Australian GP Review
March 23rd 2007 00:12
Ferrari:
A perfect start to the year for Kimi Raikkonen, winning commandingly from lights to flag. His teammate Felipe Massa however, experienced some gearbox difficulties in qualifying, and started from pit lane. The Brazilian was impressively quick, and carved his way through the field to seventh place. But the hero of the day was Raikkonen, the Finn’s run to victory was very reminiscent of his predecessor, Michael Schumacher, marking the beginning of a wonderful reign at Ferrari.
McLaren:
All eyes were on the McLarens of double-world champion Fernando Alonso, and his young teammate, Lewis Hamilton at Albert Park. Alonso was fast all weekend, as expected, but nipping at his heels was Hamilton, who looked like a seasoned campaigner rather than a fresh rookie. P2 for Alonso and P4 for Hamilton in qualifying gave hope to McLaren, but neither car had the legs to keep up with Raikkonen. Alonso was slow off the line and lost out to Heidfeld, and Hamilton, but raced solidly to second place. The star performer was Hamilton, however, who remarkably passed his teammate into the first turn, and maintained a gap over him until the second round of pit stops. He even led the race for over a lap, on his way to a podium finish in his first ever race. Impressive.
BMW:
It a mixed weekend for BMW. The team proved their car was quick after nailing P3 (Nick Heidfeld) and P5 (Robert Kubica) in qualifying, but reliability worries were realised when Kubica retired from a guaranteed points finish, with a faulty gearbox. Heidfeld had no such drama, and he made a great start to outdrag Alonso into second place, which he held until his first stop. An iffy strategy that saw the German start on the soft tyres backfired, and cost him a great deal of time, but he carried on to finish fourth, maintaining the same pace as the McLarens.
Renault:
The defending champions looked vulnerable at Albert Park, a race they had dominated the previous two years. Giancarlo Fisichella squeezed the maximum from his car, but it was only good enough for P6, behind Ferrari, Mclaren and BMW. Finnish rookie, Heikki Kovalainen had a horror weekend. Starting from a disappointing 13th on the grid, Kovalainen commited enough rookie errors in the race to cover the other rookies making their debut. He ran wide several times, and spun once on his way to 10th, well off the pace. Fisichella raced hard, and fought off a resurgent Felipe Massa in the final stages of the race to come home a strong 5th.
Williams:
A relatively positive showing from the Williams team in the first round of the season. The new Toyota engines proved reliable, and drivers Nico Rosberg and Alex Wurz extracted some decent pace from their Williams FW29’s. Qualifying resulted in a 12th and 15th, but in the race, Rosberg was able to catch and pass the odd Toyota and ended up in seventh place, with two points, and fifth fastest lap. Wurz meanwhile battled in the midfield, but was clouted by Coulthard on lap 48, when the Scot tried to drive over Wurz’s head. The biggest positive for Williams was that they showed up Toyota in the race, and proved reliable and relatively quick
Toyota:
Toyota were all but written off in the pre-season talk, so a strong qualifying result which had Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher line up in eigth and ninth place respectively, was something of a surprise. During the race, both Toyotas managed to circulate comfortably in the top ten, but neither car looked like a convincing points-scorer. Ralf was often fighting with Sato’s Super-Aguri, and Trulli was never far behind his teammate. By the end of the race, Toyota finished up 8th and 9th, with the point to Ralf. It was a slightly better result than most anticipated, but still not good enough for F1’s richest team.
Honda:
Honda had a torrid weekend, with their new ‘earth-cars’ failing to make as much an impact in the race as they had with local media. Barrichello failed to escape the first cut-off in qualifying, landing an underwhelming P17 on the grid. Teammate Jenson Button did only marginally better, managing to line up 14th. During the race, it was Button who initially floundered, struggling desperately for grip he held up his teammate, Massa, Wurz and Coulthard for several laps. Barrichello managed to get past, and flew off into the distance, but at the fall of the chequer, Honda were still nowhere.
Super Aguri:
Super Aguri picked up where they left off in 2006. With Takuma Satos’s vastly celebrated 10th place finish at Brazil still fresh in their minds, the Super Aguri’s of Sato and newcomer Anthony Davidson lined-up a brilliant 10th and 11th. Ahead of the Williams’, a Renault and most notably, the two works Hondas. Sunday was a little more difficult for the enthusiastic Japanese squad. Davidson was clouted by Albers’ Spyker early on, and raced on to the finish with massive discomfort in his back. He was later taken to hospital for observations and was cleared of serious injury. Sato meanwhile, put in a spirited drive scrapping with Toyota and Williams. He desperately fought to defend his position, but eventually succumbed to superior machinery and finished a very respectable 12th.
Red Bull:
Webber was the focus of a lot of attention at Melbourne, pressured by a home crowd to deliver. However, he thoroughly ruled out any chance of a win, saying that Red Bull Racing was “undercooked” coming into the weekend, a comment that was echoed by his teammate David Coulthard. Webber shone in qualifying, nabbing an impressive P7, with a fairly heavy fuel load, while Coulthard languished down in 18th. The race started well for Webber, he held his position up until the first round of stops, but a sticking throttle and an uncooperative fuel flap sent the Australian hurdling down the order, topping off his misery with a clumsy spin while entering the pits. Coulthard showed some decent pace and was able to fight the Hondas and Williams’, but an ill-judged move on Wurz into turn 3 took both drivers out of the race.
STR:
Toro Rosso was almost invisible at Albert Park. Neither Tonio Liuzzi nor Scott Speed could wring much performance from their controversial new cars, and were left starving for pace at the bottom of the timesheets all weekend. Qualifying was difficult for both drivers, Liuzzi could only outpace the Spykers, and wound up 20th, while Speed fared slightly better and qualified in 18th. During the race, neither car showed any signs of promise; Speed eventually ground to a halt with problems, while Liuzzi tooled about at the back of the pack.
Spyker:
Unsurprisingly Spyker were the slowest of all in Melbourne. With Super Aguri and Toro Rosso running their so-called ‘customer chassis’, the modest Spyker outfit were always going to be disadvantaged. The biggest positive of their weekend was the relatively impressive debut of Adrian Sutil, who was definitively quicker than his more experienced teammate, Christjian Albers. The young German outqualified Albers by over 2 seconds. The race? Albers tangled with Davidson, then ended the race in the wall, and Sutil picked up two drive-through penalties, one for ignoring blue flags, the other for crossing the pitlane exit line, and finished up dead last, 2 laps down.
A perfect start to the year for Kimi Raikkonen, winning commandingly from lights to flag. His teammate Felipe Massa however, experienced some gearbox difficulties in qualifying, and started from pit lane. The Brazilian was impressively quick, and carved his way through the field to seventh place. But the hero of the day was Raikkonen, the Finn’s run to victory was very reminiscent of his predecessor, Michael Schumacher, marking the beginning of a wonderful reign at Ferrari.
McLaren:
All eyes were on the McLarens of double-world champion Fernando Alonso, and his young teammate, Lewis Hamilton at Albert Park. Alonso was fast all weekend, as expected, but nipping at his heels was Hamilton, who looked like a seasoned campaigner rather than a fresh rookie. P2 for Alonso and P4 for Hamilton in qualifying gave hope to McLaren, but neither car had the legs to keep up with Raikkonen. Alonso was slow off the line and lost out to Heidfeld, and Hamilton, but raced solidly to second place. The star performer was Hamilton, however, who remarkably passed his teammate into the first turn, and maintained a gap over him until the second round of pit stops. He even led the race for over a lap, on his way to a podium finish in his first ever race. Impressive.
BMW:
It a mixed weekend for BMW. The team proved their car was quick after nailing P3 (Nick Heidfeld) and P5 (Robert Kubica) in qualifying, but reliability worries were realised when Kubica retired from a guaranteed points finish, with a faulty gearbox. Heidfeld had no such drama, and he made a great start to outdrag Alonso into second place, which he held until his first stop. An iffy strategy that saw the German start on the soft tyres backfired, and cost him a great deal of time, but he carried on to finish fourth, maintaining the same pace as the McLarens.
Renault:
The defending champions looked vulnerable at Albert Park, a race they had dominated the previous two years. Giancarlo Fisichella squeezed the maximum from his car, but it was only good enough for P6, behind Ferrari, Mclaren and BMW. Finnish rookie, Heikki Kovalainen had a horror weekend. Starting from a disappointing 13th on the grid, Kovalainen commited enough rookie errors in the race to cover the other rookies making their debut. He ran wide several times, and spun once on his way to 10th, well off the pace. Fisichella raced hard, and fought off a resurgent Felipe Massa in the final stages of the race to come home a strong 5th.
Williams:
A relatively positive showing from the Williams team in the first round of the season. The new Toyota engines proved reliable, and drivers Nico Rosberg and Alex Wurz extracted some decent pace from their Williams FW29’s. Qualifying resulted in a 12th and 15th, but in the race, Rosberg was able to catch and pass the odd Toyota and ended up in seventh place, with two points, and fifth fastest lap. Wurz meanwhile battled in the midfield, but was clouted by Coulthard on lap 48, when the Scot tried to drive over Wurz’s head. The biggest positive for Williams was that they showed up Toyota in the race, and proved reliable and relatively quick
Toyota:
Toyota were all but written off in the pre-season talk, so a strong qualifying result which had Jarno Trulli and Ralf Schumacher line up in eigth and ninth place respectively, was something of a surprise. During the race, both Toyotas managed to circulate comfortably in the top ten, but neither car looked like a convincing points-scorer. Ralf was often fighting with Sato’s Super-Aguri, and Trulli was never far behind his teammate. By the end of the race, Toyota finished up 8th and 9th, with the point to Ralf. It was a slightly better result than most anticipated, but still not good enough for F1’s richest team.
Honda:
Honda had a torrid weekend, with their new ‘earth-cars’ failing to make as much an impact in the race as they had with local media. Barrichello failed to escape the first cut-off in qualifying, landing an underwhelming P17 on the grid. Teammate Jenson Button did only marginally better, managing to line up 14th. During the race, it was Button who initially floundered, struggling desperately for grip he held up his teammate, Massa, Wurz and Coulthard for several laps. Barrichello managed to get past, and flew off into the distance, but at the fall of the chequer, Honda were still nowhere.
Super Aguri:
Super Aguri picked up where they left off in 2006. With Takuma Satos’s vastly celebrated 10th place finish at Brazil still fresh in their minds, the Super Aguri’s of Sato and newcomer Anthony Davidson lined-up a brilliant 10th and 11th. Ahead of the Williams’, a Renault and most notably, the two works Hondas. Sunday was a little more difficult for the enthusiastic Japanese squad. Davidson was clouted by Albers’ Spyker early on, and raced on to the finish with massive discomfort in his back. He was later taken to hospital for observations and was cleared of serious injury. Sato meanwhile, put in a spirited drive scrapping with Toyota and Williams. He desperately fought to defend his position, but eventually succumbed to superior machinery and finished a very respectable 12th.
Red Bull:
Webber was the focus of a lot of attention at Melbourne, pressured by a home crowd to deliver. However, he thoroughly ruled out any chance of a win, saying that Red Bull Racing was “undercooked” coming into the weekend, a comment that was echoed by his teammate David Coulthard. Webber shone in qualifying, nabbing an impressive P7, with a fairly heavy fuel load, while Coulthard languished down in 18th. The race started well for Webber, he held his position up until the first round of stops, but a sticking throttle and an uncooperative fuel flap sent the Australian hurdling down the order, topping off his misery with a clumsy spin while entering the pits. Coulthard showed some decent pace and was able to fight the Hondas and Williams’, but an ill-judged move on Wurz into turn 3 took both drivers out of the race.
STR:
Toro Rosso was almost invisible at Albert Park. Neither Tonio Liuzzi nor Scott Speed could wring much performance from their controversial new cars, and were left starving for pace at the bottom of the timesheets all weekend. Qualifying was difficult for both drivers, Liuzzi could only outpace the Spykers, and wound up 20th, while Speed fared slightly better and qualified in 18th. During the race, neither car showed any signs of promise; Speed eventually ground to a halt with problems, while Liuzzi tooled about at the back of the pack.
Spyker:
Unsurprisingly Spyker were the slowest of all in Melbourne. With Super Aguri and Toro Rosso running their so-called ‘customer chassis’, the modest Spyker outfit were always going to be disadvantaged. The biggest positive of their weekend was the relatively impressive debut of Adrian Sutil, who was definitively quicker than his more experienced teammate, Christjian Albers. The young German outqualified Albers by over 2 seconds. The race? Albers tangled with Davidson, then ended the race in the wall, and Sutil picked up two drive-through penalties, one for ignoring blue flags, the other for crossing the pitlane exit line, and finished up dead last, 2 laps down.
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