gear starts tonight. My next live race which will be the Australian Grand Prix in March, and I’ll have updates throughout the off-season.

Race Notes: 2008 Gold Coast Indy 300

Nikon Indy 300
Surfers Paradise, Queensland, Australia
(non-championship event)

Coverage: Channel Seven or Seven Network, I’m not sure of the actual name.
Commentary: Aaron Noonan & Scott Pruett
Pitlane: Brianne Pedigo

Sorry for the delay in posting these notes, I had to wait for the downl my friend to lend it to me. This is the local Australian coverage, just for a change of scenery. Memo to Sky Sports in the UK: WTF are you doing with not showing this race until Tuesday?!? Are you serious??
(Not that I have Sky but the point stands.)

This is a strange weekend of things appearing where you might not necessarily expect them. IndyCars are in Australia, and the NFL is in London! I love crossover stuff like this as long as it isn’t like F1 in Bahrain where nobody shows up. Taking American sports abroad is the Next Big Thing.

I watched most of the NFL game on the BBC and it was interesting, I thought it was a lot like rugby, despite my not really understanding what was going on most of the time (something I also find with rugby..). The Americans do like to put on a show don’t they? European sports can still learn a lot from those guys, in some respects at least.

This race will be 60 laps or 1hr50mins, no idea why they picked that time.
Lap record: 1m30.054s by Will Power in 2007 with the DP01-Cosworth.

Wow it looks strange seeing Dario’s blue-and-white helmet in the red Target car!

Aaron, who’s last name I’ve already forgotten, says they should go 22 laps on a tank of fuel, I learn that it stores 83 litres which is 22 US gallons. We use different gallons here in the UK but I’m under 30 so use metric measures (apart from miles for some reason). It’s nice to get a litre figure on that.

Emma Snowsill, Australian Olympic triathlete medal winner gives the order to start engines and actually seems excited about it! All year we’ve watched people who don’t seem to care. Then again they never tell us who these people are, usually, so maybe that’s their revenge.

Aaron says it’s an ANZAC 1-2-3 on the grid. There are 10 nationalities in the field including 8 Americans.

Cars are rolling out of pitlane as Aaron says more than half the races run here over the years have had problems into the turn 1 chicane.

Starting Order:

Power, Dixon, Briscoe, Franchitti, RHR, Helio, Tags, Kanaan, Wilson, Viso, Meira, Moraes, Rahal, Andretti, Servia, Mutoh, Bruno, Wheldon, Mr Ed, Camara, Bell, Rice, Patrick, Foyt

24 cars made the journey. GREAT skyline on this glorious sunny day. Track is actually quite narrow. I’m sure I watched the Champ Car race last year but I don’t remember it this narrow..

One more warm-up lap. Oh no – Wilson pits before the start! He’s rolling again but he’s last, from 9th. Not good.

Brianne Pedigo’s voice tells us Justin was stuck in 3rd gear, team not sure if it is fixed. Nice to hear Brie is there this weekend, I was expecting to hear Jon Beekhuis talking to ESPN. Usually on an international IRL feed we get the usual pit reporters saying stuff like “yeah Marty that’s right” which makes no sense when we have Gary & Larry instead of Marty & Scott.

Almost to the end of the lap, tension building!
Trying to get two-wide, quite difficult for them in that narrow twisty section at the end.

GREEN FLAG!

They get through turn 1 okay, a couple miss it, contact in 2! Meira? Tags passes Franchitti who fell back. Helio passes him now.

Dixon cut the chicane and has to give up the position he gained. He lets Briscoe go at the line.

Power is checking out, he’s gone. RHR 4th and pushing hard.

Replays – Dixon clearly cuts it, Moraes got into Vitor.

L2 – Ooh we get a nice clean position tracker at the bottom of the screen, small, tidy, not in the way of seeing where we’re going on the onboards – brilliant. Someone show this feed to Versus so we don’t have the Mega Big ESPN-style Graphics blocking half the screen next year.

L3 – Dario dropped to 7th earlier, I’m not sure how, I might have missed the replay while I was typing about the other replays.

L4 – Power leads by 4 seconds already! Wilson’s problems seem to have been fixed, he’s passed a LOT of people already.

Brie in the pits talking about fuel strategy – Oriol Servia will do the opposite of the leaders.
New fastest lap by Briscoe in 1m37s. Commentator doesn’t mention how that’s SEVEN seconds slower than the record set last year by the then-new Champ Car. Did the circuit change or are these cars really that bad?

L6 – As I type that we cut to an onboard with Briscoe and SHIT that’s fast along the main straight, they aren’t giving much away there to the C-Cars. Must be on the brakes and lacking the turbo acceleration. I’m sure they’ll pick up some of that difference as the fuel loads come down. TV coverage isn’t mentioning any of this of course, lest they get in trouble…

L7 – Wilson takes another one, he’s got Wheldon for 14th. 10 down in 7 laps which isn’t too shabby… He has circuit advantage on a lot of these guys though. It’ll be harder when he reaches the guys he raced here last year.
L8 – Wilson slices by Marco as if this is easy. Basically makes his own gap, “yeah I’ll have that, thank you”.

YELLOW FLAG

Moraes has spun into the wall. Left rear failure on the replay, was that from earlier contact or just a failure?

Replay: Moraes made contact with the chicane wall on the left side of the car. Pruett calls it: ‘driver error, that fine line between pleasure and pain.’ Gives a shout out to the TV guys for a great job on the slowmo replay.

Brianne: Power’s team will spin an umbrella to let him know where to stop.

Pit stops have begun. Power and Wilson are in. Servia, Wheldon and Helio also in. Several stayed out.
It wasn’t Power! He stayed out. Brianne says they switched the teams at the last minute, pitted Servia and not Power. I thought it was Will but Oriol is running Team Australia colours as well this weekend.

I’m not sure if Brianne is talking to ESPN as well as Seven, she’s talking to someone but the Seven guys aren’t responding to her as ESPN would… I thought Jon Beekhuis was supposed to be here too but no sign of him so far. Last minute switch or is he on ESPN? Not that I’m complaining, Brie is doing an excellent job today. Major improvement from her in the space of a year.

Nice clean screen is great but they’ve taken the lap counter and the score ticker away during the yellow, don’t know where we are. Townsend Bell has pitted to retire from the race.

L11 – GREEN FLAG!

Power just drives away from them. This is his 3rd year starting from pole at this race, but the last two times he didn’t win, he wants this one.

L12 – Power is 2.3s up on Briscoe already.
Damage on Danica’s car, front wing damage. Pits along with Helio. They must have collided.
Brianne with Bell: Collided with Moraes, left him room but he turned in then 3 corners later he’s out anyway.
Replays of Danica and Helio, he went inside to pass and she turned in before he was clearly through.

L15 – Great onboard view from Briscoe, he’s on fire, inch perfect all the way around.

Rahal and Servia both pass Wheldon who is in Manning’s former ride, the ABC Supply Foyt car.

Brie with Tim Cindric: Helio got a flat tyre, Danica’s wing cut the tyre. He’s lost a lot of positions, Tim says maybe it’s his (Tim’s) fault for putting Helio back in the pack with that stop under yellow.
We had video of the interview this time, Brie is in 7 Sport gear so maybe the Aussies have Brianne exclusively for this event. Dedicated Indy Car Pit Hotty, as Pressdog might say. I wouldn’t mind a dedicated Brianne for myself from time to time, but I digress, slightly inappropriately.

L17 – Power is in the wall!! He clipped the wall and damaged the wing, maybe the suspension? Yeah the suspension is damaged.
Both the commentary guys are absolutely gutted for him. Will pulls the car in as he can’t get around a left-hand corner, has to park it. Day over.
Replay: He just slightly clipped the inside wall which sent him into the chicane wall. The initial contact broke the wheel.

L18 – The lead switches to Ryan Briscoe ahead of Scott Dixon, RHR, Tags, Franchitti, Viso, Bruno, Kanaan, Bruno, Andretti, Mutoh.
Lots of guys still to pit of course.

Brianne with Mark Johnson of KVRT: He tapped the wall and that was the end of that. I feel bad for the entire crew, but that’s part of motor racing.

L20 – Briscoe is about to lap Danica. ‘Normal’ pit sequence is now starting, the guys who didn’t pit under yellow. Servia pits. Penske are asking Briscoe if Patrick is holding him up, commentary says he isn’t responding so maybe his radio is one-way only. They tell him to pit if she’s holding him up, so he does. RHR also in.

L21 – RHR emerges behind Marco. Dixon has swiftly caught Danica, we’re onboard with him and this is painful, you can literally see the time slipping away. Dixon pits.

L22 – Pruett says he WILL get out ahead of Briscoe.
YELLOW! The safety car blocks Dixon exiting pitlane after Briscoe has already passed the pit exit. If the SC hadn’t have been there it would have been very close between Dixon and Briscoe. Dixon had to get on the anchors pretty quickly there.

Chaos as the safety car doesn’t know where to go! It pulls over to wait for the leader.

Carpenter, Foyt and Rahal are together. Rahal clipped Viso and spun him around, almost blocked the track completely, only a narrow gap to get through.

We come back from ads to find Patrick and someone have come together under yellow, she’s stalled the car. She’s waving at the safety crew. Scott Pruett says “that’s no way to treat the safety workers, if you were a safety worker and a driver was shouting at you, would you be in a hurry?”

Franchitti leads. We’re not getting enough replays here, no idea how Patrick got into that situation. The track had been blocked out of sight of drivers around a blind corner, so I’m assuming during our break she came around and had nowhere to go.

Yellow flag pitstops begin with Dario in. Several cars in, Andretti, Wheldon, Meira, Danica.

Ryan Briscoe now leads after the latest pit sequence.

GREEN FLAG

L25 – field nicely spread out, shouldn’t have any incidents on the restart.

Briscoe, Dixon, Tagliani, RHR, TK. We have no ticker and can’t see anyone else on screen. I hope Tags and RHR get a good finish here.

Brianne: “Ryan Hunter-Reay is putting in a good effort. He knows this course, he knows how to give information to his team. He gives exact corrections to his crew.”
(I’m paraphrasing as it’s faster)

L27 – Wilson finished 2nd here last year, he’s up to 9th here now.
Dario was screwed by the last yellow, he had to stop else he’d run dry, he’s back in 11th now.

L28 – Brie with Will Power: “I just got the inside of the wall, very bad mistake. I had such a quick car, saving a bit of fuel but pushing too hard. A part of that wall sticks out a little bit, caught the inside front wheel.”
Look at his face, this one hurts. He knows it was his error. He can’t believe it.

L29 or just under an hour if we go to a timed race. I have no idea which hat they pulled 1h50m from since they can’t have a tight TV window in the States at the hour it was broadcast there. Maybe the Aussies needed one or someone doesn’t have the money for the satellite time?

YELLOW – Franchitti has spun!

He spun it on the chicane, took it a bit too tightly and it sent him around. He’s waiting to be fired up again, hoping the crew gets there before he goes down a lap. We go to a break.

Ultra slowmo replays! Aerial view of the Gold Coast!

Dario did drop a lap and he’s 18th. He pits as do Danica and Rahal.

Brie confirms there is no damage to Dario’s car. She also says Roger Penske is not here to call Briscoe’s race, the engineer (I forgot his name already) says Briscoe will stay out and only needs one stop.

L32 – GREEN FLAG!

Aaron says there has been contact between Wilson and Bruno and their teams are ready (contact unseen by us).
Replay: Wilson touched Bruno’s wheel, it broke the endplate on Justin’s car, it also meant Helio got by him.

L34 – Helio dive bombs by Kanaan who is very slow. TK is crawling around with damaged suspension. He should park it rather than drag it to the pits, they won’t be able to fix that in the time. Get the thing out of everybody else’s way if you’re that much slower.

L35 – Why is Scott pronouncing Castroneves first name as ‘Heelio’? Scott races in America he has no excuse!
Brie says TK is mystified as to how the suspension broke. Commentators both say it is down to the chicanes, kerbs, nature of the track.

L36 – Servia tries a move on Viso, we see it from Helio’s onboard. Can’t do it.

L37 – There was a call earlier about a lap ago: ‘Don’t worry about Tagliani’. Brie tells us that was Mike Hull telling Dixon to stop looking in his mirrors!

Just noticed that only the top 11 are on the lead lap. I don’t recall so many guys being lapped, was it when they all came together at that yellow?

L40 – Briscoe pits from 2.6s ahead of Dixon. Dixon went a lap longer last time but he also pits now. Briscoe is still ahead. Servia also pitted.
Tagliani now leads from Hunter-Reay, these have been fighting all race long. Team tells Alex to push as if he is qualifying the car!

Replay: RHR sideways at the chicane! He’s on it too.

L42 – Alex Tagliani pits, Ryan follows him in, oh they touched! Light touch I think.
Ryan beats him out of the pits, they both beat Graham Rahal who is 6th! Viso leads.

The two touched under braking for the speed limiter.
L43 – We’re told Rahal has to pit again. Viso now pits and he beats Tagliani, but not Hunter-Reay.
Tags and Viso fighting! Side by side, Viso ends up cutting the chicane and has to give up the position.

Briscoe leads now, 1.2 up on Dixon.

Brie: Hunter-Reay believed Tagliani passed him under yellow much earlier in the race so perhaps the bump on pit entry was payback?

Scott Pruett, who won this race in 1997, says the IndyCar guys are always on it and if Tags had passed under yellow he would have been moved back by now.

L46 – Briscoe, Dixon, RHR, Tags, Viso, Servia, Helio, Meira, Rahal, Mutoh, Rice, Wheldon, Andretti, Wilson, Bruno, Camara. The top 15 are all on the lead lap now so some got a lap back under the pit sequence. Commentary has mentioned everyone in that list except Rice and Camara I think, even if only briefly. In fact I don’t think I’ve seen a shot of Rice all race.

Tagliani can’t live with Hunter-Reay in this stint, 6 seconds apart now. I think maybe RHR was sort of stuck behind Tags from the way they were together all the way until those stops.

L48 – Camara has spun and stalled so he can get a mention (I swear I wrote the above before he did that!). He’s asking for a restart, he’s in a runoff area so no yellow needed. He overshot, and stalled it trying to spin it in the right direction.

Viso cuts another chicane! Oriol tries to pass him, can’t do it though.

L49 – Viso has to give the place to Servia because he kept the position by cutting the chicane.

L51 – Brianne in the pits: Briscoe is on fuel setting 2, Dixon will soon go full rich.

L52 – Meira pits from 9th.
Briscoe is 2.3s up on Dixon, 7.7s on RHR and 18.1s on Tags.

L54 – Dixon is catching… he’s getting a couple of tenths per lap.

L56 – Dixon has got it down to 0.7s seconds! They are both scything through traffic, most of which is jumping out of the way on the straights.

L57 – We’re going to the full distance, not a timed event.
Aaron: “You couldn’t write this script, the two biggest teams in America with the two locally affliated drivers.”
Scott: “Is there some sort of rivalry between Australia and New Zealand?”
Aaron: “You pick this up quickly! It’s as much as Penske vs Ganassi.”

L58 – A tyre bundle has come loose at turn one, could cause trouble. Replay: It was Dixon’s left rear on the previous lap which caught the bundle and threw it into the track.

L60 – One lap to go, these guys have killed the field stone dead, as did Power when he was out there.
Local yellow for Carpenter in the wall at turn 3. Leaders already at turn 8.

RYAN BRISCOE WINS!!

The first Australian to win the Gold Coast Indy! Penske hasn’t won here since 1992.

Donuts at the chicane ‘in the best traditions of Alex Zanardi’ as the commentary says.

Ryan brings the car back to pitlane. We see an ESPN mike go to him but cut away to the throng surrounding the car. Shots of Dixon with Mrs D. He doesn’t look hugely impressed that he lost out.
Brie is with Ryan with her 7 Sport mike: “It’s pretty cool, such a tough track, so many fans out here! It means so much to win here, I really hope we can come back next year.” This race is no points, how does it set you up next year? “It’s worth triple points to me! It sets us up really well as a good springboard for next season.”

Brie has already found Dixon: “The traffic at the end made it exciting, we lost a our first position with the call from race control with the pace car. Maybe if he’d made a mistake we could have done it.” He says Dario works differently to teammates he’s had before, he’s a good teammate.

Hunter-Reay: “We started P14 in practice. I love this racetrack, I haven’t been out of the top five in any of the races. I’m hoping it was fun for the fans, it was tough for us, this track beats you up and eats equipment.” Brianne says he hasn’t got a deal for next season. Ryan says he’s hoping he’s showed what he can do.

Podium. First a quick speech from the Queensland “Minister for Police, Corrective Services and Sport”. Hell of a portfolio there, I’m amazed a nation like Australia just tacks sport on the end to the police job. She promises that this will not be the last Indy, it’ll be back next year and for many years to come. Nikon spokesman says a few words about how great they are.

RHR gets a trophy and says a few words to the crowd, hopes to be back next year.
Dixon gets a trophy and says he feels bad for Power.
Briscoe gets a big trophy and says it doesn’t get any better than this. Special to win here.

Interesting format to make them talk to the crowd during the podium ceremony. More series should do that. Not sure it would work in F1 but certainly it would in a lot of other championships.

No champagne, no winner’s anthem. What a strange ceremony.

Race Results

01. Briscoe 60 laps
02. Dixon +0.502s
03. Hunter-Reay +9.118s
04. Tagliani +19.984s
05. Servia +20.438s
06. Viso +33.725s
07. Castroneves +34.493s
08. Mutoh +55.747s
09. Rahal +1:20.059
10. Wheldon +1:31.900
11. Wilson +1:31.935
12. Rice +1:33.907
13. Andretti +1:38.397
14. Meira + 1 lap
15. Junquiera + 1 lap
16. Franchiiti + 1 lap
17. Foyt IV + 2 laps
18. Patrick + 2 laps
19. Camara + 2 laps
20. Carpenter + 3 laps
21. Kanaan DNF
22. Power DNF
23. Bell DNF
24. Moraes DNF

This was a non-championship event so no points were awarded.

Okay that’s me done here. Congratulations to Ryan Briscoe and Team Penske. I’m off to read everybody else’s notes as I’ve been starved of blogs and motorsport news sites since Saturday.

I’ll see you again later in the week no doubt, look out for my Brazilian GP preview and race notes. If you are in the UK make sure to switch to BBC2 after the race for the first in the series of the new Top Gear!

EDIT – it has come to my attention that I’ve been misspelling Miss Pedigo’s first name incorrectly. It should be ‘Brienne’ not ‘Brianne’. It was the way they were pronouncing it – sorry BP!