F1 Monaco GP – Race 26/05/2008

Hamilton wins dramatic rain hit Monaco GP

The Monaco Grand Prix did not quite go the full distance as it hit the two hour time limit with Lewis Hamilton taking the chequered flag and his sixth career win around the streets of Monte Carlo. It was a fantastic drive from Hamilton who now takes over the championship lead from Kimi Raikkonen who failed to score today.

Rain at the Principality made it a very tricky race for the 20 starters and while Hamilton celebrates his second win of the season, it was a far from easy Sunday afternoon drive. An error on lap seven saw him returning to the pits after brushing the barriers at the swimming pool, slashing his right rear tyre in the process.

Ironically, Hamilton’s early stop allowed him to take extra fuel on board and he was then able to time his switch from the rain tyre to dry tyre to perfection. Hamilton was not the only driver to make errors however as Felipe Massa made one and Kimi Raikkonen made two...

Massa started from the pole position and controlled the pace in the early laps despite Hamilton slotting into second position. However, a mid-race error saw him run off track at Sainte Devote and lose position to Robert Kubica. The Brazilian would never recover the lost ground and took the chequered flag two seconds behind the BMW Sauber driver who put in a flawless drive to claim the runner up position.

Adrian Sutil was on target to take a sensational fourth position in his Force India Ferrari. A late race safety car bunched up the field and Kimi Raikkonen lost control of his Ferrari under braking exiting the tunnel.
The Ferrari struck the back of the VJM01 forcing Sutil to return slowly to the pit and retire. It was an awful end to a fantastic race from the German racer.

Mark Webber recovered to finish in fourth position, losing ground mid-race after pitting too early to take the slick tyres and losing position to Sutil. Still it was a good solid run from the Red Bull racer who picks up five points for the Milton Keynes-based team.

Sebastian Vettel kept out of trouble and like Webber used a one-stop strategy well to take fifth position in the Toro Rosso Ferrari ahead of Rubens Barrichello who finally gets back in the points with the Honda team. Kazuki Nakajima brought home two points for Williams with his seventh place finish ahead of Heikki Kovalainen who should have finished so much higher.

Kovalainen stalled his McLaren Mercedes on the dummy grid and was forced to start the Grand Prix from the pit lane. The Finn battled on but a mistake behind the safety car saw him slow to unlap himself and therefore dropped some 20 seconds to Nakajima. A late race charge saw him take eighth position and the final championship point just three seconds behind the Japanese racer.

or Kimi Raikkonen, the Monaco Grand Prix was a race to forget. A slow getaway from second on the grid saw him lose position to Hamilton. An error on lap 27 saw him running down the escape road at Sainte Devote and damaging his front wing and then his late race blunder that proved so costly for Sutil. Raikkonen finished ninth.

Fernando Alonso had an eventful race to tenth position but a rash move in the wet conditions saw him run into the side of Nick Heidfeld’s BMW Sauber. A pit stop for a new front wing and also a brush with the wall cost him a chance of points at Monaco.

Jenson Button made contact with Heidfeld on lap one and was forced to pit for a new front wing and the Honda racer would go on to finish 11th ahead of the Toyota duo of Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli who had their own incidents in the wet. Heidfeld’s F1.08 sustained damage when hit by Alonso and he would struggle on to finish 14th, four laps down in what was a dismal weekend for the German driver.

Only nine finished the Grand Prix on the lead lap and there were six retirements. The first was David Coulthard who hit the barriers on lap nine and was then promptly hit by Sebastien Bourdais who went off at the same point in the wet conditions. Giancarlo Fisichella retired his Force India Ferrari with a gearbox problem while Nelson Piquet nosed his Renault into the barriers after switching to dry tyres.

Nico Rosberg had a tough race as he broke his front wing on the first lap as he ran into the back of Alonso at the Casino hairpin. He would work his way back up the order before running wide at Piscine and making very heavy contact with the barriers on lap 62. The final non-finisher was the unfortunate Sutil who was on target for the shock result of the season in the Force India Ferrari.

Hamilton’s victory moves him to the head of the championship standings with 38 points, three ahead of Raikkonen and four ahead of Massa. Ferrari retains the lead of the constructors’ championship heading to Montreal but McLaren now moves second ahead of BMW Sauber.

Earl ALEXANDER
© CAPSIS International

F1 Turkish GP – Race 11/05/2008

Massa keeps his cool for the Istanbul hat trick.

Felipe Massa has claimed his third straight victory at Istanbul Park, taking the chequered flag four seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton in a race of tyre and fuel strategy. Kimi Raikkonen finished in third position to retain his lead at the head of the championship standings.

Massa drove a great race, keeping his cool when Hamilton breezed by him to take the race lead. The McLaren driver also had a good race, opting for an unconventional three stop strategy to challenge for the race win and ultimately only lose out to the flying Massa by a small margin. Massa’s victory moves him second in the championship from fourth, tied with Hamilton.

The start of the race saw Massa convert his pole into the race lead while Raikkonen lost ground to Robert Kubica. Front-row starter Heikki Kovalainen was the man to lose out as Raikkonen’s front wings caught Kovalainen’s rear tyre forcing the Finn to make an unscheduled stop for a new set of tyres.

As Massa and Hamilton pulled away at the front, Raikkonen tailed Kubica but did not make any real impression until the BMW Sauber driver pitted. A string of fast laps from the championship leader saw him regain third position but even then he seemed comfortable with the position and did not continue to push.

Hamilton’s third and final stop saw him exit the pits just ahead of the second Ferrari, holding the position to the chequered flag.
It was an impressive performance from Hamilton while Raikkonen could - and probably should have pushed to ensure he finished second to his team-mate.

It was a pretty lonely race for the BMW Sauber duo as Kubica finished fourth, 17 seconds behind Raikkonen while team-mate Nick Heidfeld made a good start and then picked up another two positions in the first round of stops to finish an equally distant fifth. It was a pretty good result after a tough weekend for the Swiss-based team.

Fernando Alonso got the jump on Mark Webber at the start of the race and had a relatively trouble-free run to sixth position in his Renault, ten seconds ahead of the leading Red Bull Renault. For Webber, seventh position was a solid result, with points now in the last four Grand Prix.

After a poor showing in qualifying, Nico Rosberg charged hard in the 58-lap Grand Prix to take the final points paying position for Williams Toyota. David Coulthard was ninth in the second Red Bull Renault, crossing the line four seconds behind Rosberg.


Jarno Trulli qualified eighth and finished the race tenth after losing ground at the start while Toyota team-mate Timo Glock finished his day 13th. It was not a good race for Honda with Jenson Button finishing 11th a lap down while Rubens Barrichello’s much publicised 257th Grand Prix start yielded a fairly low-key a 14th position.

After his first lap incident, Heikki Kovalainen had a busy race working his way back though the order, taking the flag less than a second behind Button and five seconds clear of Glock.

Nelson Piquet looked on target for an 11th place finish in his Renault but inexplicably dropped down the order late in the race to finish 15th ahead of Adrian Sutil in the Force India and Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso. For Vettel, 17th position and last at least marks his first race finish of the season.

There were three non-finishers, the first being Giancarlo Fisichella who drilled into the back of Kazuki Nakajima into the first turn on the first lap bringing out the only safety car period of the race. Sebastien Bourdais was having a solid run until a mechanical problem sent him and his Toro Rosso sailing into the gravel trap.

From the sweeping turns of Istanbul Park, Formula One now heads to the confines of Monte Carlo.

Earl ALEXANDER
© CAPSIS International

F1 Spanish GP – Race 27/04/2008

Raikkonen firmly in control

The race result may not show it, but Kimi Raikkonen dominated the Spanish Grand Prix from the pole position to take his second win of the season and to further extend his championship lead. Raikkonen’s win, the 17th of his career, continued the now eight year run at Circuit de Catalunya that has seen the pole-sitter claim the race victory.

There was plenty of drama, if not much passing during the 66-lap event, as Raikkonen launched his Ferrari from the pole ahead of Felipe Massa in the sister F2008 who got the jump on front-row starter Fernando Alonso. From that point onwards the gap between the two Ferraris fluctuated between two and four seconds, but the championship leader never really came under any threat from his team-mate.

Raikkonen took the chequered flag 3.2s ahead of Massa while Lewis Hamilton had a solid error-free run to third position. The result moves the Australian Grand Prix winner back into second in the championship on a weekend McLaren could not fight for the win. There was however great drama for Heikki Kovalainen who briefly took over the lead ahead of the first round of pit stops. On lap 23 the MP4-23 suffered a front left wheel failure that sent the Finn across the gravel trap at turn nine at almost unabated speed, burying most of the car in the tyre barrier.

The safety car was deployed as the medical team attended to Kovalainen, but thankfully it seems that the Finn does not have any serious injuries.
Back on track and Robert Kubica had a solid run in his BMW Sauber from fourth position on the grid to fourth position in the race. The Pole lost out to Hamilton off the line while team-mate Nick Heidfeld meanwhile was the latest victim of the badly thought out rules that govern this sport. With Kovalainen receiving treatment track-side and the safety car circulating on track, the German racer was unfortunate enough to require a pit stop for fuel. With the pits closed, Heidfeld was forced to pit from fifth position and as a result incurred a ten second stop and go penalty that effectively ended his race there and then.

Mark Webber ran well to take fifth position and another points-paying result for Red Bull Renault while team-mate David Coulthard had an eventful Grand Prix. Starting 17th, the Red Bull veteran was rammed on lap one by an out-of-control Adrian Sutil, battled on and then was later hit from behind by Timo Glock. With an extra unscheduled stop for a slashed left rear tyre, Coulthard did well to finish 12th.

Jenson Button finished in sixth position to take some well-earned points for the improving Honda team while Rubens Barrichello ran well early on before losing his wing in his first pit stop and then retiring the RA108 with a mechanical issue.

Kazuki Nakajima made a poor start to the race, but largely thanks to the high attrition rate, took the chequered flag in seventh position and claimed his first championship points since joining Williams Toyota at Interlagos last year. Jarno Trulli finished eighth in what was a disappointing showing from Toyota - not helped by a third pitstop - while Heidfeld battled back to ninth in the second BMW Sauber.

Giancarlo Fisichella kept out of trouble and put in another good race in his Force India Ferrari to finish in tenth position, battling hard in the latter stages to try and keep Heidfeld at bay but ultimately losing out to finish tenth ahead of Glock - way off the pace in his Toyota - Coulthard and Takuma Sato.

There were many retirements from this 66-lap event with Nico Rosberg running seventh in his Williams Toyota after a fast start only to retire with an engine failure. Perhaps the biggest cheer of the day came not for race winner Kimi Raikkonen as he took the race win, but for Fernando Alonso on home soil.

Alonso started second, but was immediately jumped by Massa at the start. Running a short first stint the Renault star pitted on lap 15 of the race. Exiting the pits Alonso found himself behind Barrichello who at the time was on a long first stint and lapping two seconds slower than Alonso was capable. Following the end of the first round of stops, Alonso had lost position to Hamilton, Kubica and Heidfeld. It would matter little as on lap 35 whilst running fifth, the Renault V8 failed.

While Alonso had a strong race Nelson Piquet did not. A trip through the gravel early on was followed by a rash move down the inside of Sebastien Bourdais putting himself and the unfortunate Toro Rosso driver out of the race. The second Toro Rosso was eliminated on lap one as Sutil barged his way into Coulthard and spun. Sebastian Vettel rounded the turn and had no option but to crash into his countryman.

There was plenty of bad luck around today, but the good luck seems to have fallen on Kovalainen who has escaped serious injury after a heavy crash.

Earl ALEXANDER
© CAPSIS International