October 18, 2008

Mclaren-Ferrari-Ferrari-Renault: Japan repeat?

Except for a disapointing Kovalainen, this grid looks vaguely familiar. Hamilton put in a great lap to take pole, Raikkonen is awake, Alonso once again is in the mix, Massa did a so so lap. From looking at the q2/q3 times, no huge surprises with fuel loads with Massa having the largest delta but probably because he did a poor lap rather than because he has 3/10th worth of fuel on board.

BMW and/or Kubika sure blew it, he did not make it into Q3 and will need mayor luck to be a contender, a real shame. Surprised Heidfeld did not get a penalty for clearly impeding Coulthard for no reason.



Check out the second video after the jump. The Shanghai circuit has on unique feature, turn one is taken full throttle at turn in and from there drivers have brake and scrub all the speed while turning into a decreasing radius turn. It's fiendlishly difficult.

Finally, on the Speed TV broadcast, Peter Windsor practically had a conniption describing Alonso's comments about wanting Massa to win and how he will do anything he can to help him. David Hobbs intimated Alonso would be crashing into Hamilton intentionally. And I thought Alonso was supposed to be the Drama Queen! They seemed honestly shocked Alonso dared to express a preference. Maybe it's all best illustrated by this week end's UK media moment of zen from the press conference:

Q: (Jon McEvoy - The Daily Mail) To all drivers other than Lewis: do you think there’s a feeling among the drivers that you are jealous or envious of the fact that Lewis at the moment is leading the drivers’ standings and also that wherever you go he seems to be the biggest star?

Funny stuff.





6 comments:

  1. Heidfeld did get a penalty - 3 grid places for impding Coulthard during qualification.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I think that's fair, DC was right to complain.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yeah the speed guys were going pretty hard nuthugging Hamilton.
    But they were correct in their assertion that Massa was waay more reckless in Fuji than anyone else yet received a minimal penalty and got passes on at least three moves which would have been drive throughs for Hamilton.
    Yet again, Ferrari get more benefit of the doubt than anyone else.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Are you including the Webber pass? because Webbo was a bit dooshy on that one, he swerved towards Massa, check the replay.

    ReplyDelete
  5. F1 Shanghai 2008 Alonso and Kubica karting
    http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=7-Bx__gIkv4

    Fernando Alonso&Robert Kubica
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_yeGv8zCqE

    http://www.marca.com/edicion/marca/motor/zona_alonso/es/desarrollo/1176420.html

    ReplyDelete
  6. You're correct AC, both parties were pushing the limits there but Massa went well into the pit exit lane at maximum speed. If someone was exiting the pits that could have been deadly and it went unnoticed. Webber was being a dick, no doubt but Massa should have backed off instead of putting anyone leaving the pits in danger.

    ReplyDelete

nRelate Posts Only