Race Review – Page 17 – I Watch Too Much Racing

Race Notes: Honda GP of St Petersburg 2009

Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg
Whitted Airport and city streets
St Petersburg, Florida, United States

Sky Sports Xtra live coverage is a GO at 7:30pm UK!

We’re with Keith Huewen, Johnny Mowlem and Christopher Tate in London and we jump straight into a feature on Dan Wheldon in the sleepy village where he grew up.

Dan wants a good championship run “but the number one thing is the Indy 500, I want another Indy 500”. He thinks Panther are in for a good year.

Do you realise you have a big fan base back in England watching you in America? “That’s certainly appreciated. I do feel that America is home” but he enjoys having the England flag on his helmet.
My coverage keeps dying on me. I have IndyCar Race Control running at the same time, just as a backup, but they only have a helicam with no audio for the next 7 minutes.

*waits*

Message scrolling across the Race Control screen saying that all cars have been started.

7.46pm We’re back with Sky.
They went green at the most ridiculous time of 7.48pm (UK). Something wrong with starting on the hour when people can find it easily?

I didn’t see the start because all my coverage options have died on me.

* * * *
Note from the editor -At this point I lost all of the available online options. It is now Tuesday and I am reverting to a recording I’m borrowing. I will try to watch live again for Long Beach!

Take 2
We have Bob Jenkins, Jon Beekhuis and Robbie Buhl on commentary with pitlane reporters what’s his face and Lindy Thackston, headed by the immortal King of Pitlane, Jack Arute himself.

We join with captions for a grid run-down over a helicam shot of St Pete, with audio from a feature running in the US. When the feature ends and after a chat with Dario we have Bob Jenkins saying hi to the international audience! Hi Bob! Shame we don’t get the pictures of Dario or the feature but it’s pretty cool having the same audio for everyone instead of a different international commentary feed.

Start order:

Rahal (pole), Wilson
Kanaan, Briscoe
Franchitti, Power
Tagliani, Dixon
Matos, Manning
Wheldon, Conway
Doornbos, Hunter-Reay
Patrick, Viso
Meira, Andretti
Mutoh, Moraes
Barrett, Carpenter

The president of Honda Performance Development shoehorns a Honda mention into the start command. Holy crap the race control radio of the rows reporting in is geeky cool! Row 3 hot! Like we’re on an aircraft carrier.

First word from Jack Arute in the pits, talking about the black and red option tyres. Should I be saying ‘tires’ since we’re in America now? Arute mentions ‘pit central’, I have no idea what that is, I might have to borrow the domestic feed.

Cars are rolling. Mike Conway is pronounced “My Conway” in America, or maybe just by Jenkins.

Cycling through the onboard cameras. Lovely nose-cam!

“One more time before the green flag”. Fireworks!

Quick trip to the fridge: Cobra beer selected. This is the first IndyCar race of the year after two F1 races and an off-season watching recordings of GP2 and other European stuff, so I have to reset my brain to the IRL’s quirky rules. More on this later.

Pundit guys disagree on which is better to start with: Blacks or Reds?
Cars side-by-side for the rolling start.

GREEN FLAG

Cars fan out WIDE. Bumping. Rahal got swamped! He’s off the track, pushed off.
Conway is off already, looks like the pit exit.

SAFETY CAR despite the road being clear, only pit exit blocked, hmm don’t agree with that one.
Replay: Kanaan punts Rahal off track, great nose-cam!

Conway is pushed back and restarted by the truck. Presumably the yellow is to allow the truck with the marshals to get to him. In the IRL they have guys on trucks as well as marshals at the corners, only the guys on the trucks are allowed to do anything.
In F1 the corner guys would jump over the wall and push Conway out of the way under local yellow. Requiring the truck to get him forces a yellow every time. IRL: just let the corner guys do it if it is safe to do so! But at least the IRL allows outside assistance, unlike F1.

Replay: Ooh Dario great move on the start! Several positions. I’m reminded how great the IRL’s 360-degree cameras are and wonder why F1’s cameras are static.

Jack Arute pit report says ‘look over here’ at Rahal’s wing but we can’t see him, we’re onboard with Kanaan.

Lindy Thackston talks really quickly.

Matos exits the pits. I get a shock because he exits into the safety car queue which is a huge No-No elsewhere! Commentary mentions the blend line and I remember they can actually do that..

Race Notes: Malaysian Grand Prix 2009

2009 Formula 1 Petronas Malaysian Grand Prix
Circuit: Sepang International Circuit
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Coverage: BBC One *live*
56 laps

Anchor: Jake Humphrey
Analysts in the paddock: David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan
Race commentary: Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle
Pit and paddock reports: Ted Kravitz and Lee McKenzie

** Disclaimer – These are notes taken during the live broadcast of this race. They may or may not make any sense and I have only edited them for brevity, punctuation and grammar. **

BBC coverage is GO at 9am, 1 hour until race start.
I’ll only take a few notes while I fix breakfast etc.

Quick opening chat with Coulthard and Jordan (DC & EJ).

Feature on McLaren’s “motorsport equivalent of perjury” from Ted Kravitz. Says McLaren have been paranoid of mid-race penalties ever since Spa last year. Whitmarsh admits they made a big mistake, Ryan is suspended and Hamilton is still racing.

Qualifying report – Ferrari were overconfident, they thought Massa had done enough but he dropped to 16th – knocked out in the first session. Otherwise just your normal report similar to what you can watch/read anywhere.

LeeMcK talking to Button, they are actually using her this weekend! Very nice to see Jenson ‘in a happy place’. He says he hasn’t yet driven the car in the wet so he’s hoping it won’t rain today.

Shots of Bernie in the paddock signing autographs for kids, now we go to Eddie Jordan talking to him (recorded). Bernie says he had a little hand behind the scenes in making it happen, the buying of the team. He says they’ve done a good job.
EJ says the relationship between BE and Mosely last year wasn’t as good as it was.
BE says last year he was a little out of order, Max had the courage to stand up and say ‘this is what I do privately’ and now he’s fighting for privacy for other people.

Back to the paddock and EJ says he hasn’t seen Bernie so happy and chirpy in a long time. He’s a bit down on his medal thing not being adopted and some other things but otherwise ‘up, up, up’.

40 mins to go.

Martin is talking about the ‘Overtaking Working Group’ who designed the new rules for the car designs – but only very briefly for some reason.

Jake says we DO expect rain.

Feature with Williams on how the cars affect the drivers. Heat, g-forces, etc. Seen all this before if I’m honest..

Martin doing a track guide, he’s comparing the different lines of drivers in qualifying. Kimi couldn’t take the same line as Button which sent him off track.
Button took a lot of kerb to set himself up nicely for the long backstraight.
He points out how Trulli took the racing line for his pole lap, whereas most others took a direct route alongside the pitwall – you don’t need to set yourself up for the first corner when you’re on your final lap.

30 mins to go, pitlane opens.
Engines fire up right next to the boys talking in pitlane as Hamilton leaves his pit. Drivers have 15 minutes to do ‘recon’ laps, passing through pitlane to complete the lap. As soon as they go past pit entry and on to the grid that’s it, no more until the start.

Michael Schumacher is in the house again, walking on the grid for Ferrari. Adrian Newey taking a look at cars.

Martin Brundle is on the grid!
He’s standing by the Safety Car at the head of the field, says when the light and numberplate turn green that’s the signal to let traffic past it.

With Button: We were good in qualifying on the harder tyre so we’ve saved two sets of the soft tyre, but hearing the weather forecast it doesn’t look like we’ll use them, it’ll rain at 5 o’clock. I want it to be dry if possible

Loads of wet tyres being prepared alongside the grid, just in case! Here’s Timo Glock, mechanics surrounding the back of the car to stop people looking at the new diffuser! They move around to stop him – he backs off then dives in again ‘because it’s good fun”. HA!

Glock doesn’t want a chat, got his iPod in.
Jarno Trulli? Seems to be away from the grid. Finds a random Toyota guy for a weather forecast, he says they expect rain some time during the race.

Hamashima-san of Bridgestone. When the track is drying and they are within 15 seconds of a dry time they should switch to dries. Nervous? Yes!

Sam Michael doesn’t want to look at the Toyota, “you’ve got one just like it but a bit different haven’t you?” Sam just nods.

Martin Whitmarsh – “We haven’t got a car that’s quick enough at the moment. We all used to have our different weather prediction systems but F1 got wise to it and we now all use the same system provided by them.”

We throw back to Jake.

Shots of Bernie walking around the grid with the Prime Minister of Malaysia. The Malaysian national anthem begins, which I have never heard before in a decade of watching races here. Let’s be honest, in sport you’re not likely to hear it anywhere else. No flyover today.

Ooh, Ted has a graph predicting the first pit stop. It shows Vettel clearly much earlier than Vettel. Then a CGI grid showing the cars separated by the qualifying time gaps – which they then fuel-adjust! Brawns are still fastest but the field seems further apart generally.

Lee is on the grid where they are changing the front wing on the Brawn. They seem pretty calm about it.

10 mins to go.

Jay Kay of Jamiroquai is on the grid, they have a concert after this rac.e

The clouds are rolling in and getting darker.

We cross to Jonathon Legard and Martin Brundle in the commentary box above the pits for a quick chat – Martin is expecting to be very busy today!

Montage leading into the F1 official intro.

Timing monitor has reset. If you’re not watching live timing during F1 races you’re crazy, it makes such a difference to your understand of it. For the next race go to Formula1.com and hit the live timing link on the main page.

Hooter sounds to tell the mechanics how long they have left. I think 3 minutes.

Ted: The reason Button changed nosecone was because Brawn left the nose out in the rain and water got into the electronics which operate the all new driver-adjustable front wing. They’ve switched it for the one used in Australia.

GRID

BUT, TRU
GLO, ROS
WEB, KUB
RAI, BAR
ALO, HEI
NAK, HAM
VET, KOV
BOU, MAS
PIQ, FIS
SUT, BUE

Hooter sounds again and the engines fire up on cue.

Mechanics clear the grid.

GREEN LIGHT

Formation lap.

Mechanics flee!

Kubica radio: Very strange noise from the engine.
Legard: I think that was in Polish because I couldn’t understand it.
Brundle: Me neither.
Legard: Quick translation, ‘very strange noise from the engine’.

I swear I did understand it,…

We’re on the back straight. Pass the med car stationed in the support paddock, it’ll line up and follow the field for the first lap.
Final corner. Grid.

LIGHTS – OUT!

Rosberg!
Madness through the wide turn one. Kubica slow away.
Rosberg takes a huge lead, pushing Button down.

Kovalainen is off track and out AGAIN.

Button up the inside of Alonso into 13, nice move.

Lap 1: Rosberg, Trulli, Button, Alonso, Barrichello, Raikkonen.

Brundle says Kubica’s BMW sounds ‘sick’ as it goes past them. Also says they believe Alonso has 25 laps of fuel and Button 18, which helps.

Very dark clouds in the background.

Replay of start: Button went much too wide.

Buemi has pitted already, they fit a new nose as the wing was damaged. Didn’t see why.
Kubica has pulled in and the car is starting to catch fire.

Barrichello tries it on Alonso, too wide but gets a very nice run down the main straight and makes the pass in turn one.

Lap 3 of 56

Rosberg, Trulli, Button setting quick laps, Barrichello, Alonso, Raikkonen< Webber, GLock, Heidi, Hamilton.

L4 Vettel passes Hamilton for 10th

VERY DARK CLOUDS, you can hear the tension music in the background. It’s coming but you don’t know when.

Ted: It will rain in 12 minutes, the forecast from Meteo France. Button was told to ‘go for it’ by the team.

Glock tries to move at Webber and they just about avoid contact, Webber retains position.

Vettel who is light is now working hard on Heidfeld for 9th. Tell you what if it rains when he needs fuel he’s sitting pretty.

Brundle says the track is green and slippy.

L6 Legard says the GP2 Asia race was delayed by half an hour this morning and started behind the SC, it was so wet.

Raikkonen on-board, he uses KERS out of turn 2. Nice low-slung camera!

L7 Rosberg is setting very quick lap times, fastest man on track and leads by 2.7 seconds. Go Nico! I would LOVE a Williams win.

L8 Vettel still behind Heidfeld, Brundle suggest the KERS is keeping Nick ahead. Oh Heidfeld throws it wide and both Vettel and Hamilton pass him!

L9 McLaren expect rain in 10 minutes. Shots of weather radar!
Martin says if it gets too bad they could use the safety car or red flag it.

Raikkonen passes Alonso for 5th and Webber is all over Alonso now, while defending from Glock! They’ve got Vettel on their tail as well.

L11 Button sets fastest lap of 1:37.579
Gap to leader:
Rosberg, Trulli 3.0s, Button 4.2s, Barrichello 10.3s, Kimi 26.5s, Alonso 28.3s, Webber 28.8s, Glock 29.5s, Vettek 29.8s, Lewis 33.2s, Heidi 35.9s, Massa 37.3s, Piquet 39.1s, Naka 40.1s, Bourdais 40.4s, Sutil, Fisi, Buemi

L12 Webber passes Alonso but compromised his line, Alonso repasses him but he inside in the last corner! They race side by side, Alonso passes again, all the way to turn 2, great stuff! Martin thinks Alonso was on the KERS to repass on the pit straight.

L14 Vettel pits, the gamble didn’t pay off and he’ll have to pit off-strategy if it rains soon.
Brundle thinks Rosberg is in shortly.

Button FL 1:37.555

Alonso has been slowing everybody down since the start, he’s running heavy. Kimi and Mark must be very happy to be clear of him!

L15 Rosberg pits from the lead. He puts on the softer compound tyre – but it isn’t the same as the soft tyre last week. There are four compounds, if you number them 1-4 from soft-hard last week we had 1 and 3, this week we have 2 and 4. The softer of the two has the green stripe.

Glock and Sutil pitted also.

We’re on lap 16 and 30 minutes in, the rain has stayed away so far.

L16 Webber pits. He also stays on the softer tyre which seems to be the one that works this weekend.

L17 Trulli is in as Rubens sets new FL 1:37.484.

Martin is talking about who is good in changeable conditions: Button, Trulli, etc.

Massa radio: “a lot of people coming in so we’ll benefit if it rains.”
He’s right. The longer strategy has to be the choice today.

L18 new FL! 1:36.641 from Button! Hell of a lap.

Ferrari are getting ready with wets!

Kimi pits and takes wet tyres! The track is too dry guys! It’s a hell of a gamble. Martin has already told us a wet will be destroyed in two laps of dry running.

L19 Button pits and takes the softer dry tyre, he’s out miles ahead of Rosberg!
Kimi is dropping like a stone.

L20 Barrichello pits. He’s on slicks and comes out 4th.
Ted: Bourdais has taken wets as well. There is rain coming in at turn 8.

L21 Hamilton radio, he says it’s coming at turn 15.

It has started! The rain has started and Alonso has thrown it off the road!

Replay: he was at full speed on a dry track then encountered some rain.

L22 Button pits again already, he’s taking wets. Rosberg, Trulli, Rubens are in.

Everybody is pitting for wet tyres but it is dry on the pit straight.

L23 Kimi radio: my tyres are completely destroyed.

Holy crap it’s dark on Lewis’ onboard camera.

A Red Bull steams past a cautious Hamilton. Webber?
Hamilton hits KERS on the pit straight and takes the place back again.

Race order: Button, Rosberg, Trulli, Rubens, Heidfeld, Webber, Hamilton, Massa, Piquet, Glock

Webber going for the pass again but he’s off, rejoins. Massa is catching both rapidly.

Heehee this is fun between these two, for the whole of that lap they were fighting, brilliant. Webber seems to have cleared a small gap now.

L24 Laptimes dropped to 2:03 or so.

There isn’t very much water though. Webber just drives around Heidfeld as if he’s in a GP2 car!

Ted says Glock is on the intermediates while everyone else is on full wets, which seems to have been a good choice – he’s 8 seconds faster than everyone else.
Hamilton radio: his engine won’t hit the limiter.

L25 Glock flying up to 6th passing Heidfeld even quicker than Webber did.

We’re told there is a lot of lightning.

L26 Barrichello passes Trulli as Vettel pits.

Replay: Massa speeds by Hamilton.
Barrichello has caught Rosberg and passes him, Rosberg pits.
Trulli is very slow as Webber and Glock pass him. Trulli is supposed to be good in these conditions, must be on the wrong tyres.

L27 Hamilton pitted and taken inters and fuelled to the end. Barrichello goes off-roading.
Glocks moves on Webber and takes 2nd! Barrichello and Trulli pit for intermediates (the one with no green stripe).

Big gap between Button and Glock but then the cars are close together.

L28 Button pits from a 25-sec lead over Glock. Button takes a bit of front wing and a set of inters. We didn’t see where he emerged relative to Glock.
Webber is in, so is Massa.

L29 replay of Vettel takes Piquet.
Finally we see where Button is – right on Glock’s tail!
Jenson takes the inside line into the final corner and makes the pass, as Glock hits pitlane. There’s more water on the track now – and Glock takes the full wet!

L30 Loss of picture! Electrical storm! Massive bit of lightning apparently hit the main grandstand! The rain is coming down heavier now. LOTS of pitting.

Fisichella slides around on inters, seems to get going again.

Lots of spray now, full wets are the things to have. Onboard camera – can’t see a thing.
Ahh no, Vettel is out.

L31 Button pits for full wets as the thunder rages in the background.

Look at this track! Covered in water.

SAFETY CAR DEPLOYED

The conditions are far too wet for racing. Button is halfway around the lap. Brundle says Whiting called it spot on.

Bourdais: They should red flag the race, it’s undriveable!

RED FLAG RED FLAG

Race has been suspended under the new red flag rules. It used to be that was it, race over. Now we’ll have the cars line up on the pit straight in position order until conditions improve.

Legard says the cameras aren’t doing the darkness justice, it’s much worse than it looks.

Replays of spinners: Heidfeld, Fisichella.

Cars are lining up on the grid but some have driven past it, what are they doing??

If this one is called they’ll only get half points because we haven’t reached 75% distance.

Drivers are out of their cars and mechanics are on the grid. There’s a Force India sat at the end of pitlane, timing shows it to be Sutil.

Massa radio: get me the white visor or I can’t see anything!! Engineer: Felipe stay cool, we’re getting it!

Thunder, lightning, water everywhere.

We are held on lap 32.

Button, Glock, Heidfeld, Trulli, Barrichello, Hamilton, Rosberg, Webber, Massa, Bourdais, Piquet, Alonso, Nakajima, Raikkonen, Sutil (pit).

Martin says the clock keeps running even under a race suspension so we will hit the two-hour maximum – however on their timing they are saying the clock has been frozen.

Webber is leaning into Hamilton’s cockpit for a discussion. Webber is the head of the Grand Prix Drivers’ Association, the safety body founded by Jackie Stewart and others and made up of current F1 drivers only. Webber is now with Alonso, he’s canvassing opinion.

Ted is with Christian Horner of Red Bull: The conditions are far too dangerous to drive at the moment, it’s down to the race director to decide what to do. Rain is set in for the next half an hour, a great shame, we got ourself into a good position.

Ted finds Mark Webber: You cannot see anything. The safety car can’t go that quick so you can’t get heat into the tyres. I nearly hit Nick and I was doing 15k’s an hour. (asked if he gets one point, half a point) Points don’t matter, what we get out of it is we don’t want people hurt.

We’re back to Jake Humphrey hiding in the BrawnGP pit.
Coulthard: These cars are not designed for these conditions. Mark has gone round for a ‘sanity check’ with the other drivers. You can’t risk 150mph with no visibility.

Jordan: Glock drove a good race.

They are in pundit mode now so I’ll leave them to it.

A Ferrari is being wheeled back into pit lane for some reason. We can hear an engine on the grid, most drivers are out of their cars.

Coulthard says he’s seeing a whole other side to F1 now he’s out of the car. When in the car you wonder why the team makes such and such a decision – now he can see the lap times and strategies etc.

Fernando, do you think we should restart? “I hope not. The visibility is nothing. With the amount of standing water we could have a serious accident. It is completely dark on the circuit.”

The two-hour limit would be 12pm UK, it is now 11:25am and we’ve been held under reds since a touch after 11am.

Giancarlo: “Difficult conditions, we made a wrong call and came in too early for wet tyres. We did 3 laps and destroyed the tyres. There was a lot of aquaplaning and the tyres were slicks because they were destroyed. Not a good race for us.”
He’s very downbeat.

Patrick Head, Williams: “(Whiting) is very experienced, he knows the conditions. I’m sure the drivers will race if the race restarts. Nobody’s thrown any tantrums but it’s very difficult conditions.”

It’s getting dark out there.

Trulli radio: Mark Webber came to see us and said the drivers think it is too dark to race. I think that was Toyota team radio generally, not to Trulli.

The cars are being positioned in order but Eddie Jordan thinks they are just going through the motions. He says Jenson Button should be declared the winner and call it a day.

Ted Kravitz with Martin Whitmarsh: “No news at the moment, we’ll get at least ten minutes notice if we restart but we’re running out of light.”

Jake says we need another 12 laps to reach 75% distance and full points. Even his waiter last night said they were crazy to hold a race in Malaysia at this time!

11:38am We’ve just had some radio saying three cars will have to let everyone else through. It looks like they gained a lap on everyone else in the Safety Car confusion and the Red Flag.

11:44am Raikkonen is out of the car and out of his overalls, he’s not restarting. The cars have been put all on one side of the grid apart from two on the other side. Those two will be held for 90 seconds when the field is released, to allow them the field to unlap themselves. The field lost a lap on them when they should not have done. I think this has more to do with the timing system than the actual positions of the cars.

Kimi has an ice cream!

Luca Colajanni, press officer, Ferrari: “We have a KERS issue. We are checking the car to take the decision to retire the car or not. If it starts it’ll be from pitlane.”

11:50am BBC talking to John Button, Jenson’s dad, but you know what he’s going to say so I’ll not write it down. This is filler.

Message on screen:
RACE CONTROL: RACE WILL NOT BE RESTARTED

Jenson Button wins! Applause in the Brawn pit where the BBC are stationed at the minute.

The timing screens have updated itself to lap 31, not lap 32 – it seems we’ve been waiting all this time for the FIA to sort out the timings which were current as the red flag flew.

Finishing order after 31 of 56 laps:
1. Button
2. Heidfeld
3. Glock
4. Trulli
5. Barrichello
6. Webber
7. Hamilton
8. Rosberg
9. Massa
10. Bourdais
11. Alonso
12. Nakajima
13. Piquet
14. Raikkonen
15. Vettel
16. Buemi
17. Sutil
18. Fisichella
DNF Kubica
DNF Kovalainen

Whiting is trying to explain it to the top three finishers in the waiting room behind the podium.

Drivers on the podium!

National anthem of Great Britain for Button/Brawn.

Trophies. Andrew Shovelin, Button’s race engineer, is up to represent BrawnGP.

Champagne!

Martin says the results are set at the last time the winner completed a total lap before the red flag dropped.

Button drops the champagne bottle from the podium, smashes it on the pitlane!

Ted with Nico: “Fantastic start, I did well also and it felt nice. I was able to push. It was going really well and the weather came down, I’m not really sure what happened. I was aquaplaning on full wets doing 30 kmh.”

Rubens: “That’s the unfortunate thing of starting the race at 5 o’clock. Visibility, not from the rain but from the sky. Bit confused calls from pitlane and dodgy pitstops, the car was good to race, it was racy. It another win for JB, pretty good.”

Lewis: “It was impossible to drive, it was very dangerous, the most dangerous I’ve been in for sure. The first tyre change we maybe made the wrong change but the rest were okay.”

Eddie Jordan: “It’s very clear, the team bosses should have told the drivers. The result goes back to the last complete lap.”

Press Conference:
Button: “What a crazy race, it really was. My start was pretty bad, I had a lot of oversteer. I was pretty happy, our pace was good then the rain started – we went for full wet and Glock went by on the inters. A very interesting race and I still haven’t seen a chequered flag!”
Heidfeld: “A very difficult race.” He’s talking about what he did with tyre choices.
Glock: “Very tricky race. I struggled and was only P8 after first lap, I saw the clouds coming, when is it coming? I say we go for inters, take the risk and it paid off. The last two laps behind the safety car it was so confusing. I was leading then Button came out of the pits so I was P2, then I get out of the car and I’m told I’m P3 so I hope when I go downstairs I’m still P3!”

The points-paying positions will only receive half-points so for this race we have:
5 Button
4 Heidfeld
3 Glock
2.5 Trulli
2 Barrichello
1.5 Webber
1 Hamilton
0.5 Rosberg

That’s it, we’re finished on the BBC and I don’t believe they are doing a ‘forum’ this week because of this red flag. They’re closing with an acoustic cover of ‘Umbrella’, that Rihanna song, by Biffy Clyro. This means it is far superior to the original although Biffy aren’t as good as they used to be.

Championship

Drivers
15 Button
10 Barrichello
8.5 Trulli
8 Glock
4 Alonso
4 Heidfeld
3.5 Rosberg
2 Buemi
1.5 Webber
1 Bourdais
1 Hamilton

Constructors
25 Brawn-Mercedes
16.5 Toyota
4 BMW Sauber
4 Renault
3.5 Williams-Toyota
3 STR-Ferrari
1.5 RBR-Renault
1 McLaren-Mercedes

With this strange ending there is a lot of potential for debate and protests over finishing positions and don’t forget that appeal hearing next week over the diffusers! Let’s hope common sense prevails.

I’ll be back for the IndyCars later on if I can find a way to watch it, via IndyCar.com or otherwise. The next F1 action is on April 19th with the Chinese Grand Prix which switches ends of the calendar, it was only 4 or 5 months since they were last there.

Enjoy the rest of the racing weekend!

Race Notes: Australian Grand Prix 2009

2009 Formula 1 ING Australian Grand Prix
Circuit: Albert Park
Location: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Coverage: BBC One *live*
58 laps

Anchor: Jake Humphrey
Analysts in the paddock: David Coulthard and Eddie Jordan
Race commentary: Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle
Pit and paddock reports: Ted Kravitz and Lee McKenzie

** Disclaimer – These are notes taken during the live broadcast of this race. They may or may not make any sense and I have only edited them for brevity, punctuation and grammar. **

F1 is back on the Beeb!

Its 6am BST but 5am on the body clock as we switched from GMT overnight. For this reason I’m not going to comment everything being said over the next hour of this pre-race show.

Love the intro, and we start with a quick look at the race schedule for the year.

Now a quick qualifying recap.

Now we introduce the pundits: DC and EJ each get a montage with old Murray Walker commentary over it. Live again, DC is wearing a pink polo shirt in pitlane.

We’re running through the drivers now to the strains of The Who, Who Are You. Nice choice. We reach Mark Webber and cut away…
Mark visited the scenes of devastation around the state of Victoria, where Melbourne is located. 200 people died in forest fires in February, it made appearances on world news but here it is considered a major disaster. F1 as a whole has really responded well to this. BMW sent Klien with a car, and Minardi sent a 2-seater, to do demos in the streets of a badly affected town. There are many other initiatives over the weekend.

We’re now seeing live pictures of the driver parade, normally the drivers ride the circuit on the back of open-top classic cars in Melbourne, today they are on fire trucks. Many of the fire marshals at this race fought the forest fires just a few weeks ago. Love this idea!

The driver run-down continues.

Hamilton says “it’s great to see Jenson up there”.

This pre-race is flying by! Fast and furious. No commericals. No let up. Full steam ahead. 33 mins to go already. Cut to a feature: Martin and David are walking the track.

Martin at turn 3: “One of the biggest crashes I had in F1 was in the back of you right here, although I did arrive out of control.”

Martin has a shirt with BBC logos on and I’m used to it already, he’s a born BBC man.

30 minutes to go – Pitlane open for reconnaissance laps.
A Williams is out first.

A live chat with Richard Branson as the cars leave or run through pitlane. It’s quite hard to hear anyone talking. Branson is very excitable but then I would be if I’d just sponsored a Formula 1 team!

First shot of the grid on the World Feed. World Feed = TV pictures supplied by Formula One Management, with the F1 logo in the corner. Each broadcaster puts their own commentary over the top of these pics and can dip in and out until we hit the F1 logo at 5 mins to go – after that you can only break away for ads.

Adrian Sutil went off the track on the way to the grid!

Grid looks great. Both Toyotas will start from pitlane.

To Martin for his Gridwalk!

He’s found Ross Brawn straight away, Ross in black BGP overalls and a white BGP cap. I want that cap. In fact all the Brawn guys are in black today.

I can’t keep up with what’s being said, sorry, they are all talking so quickly! I’m rusty at this.

Brundle shows us the front wings, “they’re so ugly they should put brown paper bags over them but clearly they are very effective”

We’re with Rubens:
“It’s a lot of people here who wanna check our car, I’m just happy! My feet are on the ground, I’m happy.” TV crews surrounding him!
We move off, passing M Schu talking to German TV.

Martin finds Rosberg:
“We know Red Bull and the Brawns are not 100% technically confident in their reliability, whereas we are.”

Back up front and he finds Button:
“Can you do this?”
“Yes”
“How?”
“Cross the line first I guess! [on Rubens] yeah we’re against other. Tyre strategy is going to be key today, more so than usual.”

Back to Jake in pitlane with EJ & DC. They’ve retreated into one of the pit garages, looks like Brawn’s. Soon the pitlane itself will be for teams only.

The media etc are leaving the grid.

We go to the Australian national anthem. Nice job BBC, ITV always skipped this. LOL at the drunks singing along!

Ted is with Chris Dyer, engineer at Ferrari:
“We’re a bit further back than we’d like to be.” No shit.

BBC guys back in the paddock as a Qantas 747 flies over their heads.

I’ve got live comments at Sidepodcast, live timing at f1.com, Notepad for this and waiting for BBC’s onboard camera feed to appear on their site. So when I look away from my TV I’m not really concentrating on what’s being said. I think I’m going to have to watch this again.

A few minutes to go and we join Jonathan Legard and Martin Brundle in the box.

FOM intro! 5 mins to go! Live timing resets to race mode.

Shots of the beach, of the atmosphere around the circuit.

Start order:

BUT, BAR
VET, KUB
ROS, MAS
RAI, WEB
HEI, ALO
NAK, KOV
BUE, PIQ
FIS, SUT
BOU, HAM
p/l TRU & GLO

Engines are fired!
Grid clears of people.

Formation lap.

GO!

Rubens in trouble. Big mess at turn one, didn’t really see it.
Rubens 7th.

Button leads, Vettel, Massa.

Raikkonen alongside Kubica!

Wow huge lead from Button after one lap.

Puncture from Heidfeld, and a Force India lost it’s nose.

Kovalainen is slow at the back of the track, long way behind the field.

Start replays, Rubens hit the anti-stall. Webber, Heidfeld, Alonso come together. Ah! Barrichello started the chain reaction re-passing the guys who got alongside at the start. He pushed into Webber who hit Heidfeld.

Ted: Kovalainen retires with suspension damage. Webber came in and they switched him to one-stop.

Team radio: Barrichello has damage.

Button, Vettel, Massa, Kubica, Rosberg, Barrichello, Nakajima, Piquet, Hamilton, Trulli, Bourdais, Alonso, Glock, Heidfeld, Sutil, Webber

Lap 4, 54 of 58 remaining. Fast and furious here, can’t keep up. Focus.

L52/58 Hamilton passes Piquet. Vettel sets fastest lap!

L51 Kovy: “Webber spun, I lost the front wing and it was all over.”
Barrichello has caught Rosberg who is behind Raikkonen.
Button and Vettel are 2sec/lap faster than everyone else apart from Rubens and Hamilton.

L50 Ted: “We know Button started the race with 7kg more fuel than Vettel, he’s looking ok strategy-wise.”

L49 radio to Rosberg: “you need to get by, chance of a podium if you get by him” meaning Kimi.
And he does it immediately, into turn 1!
Rubens tries it at turn three and hits Kimi! Passes him but has damage on his wing. Will it have damaged Kimi’s tyre?

Replay: Rubens may have lost the back end, might not have been trying a pass.

L48 Kimi pits. Both he and Massa were on super-softs, against the mediums of others. They’ve got this tyre out of the way now. Fast but only for a few laps, then they degrade heavily. Mediums are much better.

L47 Massa pits. Hamilton pits.

Long shadows already, with this late start at 5pm local.

Ted says Ferraris and Lewis came in 2 or 3 laps early because the s/softs were so bad.

Barrichello just lost 2 places?

L46 Kubica is in. Bourdais has already pitted for same reason.

L44 Barrichello now slower than Button, he’s lost a lot of downforce with hits. 3 sec/lap slower. Martin says at this rate it’s worth changing the front wing.

L43 Rosberg is quick now the cars on s/softs have pitted out of his way.

L42 Vettel pits. He’s out in clear track. Rosberg is in. Slow stop on the left front tyre. Kimi passes him on the run to turn 3.

L41 New FL: Button 1m28.0s
Nakajima crashed! Debris on track. Where are we.. turn 4?
Surely this is a Safety Car?

Replay: Nakajima lost it on kerbs in turn four.
Brundle: “I think that was his fault.”

L40 Barrichello pits for a new nose and a LOT of fuel.

Button pits. 14 seconds, very long stop, lots of fuel.

Safety car only appears now! How bizarre.

Shot of Race Control!

We have new speed limit rules under SC. Cars can’t exceed a set time through the sectors until they catch the SC. Also the pitlane speed limit is up from 80 km/h to 100 km/h.

Oh! Force India pit error, he’s run over a gun and tyre. It’s Fisi.
Replay: he missed his box!! pulled in late and ran his guys over!

L39 Green light on the SC for the wave by.
SC picked up Vettel not Button. Button still leads.
So we now have cars going almost full speed after the ‘speed limit’ thing is over, thus defeating the point of the SC. Get the right car guys!
Did they miss Button because he stopped?

L36 Lapped cars have been let through: Sutil, Heidfeld, Webber.
Hamilton: “It’s so hard to get temperature in these tyres, I don’t know if I can warm them up again.”

I think Sutil took a stop after being let through by the SC, according to timing. Shot of Branson stroking his beard…

L35 No idea why the SC is still out, the track is clear. Ah, graphic: SC in this lap.

Restart order:
Button, Vettel, Massa, Kubica, Raikkonen, Rosberg, Piquet, Trulli, Buemi, Barrichello, Glock, Hamilton, Alonso, Fisi, Bourdais, Heidfeld, Sutil, Webber.

Massa keeps locking up!!

SC pulls away – lovely sound.

L34 – RESTART
Button messed up the last corner but still leads. Piquet spins off into turn one!!
Remains a local yellow so far.

Hamilton takes Glock! P11 for him.

L33 double waved yellows into turn one for Piquet.
Piquet almost touched wheels with Rosberg and lost it.

L32 Legard notes that Buemi is running very well in 8th – agreed, good stuff.
Brundle: “Buemi is not troubling these apexes but he’s getting away with it.”
Hah! “He’s making Bourdais look a like monkey.”

L30 Top ten: Button, Vettel 2.4s, Massa 4.3s (to Button), Kubica, 5.5s, Raikkonen 6.5s, Trulli 7.3s, Barrichello 9.2s, Buemi 12.6s, Rosberg 12.9s, Hamilton 14.5s

L29 That Brawn car looks fantastic.

We are halfway.

L28 Piquet with Lee McK: “There were no brakes at all. The car is not as we want.”

L27 Massa is the first 2nd stopper. Brundle suggests a lot of fuel, he takes 10.9sec worth. He’s out in 14th.

L26 Rob Smedley to Massa: “Kimi and Kubica have 7 laps more fuel than you.”

Shots of Nakajima and Piquet on the pit wall, Brundle says they are being told off..

L24 Kubica fastest lap! 1m27.989
He’s catching Vettel at 3/4sec.

Several of the guys at the back have stopped for a second time.

L23 Lee has found Nakajima: “Quite disappointed, pace was pretty good, it was a good race. I took the kerb on exit and I lost the rear suddenly and I couldn’t do anything.”

That was over the Glock team radio so we missed that.

L22 Kubica is still the fastest man on track. He’s third and only 6.7s behind Button leading.

L19 Kubica and Kimi pit. Kimi is now 10th, Kubica is 7th I think.

L18 Glock spins in the penultimate corner, rejoins 10th behind Kimi. Aha, Glock spun trying to pass Alonso.

L17 Buemi pits from 4TH!

L15 Hamilton pits, as does Raikkonen. Hamilton beats Massa! Buemi tries it on Massa but can’t make it.

L14 Raikkonen into the wall!! He’s rejoined last on the lead lap, ahead of Webber only.

L13 Vettel is in and takes super-softs, emerges in front of Barrichello. He should pull away until they start destroying themselves.

L12 Now Massa is slow, what’s wrong with the Ferraris?
Massa pits and leader Button follows him in.
Button’s fuel hose didn’t go on, had to switch to backup!

Massa is in the garage, out of his car.

L11 Top ten:
Button, Vettel 1.5s, Barrichello 3.4s, Kubica 4.6s, Alonso 16.0s, Glock 16.9s, Rosberg 23.2s, Fisichella 30.8s, Trulli 31.3s, Hamilton 31.7s

L10 Rosberg fastest lap! 1,27.706

L9 Hamilton takes a look at Trulli but gets blocked off.
Fisichella pits from 8th. Buemi is now 10th.
Radio to Button: Kubica is on prime (medium) tyres, could be a threat.

L8 Ted confirms it wasn’t a faulty hose, they were slow with the first one and didn’t use a second but he had a lot of fuel from the safety car.

Close racing between Glock and Buemi! Glock wins as Buemi lifts off at the wrong moment.

L7 Rubens pits now from 4th. He’s out just behind Rosberg. Alonso was also in.

L6 Glock takes Alonso, identical to his move on Buemi, nice job.
Barrichello takes Rosberg into the back chicane. Rosberg is losing a lot of time, have his tyres gone?

L5 Trulli passes Rosberg. Hamilton takes him later in the lap. All the people passing him are on mediums.
Button is on the super softs and leads Vettel by 2.5, can he hold on? Kubica is catching Vettel though and all within 4 seconds of Button!

L4 Alonso takes Rosberg.

L3 Vettel deep into the first corner, Kubica has a nice run, CONTACT in turn 3!

Vettel on the inside, Kubica around the outside, contact, then Vettel hits the wall, Kubica keeps running but is then *hard* into the wall.

SAFETY CAR
That’s it kids, race over.

Replays: Brundle says 50-50 blame.

Vettel apologises to the team over the radio.

Vettel is still running with a wheel hanging off the car to make the final lap, Brundle insisting he has to pull over, it’s in the rules if you have a heavily damaged car you have to pull over.

Replay: clumsy moves from both drivers. Wings everywhere. Both continue but then have no front downforce and understeer into the wall.

Vettel has now pulled over.

1 lap to go. How did Trulli get 3rd? Did he pass under yellow? Hamilton was 3rd after the crash.

Lights out on the safety car.

Raikkonen has pitted and retired, he’s out of the car.

SC pulls in on the final lap.

CHEQUERED FLAG

Jenson Button WINS FOR BRAWN!

Finishing order:

Button, Barrichello, Trulli, Hamilton, Glock, Alonso, Rosberg, Buemi, Bourdais, Sutil, Heidfeld, Fisichella, Webber with Vettel, Kubica and Raikkonen still classified.

Nice job Toyota for starting in pitlane and getting 3rd and 5th!

Button team radio: “This is gonna be a great year, thank you.”

Crowd invasion on the main straight!

Cars return to pitlane, Button out of the car to mass cheering from the crowds whcih have gathered in pitlane.
This. Is. Brilliant.

Guys head upstairs for the podium, in the ‘ready room’ thing. We can hear them talking! Trulli congratulates Ross Brawn, says he didn’t want to be in the team – until February! Rubens says he had anti-stall. Jenson says he had no drinks bottle.

PODIUM

British national anthem for JB and Brawn.

Jenson’s second win and well deserved it was as well.

Cheers all round for Jenson, Ross and Rubens as they get their trophies.

Champaaaagne!!

Ross hides behind the massive trophy. Brilliant scenes.

We cross back to Jake with DC and EJ on audio, pictures still from pitlane.

EJ is convinced Button wouldn’t have been on pole without the pressure and support from Barrichello.

Main straight packed with people!

Ted with Nick Fry:
“We were quite worried at the end there with Kubica on the prime, we got there in the end, thank you to everyone in Brackley and everyone at Mercedes-Benz. Most of us thought we’d be out of a job, they’ve worked their socks off. Jenson stuck with us even though he thought he might be out of a job.”

BBC guys are on the pit wall now.

Lee with Lewis:
“We did the best job we could, an incredible job, even though we were off the pace we just kept going, very happy with the points. The car is what it is at the moment but we’ve got a lot going on in the factory.”

Press Conference with Peter Windsor
Button: “It always looks easier than it is, the first few laps were great for me. WHen the SC came out I struggled massively and flat spotted a tyre. Being at the front should be easy but it was not easy at all. Some people might say it was a shame to finish under the safety car but I don’t care, I won the race!”

Barrichello: “I was hit from behind, hit in the front, I never thought I could finish on the podium after that. I recovered quickly but was hit from behind by a McLaren. I lost the braking stability when I hit Kimi. I had a lot of mixed emotions but it was fantastic, really fantastic. Delighted to be here with second place.

Trulli: “After yesterday it was a great day for the team, I missed the first corner accident and from then was pushing, pushing, pushing hard. After yesterday a well deserved day to show we are doing things in the right way.”

Button: [pitstop – which they are showing!] It was frustrating, it cost me five or six seconds, it was a mistake. I made it difficult for us today but we go there. It was difficult, a few of the corners you could not see the exit at all, with the glare of the sun it was so difficult. And it was always on the most difficult corners.”

Back to the boys.

BBC One coverage is over but press red for the ‘interactive forum’ because “we’d love to show it here but we don’t have time”. BBC One has to go to a political discussion show. I don’t have a red button to press as I don’t have digital TV yet.

Foo Fighters acoustic to close!

I’ve found the forum feed on the BBC website. I won’t comment much of that, just anything of note.

Ross Brawn: “Stunning, absolutely stunning. Sensational. I can’t put it into words. It wasn’t that easy, we hadn’t done a race distance before today.”

Brundle has joined the guys in the paddock. Nice atmosphere back there, music in the background.

Brundle: “What I hadn’t seen in commentary is the big shove Rubens got.”

Lewis onboard start: he picked off five or six cars by turn three but then got on the grass a bit and lost a place or two.

Martin Whitmarsh of McLaren says Trulli got third because he ran off track under SC, Lewis had no choice but to pass him under yellow then let him through again. I didn’t really get what he meant.

Vijay Mallya: “We started building this car in November, we’ve had 120 days to build the car since the McLaren agreement. We proved our reliability today. We are allowing McLaren to develop KERS before we install the package on our chassis, we are targeting Barcelona. Fischella’s pitstop was not what we wanted to see, but Adrian knocked his wing and took three stops and still finished tenth.”

DC’s reaction to Vettel/Kubica: “Little bit silly from both of them, lots of points to be won at this stage of the season. They came together and managed to have another crash coming out of the corner.”
EJ: “For me there’s no winner. I think this was a genuine mistake. In my opinion if I were the team boss I’d be on the phone saying let him go but drivers don’t like that.”
MB: “When Vettel makes mistakes they are costly. They were both pretty stupid, not only points on the line but a podium. Kubica should have given more room, it was clear Vettel was going to be on the apex. I called it 50-50 in the commentary and I haven’t seen anything to change my mind.”

Shots of Mario Thiessen and Seb Vettel talking, the pat each other’s shoulder as they walk off, no harm done, racing incident.

Jordan and Brundle think he’s being weak while DC defends him, saying Vettel has a BMW car supply and needs to put food on the table!

Heated discussions on all subjects, too fast moving to transcribe but certainly worth hanging around for – so don’t switch off when the main BBC1 coverage ends!

That’s it for the first Grand Prix of 2009. I’ll be back with more notes for Malaysia next weekend, I hope to do St.Pete too but we’ll see what happens.

Result At The Flag
(under yellows)
1. Button (Brawn) 58 laps
2. Barrichello (Brawn) +0.8s
3. Trulli (Toyota) +1.6s
4. Hamilton (McLaren) +2.9s
5. Glock (Toyota) +4.4s
6. Alonso (Renault) +4.8s
7. Rosberg (Williams) +5.7s
8. Buemi (STR) +6.0s
9. Bourdais (STR) +6.2s
10. Sutil (FIF1) +6.3s
11. Heidfeld (BMW) +7.0s
12. Fisichella (FIF1) +7.3s
13. Webber (RBR) + 1 lap
13. Vettel (RBR) + 2 laps
14. Kubica (BMW) + 3 laps
15. Raikkonen (Ferrari) + 3 laps

DNF Massa (Ferrari) + 13 laps
DNF Piquet (Renault) + 34 laps
DNF Nakajima (Williams) + 41 laps
DNF Kovalainen (McLaren) did not complete a lap

A fantastic result for Brawn! This is the first win for a new entrant since Wolf in 1977, and the first 1-2 finish for a new entrant since Fangio and Kling for Mercedes-Benz in 1954! Okay we know what gestation the car has had, we know they are still operating on Honda money this year – but they still had to survive the winter and pull everything together. The car didn’t even run until three weeks ago!
A brilliant drive from the two Toyota drivers after starting in the pitlane, and Hamilton somehow got up from 18th too.
Buemi scores a point on his debut!
Ferrari really messed this one up though.

Penalties
– Jarno Trulli has been given a 25-second penalty for overtaking under safety car conditions. This demotes him to 12th. It seems he fell off the track, Hamilton passed him unavoidably (and legally), but then Trulli took his place back again. Apparently you can’t do that, no passing means NO PASSING and if you mess it up that’s your problem. Toyota intend to appeal.

– Sebastian Vettel will receive a 10-place grid penalty at the next event for causing an avoidable incident.

– Red Bull Racing has been fined $50,000 (is that USD or AUD?) for instructing Vettel to stay on the track with a heavily damaged car.

Trulli’s penalty is fixed, I don’t think the stewards had any leeway with the length of time because this is equal to awarding a drive-through penalty during a race. They want to award him a drive-through but since the race is over they give him roughly the amount of time it takes for a drive-through at most circuits.

Vettel’s penalty is harsh, I thought that was clearly a racing incident and the 10-place drop is unwarranted.
Red Bull were in the wrong to tell him to continue, that wheel could have come off and gone anywhere and he may have been dropping carbon fibre all around the circuit.

***UPDATE (April 3rd)
The FIA stewards have reconvened in Malaysia to reopen the Hamilton/Trulli debate. The result has been to cancel Jarno Trulli’s penalty because Lewis Hamilton had pulled over to let Trulli retake the position. Lewis Hamilton has been excluded from the Australian GP for misleading the stewards.
In the meeting with stewards after the race, Hamilton and team manager Dave Ryan told the stewards that no instruction was giving to Hamilton to let Trulli re-pass him. Thus Trulli was deemed to have passed illegally and was penalised accordingly. The stewards claim they were not given access to the team radio. It later came to light that Hamilton had already told the media that he’d been told to fall back by the team, and that there is a recording of McLaren team radio proving this. It was decided this was intentionally misleading the stewards and so he was thrown out.
In response, McLaren has suspended Dave Ryan and he’s on his way back to the UK. Ryan has been with McLaren for 34 years.
***

Provisional Race Result (red: revised after Hamilton’s DQ)
1. Button (Brawn) 58 laps
2. Barrichello (Brawn) +0.8s
3. Trulli (Toyota) +1.6s
4. Glock (Toyota) +4.4s
5. Alonso (Renault) +4.8s
6. Rosberg (Williams) +5.7s
7. Buemi (STR) +6.0s
8. Bourdais (STR) +6.2s
9. Sutil (FIF1) +6.3s
10. Heidfeld (BMW) +7.0s
11. Fisichella (FIF1) +7.3s
12. Webber (RBR) + 1 lap
13. Vettel (RBR) + 2 laps
14. Kubica (BMW) + 3 laps
15. Raikkonen (Ferrari) + 3 laps

DNF Massa (Ferrari) + 13 laps
DNF Piquet (Renault) + 34 laps
DNF Nakajima (Williams) + 41 laps
DNF Kovalainen (McLaren) did not complete a lap

EXC Hamilton (McLaren) +2.9s

This result remains provisional until the diffuser protest hearing has concluded in Paris on April 14th.

Championship (Revised)

Drivers

10 Button
8 Barrichello
6 Trulli
5 Glock
4 Alonso
3 Rosberg
2 Buemi
1 Bourdais

Constructors (Revised)

18 BrawnGP-Mercedes
11 Toyota
4 Renault
3 Williams-Toyota
3 Toro Rosso-Ferrari

Just look at that Constructors’ standing! Incredible.

Okay I’m out of here, hope you enjoyed the race, feel free to comment away below!

EDIT – More notes!
Check out notes on SPEED’s coverage with the esteemed Pressdog, who’s a lot better at it than I am. He also has an exclusive interview with SPEED reporter, FIA Press Conference moderator and future team owner Peter Windsor!
– For a Canadian look at the BBC coverage, make sure you go to Meesh’s blog but be wary of the sweary shouty match I got into in the comments. 🙂

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.