Category: Race Review

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!

Racenotes: 2008 Sinopec Chinese Grand Prix

2008 Sinopec Chinese Grand Prix
Shanghai International Circuit, Shanghai, China

Coverage from ITV1, their penultimate event before the rights switch to the BBC.
Paddock anchors: Steve Rider & Mark Blundell
Commentary: James Allen & Martin Brundle
Pitlane: Ted Kravitz & Louise Goodman

Coverage started at 7am, I’m coming in at 7.30am although I wasn’t really paying attention for five minutes or so while I was starting Notepad and FIA live timing. I did mean to get up at 7am but I don’t do mornings very well.

I think Sinopec is a fuel company. Yesterday we were told the circuit is 40 minutes to 2 hours from central Shanghai depending on time of day and levels of traffic.

7.45am, Martin is on the grid, this is he:
“Hamilton can secure the driver’s title and Ferrari the constructor’s.
There’s a stadium effect here, between the grandstands and the buildings over the track, one is hospitality and the other is the media centre.
We’ve seen in the support races the drivers who can hang on around the outside of turn one are in the ideal position for turn 2.”

I’ve woken up now I’ve started typing.

Martin talks to Norbert Haug of Mercedes before heading down the grid – but he says not a single driver is near their cars at the moment. Finds Pat Symonds (Renault): “There’s going to be some shenanigans going into the first corner. Let’s keep out of trouble and have a good race.”
Martin throws to Louise with Mark Webber.

Webber: “My fuel load is probably a little lighter than the guys around here because of Q3. Taking a penalty 5 rows back and you’re gone basically.”

Now she’s with Kovalainen: “All we can do is aim to take maximum points. We’re going to be positive, let’s not worry about what might happen.”
Louise: “Enjoy the rest of your birthday.”

The gridwalk is a bit early today so maybe that’s why nobody is around. They go back to Steve & Mark for a bit.

STARTING ORDER
Q3 Hamilton, Raikkonen, Massa, Alonso, Kovalainen, Vettel, Trulli, Bourdais, Heidfeld *
Q2 Piquet (9th), Kubica, Glock, Barrichello, Rosberg
Q3 Coulthard, Webber**, Nakajima, Button, Sutil, Fisichella

* Heidfeld was P7 but penalised 3 places for holding up DC in qualifying.
** Webber was P6 but penalised 10 places for an engine change.

5 minutes to go, FIA graphics, we go to James Allen and Martin Brundle and at *precisely* this moment the live timing updates – it was showing qualifying results, now it has cleared the timing data and shows the starting order.

Formation lap – this will be a 56 lap race and there is a chance of rain towards the end.
As I write that BMW get on Kubica’s radio to say there could be rain in 20 minutes.

Martin – it’s a longer lap than Fuji, more chance to get the brakes up to temperature, they need to be 700 degrees to work effectively.

Hamilton is on hard tyres, the two Ferraris are on soft tyres. Alonso in 4th on hard tyres.
Cars arrive on the grid, lots of tension..

5.4.3.2.1.GO!

Hamilton takes the lead, Kova around the outside, crash at the back.
Kovalainen is still alongside Alonso. Heikki bags him. Top 3 are as they were on the grid.
On to the back straight and Alonso goes alongside Heikki, and outbrakes him at the end of it. Important move, and interesting that he could pass with horsepower.

Lap 2 – not seen a replay of the start crash yet. On timing it looks like Trulli is the only car damaged and he pits now.
Alonso is pulling away from Heikki.
Ted is at Toyota – the whole right-hand sidepod is flapping everywhere, completely destroyed, it’ll lose him a load of downforce. James suggests he may have hit Bourdais who is now 18th after starting further up.
Replay – Heidfeld drivers around a few cars. Trulli turns in on Bourdais (not again Sebastien!).
Replay of Alonso passing Heikki who got it slightly wrong leading on to the straight, thus losing speed.

L3 – Trulli pulls the car in after letting the leaders through. The car must be too damaged.

L4 – Hamilton pulling away. Webber vs Barrichello, Rubens covers the inside.

L5 – first ad break
Timing shows Webber has taken Rubens for 10th. Hamilton is still faster than everybody, Ferrari next up with Alonso, these are in a race of their own. Kovalainen can’t stay with them and leads Heidfeld and Vettel.

L8 – back from ads
Heikki is 1.2 seconds per lap slower than Lewis and we saw Heikki’s brakes smoking on the grid, Martin says too much temperature in them. It could be hurting him now.

Louise is with Trulli, ‘not the first time you’ve had contact with Bourdais at the start’: “I mean this guy has to cool down a little bit. I had a hit on the rear right and my car was damaged.”

L9 – Webber is all over Piquet, takes him up the inside but too fast, Piquet comes back and they stay together – Piquet has to back out. Radio: “You know he’s light Nelson so don’t worry.”

L10 – Kimi now sets fastest lap. Ted tells us Vettel (P7) will stop a lot shorter than Kubica (P8) but Robert needs to stay within 7 seconds of him.

L13 – Rosberg passes Glock at the hairpin. Webber pits from 10th, James says the leaders are due in shortly. Rosberg’s radio says ‘qualifying laps until you stop’.

L14 – Piquet ran a little wide at the last corner. Webber is now running 18th and has to pass all those guys again, though he’s hoping most of that will come when they pit.
L15 – Massa and Alonso pit. Massa stays on soft tyres, Alonso stays on hards. Massa is 8th behind Kubica, Alonso is 10th behind Piquet.
Adrian Sutil has parked in a little run-off at the last corner.
L16 – Hamilton and Raikkonen pit. Both are on the hard tyres. Hamilton gets out ahead of Vettel with Raikkonen just behind Vettel. Kovalainen leads.
Replay of Sutil’s engine smoking as he pulls over.

L18 – Heidfeld is in.
L19 – Kovalainen and Vettel pit. Hamilton is now in the lead again. We go to an ad break.

Hamilton, Raikkonen, Kubica (not stopped), Massa, Piquet (not stopped), Alonso, Kovalainen, Heidfeld

L21 – Back from break.
L22 – Alonso radio: “Heikki is 6 laps longer than us.”
Lots of marbles on the side of the long straight.

L23 – Ted at McLaren: “Lewis says the car is a lot better and more stable after a half a turn of front wing at the stop.”

Everything is pretty stable right now on the timing screens, they are all matching each other up front.

L25 – Piquet comes in. He beats Vettel and Nakajima. Martin says he tried to pick up a fuel hose the other day and it was very heavy, he struggled with it and that was with no fuel, says it is a very hard job!
L26 – Kubica pits from 3rd. He’s out in 8th behind Coulthard who hasn’t stopped yet.
Replay of Kubica’s stop – they left the tyres on, added fuel and adjusted the front wing. Not often you see tyres left on in F1.

L28 – another ad break, return on L30.
Raikkonen lost 1.4 seconds trying to lap Fisichella.

Hamilton, Raikkonen +7.5, Massa +14.6 from Hamilton, Alonso +21.7, Kovalainen +29.7

L32 – Coulthard and Bourdais having a fight, Sebastien takes the place. Nakajima and Webber pit.
L33 – Glock is in. Massa lost a second passing Fisichella.

L36 – Kovalainen has a puncture! McLaren had been getting ready for him, we saw the mechanics already in the pitlane. They pushed it a little too far. Now he has to run the length of the long straight with it.
Ted: “This is brake-related. We saw them smoking on the grid. Then at the stop there was a lot of black dust, all the team breathed it in.”
Heikki pits and comes back out in 17th. Big news in the Constructors’ championship, McLaren needed him to score.

L37 – Alonso pits.
L38 – Massa is in, he switches to hard tyres. Webber gets on the marbles and runs through the car park.
L39 – Hamilton pits and switches to the soft tyres. Raikkonen is right behind him taking . He’s out just ahead of Massa. Hmmm I wonder if he’ll mysteriously begin to slow down soon and let Massa through..

L40 – Heidfeld is in, he’s out in 6th.
L41 – Kubica pits from 4th, he’s now behind Vettel again. There’s talk of McLaren turning the revs back a bit on Hamilton’s car, they need to take this engine to Brazil whereas Ferrari will have two new engines.

L42 – another ad break. Timing shows Vettel pitting.
L43 – back from ads, James says “this has not been a vintage grand prix”. No kidding. They are all driving away from each other.

L45 – 12 laps to go and I can’t believe Kimi won’t let Massa through. He’s letting him gain a couple of tenths each lap.
L46 – wow we’re going to another ad break already. Rumours on forums say they have to take 5 breaks per race.. Won’t miss this next year on the Beeb!
L48 – back again.
L49 – Kimi completely backs off into the hairpin, Massa is now 2nd. Sensible move given the title situation.

L50 – Kovalainen pits! Did he not take enough fuel when he had the puncture? Maybe not, he parks it in the garage. James and Martin speculate they may have decided to save the engine for Brazil. Ted gets on the phone and says “no, its definitely the brakes, it became undriveable. The man from the brake supplier is here looking very worried.”
Martin – when they get too hot the wear rate goes up exponentially.

L52 – Hamilton, Massa, Raikkonen, Alonso, Heidfeld, Kubica, Glock, Piquet
Alonso is catching Raikkonen. Kubica and Glock are catching Heidfeld. The gaps seem to have come down a little everywhere but nobody is close enough to do any racing.

L55 – Martin: “Interesting isn’t it, 33 starts but only 2 fastest laps for Hamilton.”
L56 – Good drive from Barrichello in 11th in that shitbox of a Honda. Martin suggests Bruno Senna will be testing for Honda soon, maybe he’ll be racing the car next year.

L57 – Hamilton Wins!

Massa 2nd, Raikkonen 3rd, Alonso 4th, Heidfeld 5th, Kubica 6th

Martin: “We’ve had some thrilling races this year, this wasn’t one of them, Hamilton won’t care will he?” He gives ‘driver of the day’ to Hamilton.

Congratulatory radio calls.

ITV sells us some more products as the cars head to parc ferme.

Drivers are in the little waiting room now having a bit of a chill out.
To the podium!
British anthem for Hamilton and McLaren. Dreary little ditty not suited to a celebration at all.

Trophy-giving, a bit fell off Hamilton’s trophy! Massa does not look happy, he’s very down. Martin: “Lovely man is Felipe Massa, a man you’d sit beside on an aeroplane or have around for dinner.”

Champagne!

Steve and Mark are in pitlane, behind Mark a throng of people pack out the start/finish straight.

After more adverts and a results review we go to the press conf.

Lewis: “Team have done a phenomenal job. I owe so much to the guys, the car is a dream to drive.” Peter Windsor suggests it was an easy win. “It was quite straightforward actually, made a great start, one of the best we had this year. Fortunately we were very consistent therefore I was able to create a gap. After my second stop we were just trying to look after the engine and tyres.”
Lewis seems quite quiet and understated today as well.

Felipe: “For us the hard tyre was not quick, difficult to drive, the soft was the only option. At the start I had a bit of wheelspin, then we just stayed in the same positions. Lewis was pulling away 3 tenths per lap, we were on the limit. Lewis had the better car. I think for the drivers championship it was not fantastic but for the constructors it was very good.”

Kimi: “We won as a team, its normal in these situations. The car was handling quite nicely but it wasn’t fast enough. Every time when I was faster it was too late. I got traffic three times and it cost me a lot of time. 2nd and 3rd was the best we could do but hopefully next race we can challenge a bit more.” Pete asks the inevitible team order question. “I know what the team expects, I have nothing to lose I’m driving for the team.”

Lewis again. Peter says: “7 points was your lead last year, 7 points is your lead this year into the last race in 2008*”
Lewis: “I know going to Brazil will be much different to last year, we know we’ve got to do a good job, these two will be pushing hard.”

Long conference today, longer than I’ve written down, thanks to ITV for sticking with it.

Steve & Mark briefly review the race with replays. A crowd has gathered to watch them! That’s funny!

Results
01. Hamilton 56 laps in 1h31m57.403s [10 pts]
02. Massa +14.925s [8]
03. Raikkonen +16.445s [6]
04. Alonso +18.370s [5]
05. Heidfeld +28.923s [4]
06. Kubica +33.219s [3]
07. Glock +41.722s [2]
08. Piquet +56.645s [1]
09. Vettel +64.339s
10. Coulthard +74.842s
11. Barrichello +85.061s
12. Nakajima +90.847s
13. Bourdais +91.457s
14. Webber +92.422s
15. Rosberg + 1 lap
16. Button + 1 lap
17. Fisichella + 1 lap
DNF Kovalainen (brakes)
DNF Sutil (engine?)
DNF Trulli (crash damage)

Fastest Lap: Hamilton 1m36.325

(results from Autosport.com who had them online unbelievably quickly)

World Drivers’ Championship
01. Hamilton 94
02. Massa 87
03. Kubica 75 (eliminated from title race)
04. Raikkonen 69
05. Heidfeld 60
06. Alonso 53 [+1]
07. Kovalainen 51 [-1]
08. Vettel 30
09. Trulli 30
10. Glock 22 [+1]
11. Webber 21 [-1]
12. Piquet 19

Hamilton extends the gap by 2 points and now leads by 7. All of the top six scored today. That top six now includes Alonso who has passed Kovalainen.

World Constructors’ Championship
01. Ferrari 156
02. McLaren 145
03. BMW 135
04. Renault 72
05. Toyota 52
06. Toro Rosso 34
07. Red Bull 29
08. Williams 26
09. Honda 14

Ferrari have a 9 point lead with 16 available in Brazil. McLaren will need Kovalainen to bring a better game to that race to pick up as many points as possible on a track were Ferrari are always strong.
Red Bull will need to score well to avoid the embarrasment of being beaten by the B-team!

The title-deciding race will be at Interlagos, Sau Paulo, Brazil on November 2nd. Not only is a Brit in the running, this will be ITV’s last race for the forseeable future so their coverage may be a little emotionally charged.

Bernie and ITV will be happy that it has gone to Brazil because that race gets away at 6pm here – prime time Sunday ratings!

Race Notes: 2008 Japanese Grand Prix

2008 Fuji TV Japanese Grand Prix
Fuji Speedway, Sizouka, Japan
4.563km (of which 1.5km is the main straight!)
Scheduled distance: 67 laps

ITV1 *live*
Anchors/Analysts: Martin Brundle & Mark Blundell
Commentary: James Allen & Martin Brundle
Pitlane: Ted Kravitz & Louise Goodman

Martin is pulling double-duty this weekend, Steve Rider was at Wembley yesterday for a football World Cup qualifier against the mighty Kazakhstan. England won 5-1.

The usual one hour pre-race show got under way at 4.30am UK time, obviously I said “screw that” so I’m joining coverage just before the cars leave for the formation lap (it’s now 5.25am or so).
There will be no long preamble from me today and I might struggle to get all the usual details. I don’t do mornings well.
(I later came back and edited for spelling, results and penalties)

START ORDER

Q3: Hamilton, Raikkonen, Kovalainen, Alonso, Massa, Kubica, Trulli, Glock, Vettel, Bourdais
Q2: DC, Piquet, Webber, Nakajima, Rosberg
Q1: Heidfeld, Barrichello, Button, Sutil, Fisichella

Massa is starting on soft tyres, everyone else on the hard. It is not raining.

5.4.3.2.1.go!

Kimi takes the lead but is immediately passed by Hamilton who pushes through.
BIG impact, Coulthard hard in the wall, car is destroyed and he’s out. Nakajima is damaged in the same incident. Safety Car? There was a lot of debris.

Starting Lap 2 Kubica somehow leads?? Kimi was pushed wide and lost positions. Naka pits for new wing.
Hamilton on Massa, gets him but Massa had nowhere to go and spins Hamilton around! Martin Brundle called it half a second before it happened. Lewis has to wait for the field to pass and rejoins last, and actually he pits.

Lap 3 – replays: Martin says Massa was always going to come back over, Lewis didn’t give enough racing room even though Felipe was a long way across.

Lap 4 – Kubica, Alonso, Kova, Trulli, Kimi (who sets Fastest lap), Bourdais(!), Massa, Glock, Piquet, Vettel, Sutil, Button, Heidfeld, Webber, Barrichello, Fisichella, Rosberg, Hamilton, Nakajima

Replay of the start – Lewis locked the brakes in turn one, which pushes both Ferraris and McLarens wide, which is how they all lost positions. Coulthard’s suspension was broken before he hit the wall. Failure or contact in turn one?
Lap 5 – Glock pits for a slow stop – his team didn’t expect him.

Lap 6, short laptimes here – ITV are taking ad breaks already?
Lap 7 (ads) – can see on live timing that Glock is in again. The text says he’s getting out of the car.
We’re back on lap 8. NO replays or mention of Glock. We do get a replay of Kimi passing Trulli for 4th.

Lap 9 – Sutil pulls off the road with big damage to the right rear wheel. Tyre failure Brundle thinks, maybe caused by debris from the Coulthard crash.

L10 – Martin says Lewis Hamilton did the whole start badly and ‘we hear he flat-spotted his tyres down to the canvas’ – hence the pit stop.

L11 – Replays of Fisi, Rosberg, Button. We see a lot debris on the main straight which is very dangerous, the cars are at top speed, top downforce. Martin says this actually must be where Sutil’s tyre failure came from as he pulled over at pit exit.
L12 – Caption: “Incidents involving cars 1, 2, 22 under investigation.” Kimi, Massa, Lewis, prompts further replay. Martin says Massa was always going to come back but James says “but you’re supposed to stay on the track” which Massa did not, his opinion is Massa just drove off road and took out Lewis.
L14 – Hamilton one minute behind the leaders but catching the back of the field at 2 seconds per lap. He’s up to 16th due to early attrition.

Kovalainen and Raikkonen are not making in-roads on Kubica and Alonso. BMW struggled in qualifying, Heidy started 16th and Kubica was nearly out early in qualifying as well, he scraped through each session and did a decent lap in the last one.

L15 – Louise with Sutil. Lots of debris in the road from the Coulthard incident, he went wide in turn 6 and over the grass, caused it to jump in the air (the car not the grass), when it landed it broke the suspension.
Rosberg passes Fisichella for 13th, they’ve now dropped Button.

L17 – ad break as they cross the line and Kimi’s timing goes purple, he’s still fastest out there but only 0.1s better than the 3 ahead.

L18 – We’re back just as Kubica and Raikkonen pit and we’re told Massa and Hamilton have been given McDonalds penalties. Drive thru. Kubica beat Raikkonen in the pits.
Hamilton takes his penalty.
L19 – Alonso pits after leading one lap. Massa pits for his stop. We’re not being shown where cars come out, other than Massa who is ahead of Barrichello meaning he’s 10th.
Heikki is slow.. he pulls over! He was running quickly up front and taking points from Massa, helping Hamilton. McLaren did NOT need this.
L20 – Massa takes his penalty.
Hamilton’s penalty was for forcing a car off-track at turn one. Massa’s penalty for colliding with Hamilton.

L21 – Lewis is lapped by Trulli who leads. Alonso is told “Kubica is 5 laps longer, fuel 4, push like hell mate”. Martin reckons ‘fuel 4’ is the quickest setting. Not sure how he knows as each car is different.
L22 – Trulli pits. Ted says we don’t often see a penalty for pushing a car wide, Martin says he needs to see another camera angle, the stewards have more angles available than we do.
Should note here that ITV do not control the pictures unless they interject with their own camera in pitlane/paddock, they don’t do that often.

EDIT – Fuji TV is doing the TV work here, not the usual FOM, which is why we missed pit exit a lot today. This is a hangover from the old days when each country would have a ‘host broadcaster’ providing pics and a director who would invariably focus on that country’s ‘star’ driver or team. When Renault were winning a lot in 2005, we sat through an entire GP of just looking at Renaults. FOM only took over in the last 2 years as the contracts ran out. Japan and Brazil I *think* are the only two remaining. Notice how we looked at Nakajima a lot in qualifying.

L24 – Fisichella is pushed into the garage. Bourdais Leads! Piquet is 2ND! Vettel 3rd, no, he pits. This would be why teams run longer..

Vettel is out alongside Heidfeld, defends the position. He’s now 8th.

Recap top 10: Bourdais, Piquet, Alonso, Kubica, Kimi, Webber, Trulli, Vettel, Heidfeld. Alonso is the leader in the clubhouse, those who have stopped for fuel. Massa 13th, Hamilton 14th. Championship contenders will not score at this rate.

Louise with Heikki as Rosberg passes Rubens: Heikki says it was an engine failure.
Rubens re-passes Nico! Bourdais pits and drops to 7th.

L27 – Hamilton unlapped himself when the leaders pitted and he’s catching Massa quickly – Massa is behind Button and losing time. Piquet leads because he’s not stopped.

L29 – Piquet is in, rejoins.. 6th, Bourdais goes to pass him! Doesn’t make it.
Louise with Coulthard now: ‘I went inside of Bourdais, found myself between two cars, lots of bumping.’ ‘We were all bumping together.’ Whatever damaged was caused there sent him out.
Massa takes Button. We go to an ad break to avoid hearing Alonso’s radio again. Alonso leads from Kubica and Raikkonen.

L33 – We’re back and hear Alonso asking who they are racing, maybe that was the call we missed. Renault reply: “Kubica!” ITV disagree – Kimi is only 5sec behind Kubica and is quick. I agree with ITV.
L34 – Hamilton passes Button for 13th on the straight, candy from a baby. Webber pits, the only frontrunning guy not to have done so. Ted says his rear tyres are very worn. He’s out in 10th but shouldn’t need another stop.

L37 – Martin: If the results stay like this McLaren will have to worry about Kubica (in the points), add 8 points to his score and he’s only 12 behind Hamilton.
L38 – Nakajima pits.
More adverts! I swear they didn’t used to have this many in the early morning races.

We’re back on L40. Nothing has changed other than the Hondas pitting, nobody cares about that.
James tells us that Alonso is setting identical laptimes consistently. 1:19.2 every. single. lap. Says something about ‘the drive of a champion’.

L41 – Heidfeld pits. Massa takes Webber for 10th! Hamilton pits. The green grooves were wearing off of Hamilton’s tyres. Martin says Lewis has completed his stops, Massa has one more to make and points are definitely on – also mentions Massa will have to pass Webber again because Mark isn’t planning on stopping again.

L43 – Raikkonen had fallen back from Alonso but is now quicker again. Rosberg pitted unseen by us. Hamilton passes Barrichello.
L44 – Alonso pits from the lead. “Tweak of front wing” says Martin. He’s out behind Bourdais who was lapping a Honda at the time.

Kubica radio: How’s the balance? “Understeer, understeer, poor traction.”
Martin: “That’s both ends sliding then, that’s tough to fix.”
I missed the second part of the radio while typing that..

L46 – Kimi sets new fastest lap. He’s got 10 this year already, if he gets his 11th at this race that’s a new record for fastest laps in a season.
L47 – Kubica pits so Kimi leads. Robert is out behind Vettel, 7th.
James says ‘Alonso is now looking good for the win’. Martin says ‘good stop from BMW, now Kimi has to nail his out-lap to beat Kubica for 2nd.’
L49 – Kimi pits. Kubica JUST beats Kimi! Pulls away a little with momentum. Massa has just set fastest lap.
Martin mentions that Piquet and Bourdais have done a very good job today and are going to be rewarded. They are up front but yet to stop, Bourdais is pretty fast too.
L51 – Trulli pits. Massa sets a 1m18.8 – oh no! Bourdais exits the pits and hits Massa! Replay: looks like Massa cut across into Bourdais – Sebastien had nowhere to go, he was on the inside line. Massa’s fault.
L52 – Raikkonen has caught Kubica. Piquet pits. Kimi tried to pass Kubica into turn one, Robert defends that one. Not sure where Piquet is now.

L54 – Kubica and Raikkonen side by side! Kimi gets pushed wide.
Massa pitted during that, we don’t see where he gets out. Timing shows Piquet is still up in 4th, good run from him.
L55 – Caption – Incident involving cars 2 and 14 to be investigated after the race. Massa and Bourdais..
Piquet had passed Trulli in those stops and is CATCHING the Kubica/Raikkonen fight! We go to ads again. I reckon Piquet is driving for his career, there have been rumours di Grassi or Grosjean will replace him.

L58 – Piquet radio: “you’re 1 second quicker than Raikkonen, let’s see if we can overtake him”

10 to go: Alonso, Kubica, Raikkonen, Piquet, Trulli, Bourdais, Vettel, Webber, Heidfeld, Massa, Rosberg, Hamilton, Rubens, Button, Nakajima.

L61 – Martin can see that Kimi’s rear tyres have gone away, the fight now is Massa vs Heidfeld, we cut to it – Massa passes Heidfeld on the main straight! P9 now, Webber is next up but is somewhat slower after chewing up his tyres one-stopping.
Slowmo close-up of Webber’s front tyres, he’s worn the grooves away! No wonder he’s slow.

L63 – Piquet has dropped away from Raikkonen. Ted reports Lewis has been slow all day due to damage to his bargeboards and other aero devices on lap one.
L65 – Massa passes Webber for 8th position and one point, bit of a risky move against the pitwall, he could have gone the other side of Webber. Martin says that’s what Raikkonen should have done against Kubica!

L66 – Renault guys run across pitlane to climb on the wall. Hamilton unlaps himself from Alonso. Martin: It may seem pointless but if anyone breaks down on the last lap he’ll gain a position or two.

L67 – ALONSO WINS!

Two in a row. Well driven. Kubica 2nd, Raikkonen 3rd, Piquet, Trulli, Bourdais, Vettel, Massa, Webber, Heidfeld, Rosberg, Hamilton, Barrichello, Button, Naka.

Cars roll into pitlane. Alonso climbs on to his car in his usual style. Ted is with Alan Permane, the guy on Alonso’s radio. “We’re going for four in a row!”
Top 3 are making their way upstairs. Bit of water.. that’s right make sure you tidy up your overalls, get that money in.. and outside to the podium..
Spanish anthem for Alonso.
French anthem for Renault (though the cars are made in Britain). Alonso chatting to Kubica through this one.
Points mean prizes, Alonso gets given something so big he can put his 50″ plasma screen on it.
Champagne!

7:30am, I’m going back to bed. I’ll add full results and points later. I might even watch the afternoon rerun to watch the pre-race and post-race talking. I half-listened to the post-race, ITV did get out of there pretty quickly, I was speedily re-reading this for errors but I can’t take in any more information.. will proofread again later!

EDIT – Provisional Race Results
(from autosport.com)
01. Alonso 67 laps in 1h30:21.892 [10 points]
02. Kubica +5.283 [8]
03. Raikkonen +6.400 [6]
04. Piquet +20.570 [5]
05. Trulli +23.767 [4]
06. Bourdais +34.085 [3]
07. Vettel +39.207 [2]
08. Massa +46.158 [1]
09. Webber +50.811
10. Heidfeld +54.120
11. Rosberg +1:02.096
12. Hamilton +1:18.900
13. Barrichello + 1 lap
14. Button + 1 lap
15. Nakajima + 1 lap
DNF Fisichella
DNF Kovalainen
DNF Sutil
DNF Glock
DNF Coulthard

Fastest Lap: Massa 1:18.426 (Kimi will have to wait to claim that record)

World Driver’s Championship Points
01. 84 Hamilton
02. 78 Massa
03. 72 Kubica
04. 63 Raikkonen
05. 56 Heidfeld
06. 51 Kovalainen
07. 48 Alonso
08. 30 Trulli [+1]
09. 29 Vettel [-1]
10. 20 Glock & Webber
12. 18 Piquet

The title gap reduces by 1 point. Kubica is still closing in on the main protagonists. Alonso is rapidly catching Kovalainen.

World Constructor’s Championship Points
01. 141 Ferrari [+1]
02. 135 McLaren [-1]
03. 128 BMW
04. 66 Renault
05. 50 Toyota

McLaren scored zero here, Ferrari get 6 and BMW 8 to gain on the pair of them. The biggest points haul was Renault with 15.

UPDATE AFTER PENALTIES
Sebastien Bourdais has been given a 25-second penalty for causing a collision with Felipe Massa on exiting the pitlane. I wish I was making this up because that’s bullshit! He wasn’t given the racing room, Massa tagged him not the other way around.

This drops Bourdais from 6th to 10th and gives Vettel, Massa and Webber an extra point each. The affected section of the results:

06. Vettel +39.207 [3]
07. Massa +46.158 [2]
08. Webber +50.811 [1]
09. Heidfeld +54.120
10. Bourdais +34.085 + 25.000s = +59.085s

Revised WDC Points
01. 84 Hamilton
02. 79 Massa
03. 72 Kubica
04. 63 Raikkonen
05. 56 Heidfeld
06. 51 Kovalainen
07. 48 Alonso
08. 30 Vettel & Trulli
10. 21 Webber
11. 20 Glock
12. 18 Piquet

Vettel places ahead of Trulli on ‘quality of results’, i.e. if you are on the same points the decider is your best finishing position.

Revised WCC Points
01. 142 Ferrari [+1]
02. 135 McLaren [-1]
03. 128 BMW
04. 66 Renault
05. 50 Toyota
06. 36 Toro Rosso
07. 29 Red Bull
08. 26 Williams
09. 14 Honda
10. 0 Force India & Super Aguri

The next race is the Sinopec Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai next weekend, the penultimate round of the Championship!

Race Notes: 2008 SingTel Singapore Grand Prix

2008 SingTel Singapore Grand Prix
Marina Park Circuit, Singapore
5.07km street track

Welcome to the first ever night race in Formula 1!

What we learned in qualifying:

The lighting works well. The drivers are more worried about the bumpiness of the circuit, which is high. The track is quite wide and there are a lot of corners.

Laptimes in qualifying were 1m44s or so, which is what they do at Spa’s 7km circuit – Singapore is only 5km so that’s how much slower it is.

Joining ITV coverage.

Anchor/Analyst: Steve Rider & Mark Blundell
Commentary: James Allen & Martin Brundle
Pitlane: Ted Kravitz & Louise Goodman

The humidity is very high, at least the temperatures are lower than daytime. They are worried about rain which has appeared during the week. If it rains at night there will be a lot of glare from the lights reflecting on the track.

Short package of Button making a ‘Singapore Sling’ cocktail which he says is very alcoholic and may be the most expensive drink in Singapore!

ITV Qualifying Report with James Allen
– Massa is becoming a street racing specialist after results in Monaco and Valencia.
– Button and DC knocked out in Q2.
– Hamilton struggled in Q2 and only just made it through in 10th.
– Massa’s 0.6sec advantage in Q3 suggests he is fuelled lighter than the opposition. Hamilton is 2nd, Kimi 3rd.


GRID ORDER

Q3 Massa, Hamilton, Raikkonen, Kubica, Kovalainen, Vettel, Glock, Rosberg, Heidfeld, Nakajima
Q2 Trulli, Button, Webber, DC, Alonso
Q1 Piquet Jr, Bourdais, Barrichello, Sutil, Fisichella

Note – This includes Heidfeld’s 3-place penalty for impeding a car, he blocked Barrichello when entering pitlane. It wasn’t intentional, the pitlane entry and exit positions are not ideal here and are actually quite dangerous.

Alonso was FAST in qualifying and looked good for the front row, until mechanical failure in Q2 meant he didn’t set a time.

Fisichella will start from pit lane following accident damage in qualifying.

ITV take us to an onboard lap with poleman Massa. He’s fast and the back end is sliding!

After the lap, Mark Blundell tells us the Ferrari looks much easier to drive over long runs, he’d much rather be driving that this weekend than any of the other cars.

Ted has been talking to mechanics and team personnel about having breakfast at 4.30pm, lunch at 11pm and evening meal at 4am. Pat Symonds of Renault says it is working surprisingly well. They are displacing their routines by the same amount of time as the sessions. It doesn’t faze Kimi though.
Raikkonen – “I sleep when I feel like it and I wake up when I feel like it.”

Louise is with the physio at Williams, talking about how tough this track is. They will lose 2-3kg of bodyweight. With this European timezone routine everyone is only getting 4 hours of daylight which is tough on the bodyclock. Fatigue could be a concern.

We’re now going over the McLaren/Hamilton penalty hearing. I’m reading yesterday’s quotes on Autosport.com instead.

12:30 Cars are heading to the grid. Pitlane will close in 15 mins.
It seems strange sitting here at ‘normal’ race time, early afternoon and looking at the screen where it is night. I’m used to the reverse, sitting here with it dark outside while looking at Australia or Japan in broad daylight.

Webber and Vettel are taking in the sights of Singapore. Vettel says they are trying everything they can to close the gap on the other teams.
Mark Blundell says Sebastian’s doing a fantastic job.

Steve Rider says they analysed Heidfeld’s block last night and said the penalty was harsh, because of the nature of pitlane entry. I’ll add that there isn’t a proper deceleration lane here and they have to slow down on the racing line impeding anyone behind, it was unavoidable really.

Martin’s Gridwalk
– This will be a very tough race. The humidity is high, the track is bumpy and it’ll be a long race at 1 and 3/4 hours.
– Felipe: “It was a great pole position, it is always great to start a difficult race from pole, we have to do the same over 61 laps.” Martin notes he has a clear visor rather than tinted.
– A rep from ING, Renault sponsor, shouts out “ITV! ITV! How does our logo look at night?” Ha! He says ‘same as it does in the day, looks fine’.
– Bumps into Bernie who shuffles him to the Prime Minister of Singapore. They talk about the weather.
– Ross Brawn who’s just been looking at a Ferrari: “If you go off line into 7 you’re in trouble, there’s only one line. Brake wear could be a problem, we’ll manage but I don’t know about other cars.”
– Quick word with Tamara Ecclestone who doesn’t want to take all this over when Dad retires, then we’re back with Steve and Mark.

Ted is with Glock (P7): “Quite a lot of oil on the last corner turn-in but it should be okay. We are in the right window with brakes so should be okay.”
ITV completely ignoring the local national anthem but then so is everyone else. F1 people don’t care really.

Louise with Rosberg (P8): “It’s gonna be a good race, tough on the car, we have a good chance starting 8th to score some points.”

We are expecting Safety Car appearances. Personally I can’t see how we’ll get through the chicane of turns 1-2-3 without damage of some kind in lap one, and then the jagged bumps at 10-11-12 is sure to take someone out.

During our final pre-race ad break, a reminder of the start order:

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

Massa is 1 point behind Hamilton going into this race, both are opening a big points gap on the field.

Loading live timing at http://www.formula1.com.

Official Swirly F1 Graphics means 5 minutes to go, we cross to James Allen and Martin Brundle. James – “No sign of a credit crunch here!”
James was told by Pat Symonds of Renault that “..this race could take up to 1hr 50 minutes to complete.”
A reminder then that F1 has a two-hour rule to satisfy international TV windows, if we hit two hours we get the chequered flag regardless of number of laps completed. If there is a Safety Car here we will almost certainly hit the limit.

DC radio. He forgot to put a drinks bottle in! He’ll need that today, so he might suffer later.

The ‘spinners’ on the wheels have been removed to aid brake cooling. Funny, I thought they were to aid brake cooling.

13:00 BST / 20:00 Singapore – Cars are under way for the formation lap.

James – “It looks like everyone is on hard tyres except for Fernando Alonso.”.
He could be going for an early attack with the extra grip from those tyres.

Distance: 61 laps or 2 hours

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

Massa has a clear lead out of T3. Heikki lost places and is fighting Glock.
Everyone gets through the ‘traffic calming’ part undamaged.
Alonso 12th from 15th.

Rosberg is also on soft tyres, ITV haven’t spotted it yet. Radio to Rosberg: “Need to pass Trulli or it’ll be the end of the day.”

Replay of the start. Martin – The front were very well behaved, the back were two and three abreast.
There was a nudge from Kubica on to Heikki, which is how Heikki dropped back.

Massa is running fast, pulling out a gap. This fits the light fuel theory.

Lap 4 – Rosberg goes for Trulli but he’s in too fast, Jarno takes it back.
L5 – Williams are telling Nakajima that he needs to pass Trulli. Rosberg needs to do it first and he tries again… no.

Trulli is always a tough guy to pass which is why he often takes a heavy fuel load, this is known as the Trulli Train. The Trulli Train currently consists of 7 or 8 cars which are falling away from Massa at 5 seconds per lap, and from Heidfeld at 2 seconds per lap. Heidi is the next car up from Trulli.

There’s a piece of brake duct on the track, local yellow out the back somewhere.

L7 – Massa leads by 3.1s over Hamilton, with Raikkonen 5.3s further back and Kubica another 3.4s. Vettel is next, Kovalainen fell to 7th and is still behind Glock, then we have Heidfeld and a gap of 13s back to the Trulli Train.
Cars are now no more than 1sec apart from Trulli in 10th back to Sutil in 19th with Fisichella not far off the back after starting from pitlane.

L8 – We come back from an ad break to find Rosberg and Nakajima have passed Trulli. Rosberg down the inside into T7, bumpy.
Massa has run over some debris which is now wedged under the car.
Alonso passes Trulli into 7. Webber now on his tail.

Trulli has gone for a very long strategy and everyone else seems to be much shorter.

Kimi Raikkonen sets the fastest lap on lap 9, he’s gained 1sec on Hamilton.

Report from Ted: ‘McLaren think they can get Hamilton to run two laps further than Massa so they are keeping the gap stable at 3.3 seconds.’
Meanwhile Kimi is catching, he just set another FL. Martin is expecting Massa to stop on lap 16 or so, Alonso a touch earlier.

James – “Each of these 1800 lights is 2000 watts run from standalone generators not connected to the power grid.”
I’m sure the locals appreciate not having this added to their monthly bill.

L12 – Alonso pits. Very early and he’s fuelled for a long middle stint. Martin doesn’t think it worked because he was stuck behind Trulli.
Ted at Renault – “the super-soft tyres grained heavily, they’ve switched him from a 3-stop to a 2-stop strategy.” Martin says if they are graining that heavily it’s a good thing they’ve got them out of the way now.

Bourdais goes up the escape road and loses two places. James tells us he’s the only man in the field with single-seater experience at night after winning twice at Houston, although he seems to think Houston was in the IndyCar Series.

BIG CRASH – Nelson Piquet hard in the wall. Webber and DC pitted.

SAFETY CAR DEPLOYED

Webber and DC pitted before the SC came out. Barrichello is in as well, not sure if he made it before the SC. If you can get into the pits before the SC comes out, you won’t get a penalty.

Piquet is out of the car and runs across the track. Replays show he hit the wall on his right and it bounced him around to the left wall at speed.

Rosberg pits and will get a penalty as the pitlane is still closed. James tells us Lewis Hamilton needs to pit, will the pitlane open before he gets there? We don’t know because ITV take the chance to take an ad break, so I watch live timing..

According to timing Barrichello has lost a lap and is stopped in sector 2.

L16 – Kubica has pitted, everyone else continues. I believe the SC came out on lap 15.

L16 (still) – We’re back from adverts and we can see Rubens helping marshals to push his car out of the way. We don’t know why he’s out.

As this is such a long track the SC laps are taking about three minutes each.

L17 – Pitlane is open. Martin says some of the cars can switch to just 4 cylinders and save fuel that way.
Everyone pits who hasn’t already. OH! Massa! The fuel hose is still attached as he leaves!! He’s drive down pitlane with the hose still attached, knocks a man over as he pulls away, he stops at the end of the pitlane to wait for his guys to run down and remove it.
Ted says it is a 500 metre sprint while the McLaren guys cheer them on as they run past!
They’ve arrived and the hose is stuck, they can’t get it out of the car. Finally they get it out of the car and Massa is on his way in last place.

Replay: He did get the green light from Ferrari’s traffic light system, and they weren’t even trying to release the fuel hose when he went. Not again! Sutil JUST avoided Massa. Not again! Huge Valencia deja vu.

L18 – Bourdais pits.
Massa will move up after the ‘pits closed’ penalties are applied, but ITV speculate that Massa will have a penalty for unsafe release from pits. He currently runs last, behind Bourdais, and was lucky not to lose a lap.

Rosberg leads with a penalty to follow. Trulli and Fisichella have not yet stopped and run 2nd and 3rd. Kubica is 4th and will have a penalty. Alonso appears to be the leader after penalties and stops.

SC IN THIS LAP

L19 – RESTART

Vettel loses some ground running wide.

Raikkonen lost time while Ferrari were sorting out Massa, Kimi runs 16th. Kovalainen dropped to 14th.

James – “This race is now anybody’s.”

L20 – Massa ran wide at the last corner. Nobody is stopping for penalties yet, they will lose 30 seconds (including 10 sec stationary) so are pushing hard to pick up some ground. They haven’t been officially notified yet. When they are notified they have 3 laps to come in or they will be disqualified.

Fisichella in 3rd is holding everybody up, allowing Rosberg to make up a big gap.

Louise with a Ferrari rep: “Most important thing is the guy is okay, he is in the medical centre. I cannot tell you anything that happened I’m sorry, I haven’t seen the replay, I have been taking car of the injured guy.”

Rubens throws his gloves into the water instead of the crowd!

Louise with Nelson: “Basically I lost the back end. The car was really heavy, it was touching the floor. I was trying to push, I touched the rear on the wall.”

Massa penalty – ‘unsafe release from pit stop’. He has passed Bourdais but nobody else. He takes it immediately. This was a drive-through penalty.

L25 – Rosberg – 10 second stop/go for refuelling when pitlane closed.
Kubica – ditto. These guys must pit and stop for 10 seconds at their own garage.

L27 – We’ve taken an ad break and come back, Kubica and Rosberg have not taken their penalties yet. Alonso radio: “We’ve no idea what’s happening, push like hell to the end of the race.”

L28 – Kubica is in for his penalty and emerges last. We see that Massa has caught Bourdais again.
Webber has run wide and loses several places, maybe 5 or 6 places.
L29 – Rosberg pits for his penalty. He needs to beat Alonso…. he does not, he gets out ahead of Coulthard who is 5th.

Trulli, Fisi, Alonso, Rosberg, DC. The first two need fuel soon.

These pitlane closure rules officially suck. I don’t mind closing the pits, but you’ve got to at least let them get half a second of fuel without penalty if they are running out and need to pit.

Ted: It wasn’t Mark Webber’s fault, it was mechanical, he’s on his way back to the garage, they are going to pit him and retire.

L30 – Fisichella pits and fits the softer tyre.
L31 – Renault tell Alonso that Trulli will stop in 4 laps time. Alonso was FAST in qualifying until mechanical failure.
Kubica passes Massa! Ted says Massa is out of fuel, and indeed he pits. He’s fuelled to the end from the reserve rig and he has the soft tyres. This is an unplanned stop.

L33 – Looking at timing and everyone is slow, over 3 seconds slower than Kimi’s fastest lap from earlier. A couple of guys up front are slightly faster.
L34 – Trulli pits for his only stop of the day. He’s out alongside Nakajima and takes the place, which is… 9th.

Bourdais and Kubica are also in.

Fisichella has somehow dropped to 16th, he shouldn’t be there after being 3rd not long ago…

Massa passes Bourdais for 14th.

L35 – Kovalainen pits. Martin has been looking at Rosberg’s penalty, he’d been wondering how he emerged only losing a few places. Turns out the gap to 4th was 23 seconds because Fisi had been holding everyone up, so it was legitimate.

L36 – Hamilton is working his way up, he’s 4th now and looking good for points against Ferrari who are currently set for zero.

L37 – Alonso, Rosberg, DC, Hamilton, Glock, Vettel, Heidfeld, Trulli. Kimi 10th, Kovi 13th, Massa 16th.
Hamilton is close behind Coulthard, who is 11sec behind Rosberg, then 7sec up to leader Alonso.
L38 – Nakajima passes Trulli, Kimi tries to follow but runs out of room.
L39 – Kimi now takes Trulli, who is again fat with fuel. Kimi is now 9th and goes looking for Nakajima who has driven away.

L40 – Things have been fairly flat for a while, other than Kimi making up places. Alonso has an increasing lead. Rosberg pits, switches to the super-soft tyres and is out behind Heidfeld in 7th.

For once we don’t know how long it will be before anybody stops. Everyone came in under that yellow meaning we could only follow a few people – and the F1 teams aren’t as forthcoming as the IndyCar teams.

L42 – Alonso pits, he has a big lead and does not lose the lead as he emerges from the pits JUST ahead of DC and Hamilton.
Hamilton passes Coulthard! He’s now on Alonso’s tail but he does need to stop again, he pits now and so does Coulthard.
Coulthard went too soon but stops it, he’s away after a minor delay but he lost position to Trulli.

L44 – Vettel and Heidfeld pit now from 3rd and 4th. I don’t see where they come out, we’re in adverts.

L45 – Alonso, Glock, Rosberg, Kimi, Hamilton, Trulli, Vettel, Heidfeld, DC, Nakajima. Heikki is 12th, Massa is 15th.
Glock needs to stop, I think Kimi does as well.

L46 – Massa overshoots turn one. Kubica just passed Fisi and Massa was trying to do the same. Massa and Kubica seem to have lost all speed since their penalties.
Glock pits, TV director misses where he rejoins.
This moves Rosberg up to 2nd with a gap of 15.5 seconds behind Alonso.

We miss Coulthard’s radio while Ted reports on something. James said he is complaining of losing his brakes.

L49 – James is worried that we won’t get all the laps in, there is about 25 minutes of running to complete the race and we are just short of 25 minutes remaining. “This is like the old days when the races used to take half the day!”
Martin – “Good though isn’t it!”

L50 – Alonso, Rosberg, Kimi, Hamilton, Glock, Trulli, Vettel, Heidfeld. Kimi needs to stop.
Trulli is slow at a chicane, he gets running again.
L51 – Kimi stops, he’s out in a large gap between Glock and Vettel.
Trulli seems to be in trouble.

Oh no! Kimi spins, a Force India is in the barrier. Looks like liquid on the track.
L51 – SAFETY CAR
Trulli has pitted to retire from the GP, Ted tells us a gearbox problem.

L52 – Massa it was that spun, he was watching Trulli who was slow on the inside. The water came from the barrier, it was there to absorb the impact. The Force India slides sideways into the barrier.

Trulli is out of the car and soaked in sweat.

L53 – Louise with Mark Webber – “We lost 7th and then 5th gears, it cost us a great result. Would have been nice to share the podium with Alonso. We had some good pace, I’ve never suffered gearbox problems with this car.”

Order: Alonso, Rosberg, Hamilton, Glock, Kimi, Vettel, Heidfeld, Coulthard, Nakajima, Button, Kova, Kub, Fisi, Massa, Bourdais
The crashed Force India was Sutil.

L54 – RESTART

Alonso drives away, no position changes on the restart.
Rosberg has good traction, he’s fine.
Coulthard vs Nakajima, DC stays ahead.

L56 – Alonso is on it, he’s running 1m45s while everyone else is back in the 1m47s or worse. Hamilton is faster than Rosberg but can’t catch him on the long run to turn 7, the favoured overtaking spot so far.

Martin – “Glock is keeping Hamilton honest, he’s improved all through the season.”
James reminds us he raced against Hamilton in GP2 in 2006.

L57 – Alonso has dropped his pace to match the others.
Ted – This won’t go to a timed race.

Five laps to go. 10 minutes to go, James says he didn’t allow for the parade lap before the race, the time starts when the red lights go out.

Raikkonen in the wall!! He caught the kerbs everyone has been complaining about. He manages to drag it around the corner to safety, no Safety Car required.
Replays: he hit the second kerb and ran into the wall. Four points down the drain.

Not Ferrari’s day today.

Martin – Lewis Hamilton looks like a man very happy with the lowest stop on the pdoium today, he’s not hustling the car.

Three laps to go.

Martin – Raikkonen’s accident is classic street circuit stuff, you take your eye off the ball and you’re off.

There’s a close battle between Vettel and Heidfeld, the TV director is choosing to focus on Alonso.

Final lap.

ALONSO WINS!

Rosberg 2nd, Hamilton 3rd, Glock 4th, Vettel 5th, Heidfeld 6th, Coulthard 7th, Nakajima 8th. Massa comes in 13th, only one from last.

Flavio Briatore on the radio! Alonso contratulates the team.

Martin says Nico Rosberg is his Driver of the Day after overcoming a stop/go penalty to finish 2nd. Ironically Alonso’s strategy only worked because of his teammate’s accident.

The cars are back in pitlane, Alonso stands on his car!
Everyone’s rear tyres look very worn.
Kimi doesn’t look happy – applause to the top three drivers from the grid girls!
Alonso relaxes in a chair with a bottle of water, take a break Fernando. A brief handshake with Hamilton.. surprised at that after last year..

Flav speaks to Alonso in Italian.

Podium ceremony, Spanish and French anthems, trophies, champagne!
Great trophy.

Martin: A great success but I hope they don’t make them all night races in this part of the world, it’ll lose the novelty.

We cross back to Steve and Mark as the champagne is dropped from the podium to the mechanics, the Renault guy drops theirs!

Press Conference
Alonso: “Fantastic, 1st podium for the season and first victory, extremely happy. Unlucky in qualifying and lucky in the race. The start was good, not good enough, but the pace was there. The car was super today.”
Interesting that he has the UNICEF logo on his race suit.

Rosberg: “I had a difficult start on the dirty side, dropped behind Jarno who was heavy with fuel. It was quite a hairy moment [passing Trulli], very bumpy. After that it was qualifying laps all the way. Car felt good, it was strong on this track, it was a great feeling.”

Hamilton: “My pitstop went well, I had to wait for some cars to come past and lost a little bit of time, we had great pace generally but got stuck behind DC. It was difficult to get close because he drove a fantastic race, so did these guys here.”


Race Result
01. Alonso 61 laps [10 pts]
02. Rosberg +2.9s [8]
03. Hamilton +5.9s [6]
04. Glock +8.1s [5]
05. Vettel +10.2s [4]
06. Heidfeld +11.1s [3]
07. Coulthard +16.3s [2]
08. Nakajima +18.4s [1]
09. Button +19.8s
10. Kovalainen +26.9s
11. Kubica +27.9s
12. Bourdais +29.4s
13. Massa +35.1s
14. Fisichella +43.5s
15. Raikkonen + 4 laps

DNFs
Trulli + 11 laps
Sutil + 12 laps
Webber + 32 laps
Barrichello + 47 laps
Piquet + 48 laps

Fastest Lap: Kimi Raikkonen 1 minute 45.599 seconds

Kimi was officially classified as a finisher by completing more than 90% of the distance.
Vettel collects yet another points haul! Great for him, and also excellent to see Rosberg and Williams on the podium. Glock also had a good result and it is nice to see DC scoring again. In all a great race for the underdogs!

Driver Points
01. 84 Hamilton
02. 77 Massa
03. 64 Kubica
04. 57 Raikkonen
05. 56 Heidfeld
06. 51 Kovalainen
07. 38 Alonso
08. 27 Vettel
09. 26 Trulli
10. 20 Glock
10. 20 Webber
12. 17 Rosberg
etc.

Hamilton extends his lead by 6 points as the three drivers behind him fail to score. Heidfeld is looking to pass Raikkonen for the 4th position.

Constructor Points
01. McLaren 135
02. Ferrari 134
03. BMW-Sauber 120
04. Renault 51
05. Toyota 46
06. STR 31
07. RBR 28
08. Williams 26
09. Honda 14

McLaren regain the lead in the table by one point from Ferrari, this one is going to the wire. BMW are still lurking should the top two make any further mistakes although they didn’t have a great day themselves.

Next Race
Next up is the Japanese Grand Prix from Fuji on October 12th. No luxury of an afternoon race for us this time, we’re looking at 5am here in the UK.
One week later is China, followed two weeks later by the season finale in Brazil.
Look out for my race previews on the Thursday or Friday of each race weekend.