SofaF1

I went to Silverstone for the practice sessions on Friday. As Alex informed you, this will be the penultimate British Grand Prix at the track, and the last one for David Coulthard. I personally am excited about the race going to Donnington (a circuit with much more dramatic changes in elevation), and have only since Coulthard’s move to Red Bull come to really like him, but it will be sad to see both go.

It’s hard to replicate the sensation of hearing the cars as they come out for their first laps – the noise far off at first, like a swarm of bees, out of sight but slowly increasing. You catch a glimpse of one, on the other side of the track, a dash of colour between grandstands, and then it arrives, screaming towards you, wavering as it brakes, punching down through the gears, a flick of the steering wheel and then it’s gone, over the next hill, towards the next corner. The gear changes sound like gunshots, the acceleration like an aeroplane’s.

The first thing you notice is the sturdiness of the Mclaren and Ferrari, how fixed they are to the track, and the uneasiness of the Force India and Honda (Button especially coming out of Vale, although it seems he was doing quick lap-times). The television tends to flatten things; you miss the dips and rises through Becketts, how steep the climb up to Stowe is, and the hundred different approaches to and through a corner that the drivers use. Kovalainen did look hooked-up, not making a single mistake, where we saw Lewis go off at least once – but then that perhaps is his style, always stretching the limits. Vettell looked very quick in the fast corners, and I’m regretting not putting him in my prediction.

We walked around the whole track during the two sessions. It’s fascinating seeing from different angles and elevations the corners and the way the cars take them. The Becketts complex looks different from every direction. The best cars go out wide and flick it in suddenly, keeping as straight a line as possible, where the Williams had to swoop around the corners, understeering all the way. We saw a hare run across the track at Becketts (fast, but not as fast as what almost hit him), and Trulli crash into the barriers right in front of us, then get out and wave to the crowd. Hopefully I’ll get some pictures uploaded to show you soon.

Now I have finally seen the GP de France…

We all went for the Ferrari 1-2 with a Ferrari on pole, but only GrifF1 called Raikkonen correctly for the pole and hurtled into a two point head start.

The Massa Raikkonen 1-2 worked great for Fourstar, Nick and Igor with a full six points each, while Alex, GrifF1 and I went for the wrong order which resulted in just 2 points each from the front runners.

Kovalainen was in the mix landing a point for me but two points each for everyone else. Kubica hovering in the background gave me a further point and Nick two.

Webber jumped back into the points again with two for GrifF1 and one for Alex. Igor and GrifF1 were close enough with Alonso to take a further point each. The final point goes to GrifF1 for Piquet giving her, her best result so far.

Everyone seems to be getting the hang of this now … except me Grrrrrrr.

Round 8

1 Nick 10
1 GrifF1 10
3 Igor 9
4 Fourstar 8
5 Alex 5
6 Bearded Stew 4

Still fairly close though in the championship.

1 Fourstar 51
2 Nick 49
3 Igor 41
4 Alex 38
4 GrifF1 38
6 Bearded Stew 36

Maybe not the best race of the season but plenty of close action on track, frustration for Hamilton, heat and relief for Raikkonen, championship leading for Massa and podium holding for Toyota, but more crashing for Button.

At least the lateness of this roundup means only a few days left till Silverstone. Ferrari’s again anyone?

While it’s raining out there in France right now (although it may blow away by race time) there must be at least one man with a personal dark cloud over his head, Stefano Domenicali.

Ferrari have been pretty consistent in one area this year and that has been pit strategy. So far Ferrari seem to have split their fuel strategies by 1 lap. So far so good.

We saw in Qualifying that Kimi was faster than Massa (unusual for qualifying) so he’s probably on the lighter of the fuel strategies. We also saw that once Kimi knew he’d got Pole he dived back into the pits saving a lap of fuel. Oooops. Hold on now both him and Massa have the same amount of fuel on board.

So what should they do? In reality they aren’t going to want to stack their cars in the pits, so Kimi will probably just have to come in on the same stop.

What would Schumi do?

If you wanted to be really sneaky then the lead driver could, for example, mishear the pit communication and stay out an extra lap. His team mate would be forced to wait behind him in the pit, forcing the win.

This is exactly the kind of thing that would have happened at McLaren last year. I don’t think it will happen this year though. Massa is a huge team player. He really believes in Ferrari and so wouldn’t mess them around. Kimi has his own kind of morality in this area too. Schumacher would want to win at any cost. Kimi is almost playing his own game. He wouldn’t count something like this as “winning”. He would want to prove that he was the fastest on the track.

So my guess is that it won’t happen. But I wanted to mention it in advance, just in case it does.

I’ve been meaning to post this cartoon for a while…

From Autosport.

So after all the excitement of the season so far we return to France.
This race was cancelled last year because it was just too boring for modern F1 cars. But it’s back once again for one more chance.

Some people might grumble about it but whenever this happens I always feel a rather similar feeling to a cricket fan hearing “you mean a game can go on for five days and be a draw” I have a sense of “yes that’s the point” to races like France.

France doesn’t have much of a funnel of the start so the cars don’t tend to bunch up as much as they do in other circuits. So often the start isn’t that close. Having said that Kimi took Lewis off the line last year.

That won’t be happening this year as Lewis (and Rosberg) will be facing 10 place grid penalties. So Ferrari will be looking to repeat their first and second places from last year. I guess you’ll have to decide which one of them is likely to win. Kimi did it last year (Massa was on pole). Kimi has said he’s never been so fired up to win a grand prix as he is this week. Massa is wisely keeping his new found cool which has served him so well recently.

So what of world championship leader Robert Kubica? Well obviously we shouldn’t count him out. One of the interesting things about France is that it has a pretty short pit lane. This means that a three stopper makes sense. The only problem is that BMW seem to be suffering the same problem that plauged McLaren for many years, they don’t seem to often deviate from the optimum strategy the computer tells you. Ross Brawn taught McLaren, the hard way, that mixing the steategy up can often work well.

McLaren have learnt their lesson well as we’ve seen this season already a few times. Most people will be full of fuel near Lewis perhaps going light might work for him. The only problem is he’d have to overtake. It’s not impossible at Magny Cours but it is tough.

Perhaps he will remember the manouver demonstrated by his erstwhile team mate Alonso last year here. Alonso pulled off the overtake of the season going through the chicane. Martin Brundle said he had to hide behind a cushion each time he saw it. It was mega. Expect Alonso to be certainly be pulling a few of those this weekend.

Actually because of the penalty Alonso and Lewis will probably meet on the track again this weekend. Last time out Lewis crashed into him.
Alonso has been giving some fighting talk in the run up to this weekend. He said Lewis was lucky last year rather than skillful. Which is a bit below the belt.

Anyway. France it should be fun in it’s own way. It might well be a return to slightly less chaotic races. Which might make it easier to predict (which might be good news for all of us except fourstar).

So as usual we’d love your pole prediction and your top eight for the race.

The qualifying and the race are at 1pm on Saturday and Sunday. (The tv program starts at 12:10 on the Saturday and 12:00 on the Sunday)

From Private Eye

Well that was easily the lowest scoring race for us collectively so far, so this probably won’t take long.

Fourstar was doubting his reliance on recent form but actually that played right into his court this week, or was it last week, sorry it might have been quite a while ago now. Ahem.

Fourstar and I launched straight out of the blocks with two each for Hamilton’s rather rapid pole position. I did think Igor had it covered with Kubica on pole but unfortunately it wasn’t to be. If last years rules were still in place that could still have been a point for second though (but take that up with Alex!)

The rest of the predictions were a bit ropey really as the normal running order was turned around after the safety car and related pit stop incidents!

Massa came good for all of us though, handing Nick, Fourstar and myself two points each and Alex, GrifF1 and Igor one.

Igor’s persistence with Kubica did yield a point in the race, but Fourstar was hovering to grab one also.

So Round Canada

1 Fourstar 5
2 Bearded Stew 4
3 Nick 2
3 Igor 2
5 Alex 1
5 GrifF1 1

Fourstar continues unabated…

1 Fourstar 43
2 Nick 39
3 Alex 33
4 Bearded Stew 32
4 Igor 32
6 GrifF1 28

Still a long way to go, but less than when we started.

Well what about the race?

Raikkonen and Kubica looked like they both thought they could get out in the lead after the safety car pit stops and what a race that would have been with Hamilton chasing them both down, but that wasn’t to be, but Kubica stayed focussed to take control of the crumbliest track we’ve seen this year, especially after his massive accident last year. I’d say he was back on the horse ok.

Superb result for the BMW team as a whole, not just a maiden win but a one-two too to break the stranglehold that McLaren and Ferrari have had on the last couple of years. Not sure if they could have managed that if Raikkonen and Hamilton were both still in the race but as Murray probably still says “to finish first in Formula One, first you have to finish!”

The brilliant thing about Dr Mario Thissenn is that he never seems to oversell this position. Last year they wanted to be solidly in third place. This year they wanted to win a race. And they have. They have been smart at underplaying their position knowing it’s better to beat people’s expectations. (Ross Brawn has finally stopped Honda serially doing the opposite to this.)

Obviously Robert Kubica didn’t get the softly softly message though as he announced he’s going for the world championship now. Fair enough I suppose, he is in the lead of the drivers championship. The key questions is, is it achievable?

Obviously Lewis won his first race a Canada last year and he came very close to winning the championship. You’d have to say that McLaren had already won a race with Alonso. Also there was a bit more momentum for Lewis last year.

And most crucially while Robert looked set to do well this weekend he only really stood a chance because Lewis drove into Kimi. (It could easily have been Kubica he crashed into. I wonder if he had time to decide?)

Lewis had this race in the bag. Kimi’s tires were just coming into their own though and there could have been a mistake from Lewis under pressure. So one of those two should have won.

But in order to win the race, as we all know, you have to finish the race. Kubica has done well at that. He’s also finished high each time.

He’s been plugging away at those results. And I’d have to say if ever a season has seemed less predictable I don’t remember it.

With Heidfeld suffering a loss of form this year. Massa going very well, and Heikki having more good days than bad you’d have to say Robert is the most comfortably ahead of his team mate.

Perhaps in the topsy turvy world of Formula 1 in 2008, a driver of consistency is what’s needed? Perhaps Kubica isn’t as unlikely a winner as we first thought.

So is Canada like Monaco or not?

A street circuit with walls close to the track and a strong chance of rain it’s sounding pretty likely.

Last year’s race was the scene of Lewis Hamilton’s maiden win and Kubica’s scary crash. But was Monaco a one off for Ferrari? They looked to have the speed and then throw it away. But if Canada is as action packed perhaps they will be confused again? Heikki also had one of his best races here last year.

All of this comes together to suggest a storming race that I wouldn’t want to try and predict. But it seems like we have to!

We’d love to hear your prediction for Pole and your top eight for the race.

This weekend Qualifying starts at 6pm Saturday (ITV starts 5:15pm), the race starts at 6pm Sunday (ITV starts 5:05pm).