Effwun's F1 Blog

Fernando Alonso took a dominant victory in the Australian Grand Prix to stamp his mark on the 2006 F1 season. Kimi Raikkonen was second in teh McLaren, and ralf Schumacher took the final podium position to give Toyota its first podium of the year.

The race was incident packed to say the least, and the drama started before the lights even went out - Juan Pablo Montoya spun his McLaren coming out of the last turn whilst trying to warm his tyres, and then couldn't get his car turned around before the rest of the field had passed him (and thus, according to the rules, he would have to start at the back of the grid). Montoya's bacon was saved, however, by the fact that Fisichella, who lined up second on the grid, stalled (as we would later find out because of a clutch problem). This necessitated an aborted start and a further formation lap, during which Montoya was able to reclaim his place on the grid. During the new formation lap, the camera cut to a replay of Ross Brawn laughing heartily, presumably at Montoya's slip up.

So the cars lined up back on the grid, with the second place spot empty, and when the lights went out, the action started! Button and Alonso both got good starts, but Button had to defend his position with vigour into turn 1, as Alonso was clearly the quicker of the two. In the background, we just got the faintest glimpse of some contact in turn 1, but we wouldn't see what would transpire until almost the end of lap 1. More about that later though...

Into turn three, Alonso tried an optimistic pass around the outside, but Button quite forcefully closed the door. It was at this point that a yellow flag came out for the turn 1 incident (but again we wouldn't see why for a little while yet). Further down the road at turn 5, 9th placed Trulli attempted to pass David Coulthard, and the two collided. Coulthard was forced wide into the gravel, but kept going. Trulli spun, and his race was done, his car stalled and jammed in gear (I assume, because the marshalls coudn't get the Toyota moving).

More drama was to come! Coming out of the turn 9/10 chicane, Montoya got the run on Raikkonen, and almost had a pass made into turn 11 - the two McLarens came very close to touching. However, it would have all been for nought - the yellow flags were already waving to indicate that the safety car was out. This didn't stop 5th placed Ralf Schumacher from having a look at Montoya's McLaren (and this behaviour would become controversial later on).

So we finally got to see what all the fuss was about - Massa backwards in the wall in turn 1 with a very second hand looking Ferrari - the second he had stripped bare in two days, having done the same thing in qualifying. As the field streamed by to complete lap 1 (yes LAP 1), Nico Rosberg toured into the pits sans rear wing, clearly having got caught up in the lap 1 melee. Even more nonsense followed, as a replay showed Fisichella, having started from the pit lane, spun in turn 1 whilst under the safety car, almost certainly because of cold tyres.

Back to Rosberg in the pits - the young German leapt out of his Williams and limped away with what Bob Varsha called "hotfoot" - he obviously got burned by something hot in the cockpit, possibly steam from a broken radiator.

The replays finally showed what happened in turn 1 - Klein and Massa got together, and Massa was forced into the back of Rosberg. Massa got a touch airborne, turned it around, and slammed into the wall to become the easiest possible choice for the Phillipe Alliot award...

An interesting, if pointless, piece of trivia was that on lap 2, Yuje Ide set the fastest lap of the race, albeit under the safety car.

Now, here was something strange - at the start of lap 2, under the safety car, Montoya was in 4th place, but at the start of lap 3, still under the safety car, Montoya was now in 6th, with Ralf and Webber ahead of him. How on earth this happened, I am not sure. Perhaps Montoya went off track? Anyway, I am not sure that either Ralf or Webber passed Montoya legitimately.

At the end of lap 3, the safety car came in. Button had dropped back and was desperately trying to warm his tyres. Alonso was tucked right up behind him, got the jump on Button, pulled out to pass and crossed the line just 0.029s behind Button. Alonso was clearly faster, and easily took the lead away into turn 1. Button looked to be struggling for grip on the slippery surface with cold tyres, as he slithered his was around turn 1, and fell into the clutches of Raikkonen, who swarmed all over the Honda.

Further back, Webber made a bold pass around the outside of turn 9 to take 4th away from Ralf, with Montoya just behind him. Montoya dived inside Ralf into turn 11 to take the place away. David Hobbs's comment was telling though "How'd Montoya get back there?", clearly confused as I still am as to how Montoya dropped 2 places under the safey car. Ralf seemed to be going backwards, fast, as Heidfeld closed up dramatically and looked to make a pass, but by the end of the lap, he seemed to pick up the pace.

Meanwhile, upfront Alonso had pulled out a 2.7s lead over Button in just one lap; the top eight as they crossed the line to start lap 4 were Alonso, Button, Raikkonen, Webber, Montoya, Ralf, Heidfeld, Michael.

There was more action on lap 4, this time an accident involving Klein. Under braking for turn 9 (the 9/10 chicane) the rear snapped away from the young Austrian, spearing him into the left-hand retaining wall at high speed, ripping a tyre clean off of its wheel and destroying a distance marker in the process. He slid into a tyre barrier head on with some force, but thankfully walked away unharmed - he would later blame cold tyres for the crash.

On lap 6 or 7 (I am not sure which from the footage!) the safety car again came out to allow the debris from Klein's crash to be cleared. Under this safety car period, the first signs of trouble for Fisichella showed up - the team came on the radio and asked him to "put the sensor switch to lift-off and tell us the fuel figure" - the team would later say that they lost all telemetry from Fisichella's car, and needed him to relay back the fuel consumption figures for them.

At the end of lap 9, the safety car came back in. Alonso disappeared off into the sunset, having been able to get a lot of heat into his tyres. Button struggled with his tyres, and consequently Raikkonen passed him into turn 1, locking up severly in the process. Button fought back at turn 3, and Riakkonen and Button touched, interlocking their wheels momentarily. Raikkonen maintained his position, but Button dropped back into the clutches of Montoya, who had a good look going into turn 11. The next lap, Button locked a tyre and ran wide in turn 3, almost letting Montoya past.

Things started to hot up at the front - Alonso and Raikkonen traded fastest laps, with Raikkonen seemingly the faster of the two. Raikkonen pulled to within 1.9s of Alonso before Raikkonen, on lap 13, mysteriously put in a lap over two seconds slower than Alonso. It was alter revealed, according to itv-f1.com that the vibrations caused by Kimi's tyre lock-up caused pieces of the front wing to fly off.

Fron there on in, Alonso kept the pace up and pulled out a lead of around 8 seconds before his first stop on lap 20. It was Montoya, however, who made the frist stop of the front runners on lap 18 - he appeared to be two-stopping. Soon after, on lap 20, Button, Alonso, Fisichella, and Ralf all pitted. One lap later, Raikkonen pitted, also two-stopping. All of the stops meant that Webber took the lead. The joy wouldn't last - on lap 23 he coasted to a halt with what appeared to be gearbox problems.

Elsewhere, Ralf incurred a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pit lane, which would drop him down to 9th. Fisichella got a verbal lashing from his race engineer Alan "Bat" Permane for being two seconds a lap slower than Alonso, and that "this shouldn't be possible". well, it turns out it was - he had clutch problems that were losing him a lot of time, which the Renault team would later acknowledge (as an interesting aside, Jarno Trulli would later say that nothing has changed at Renault except that they have changed "Trulli" for "Fisichella", commenting on the criticism that Trulli took whilst at Renault).

Michael pitted on lap 25 - a late first stop of two, and rejoined in 6th ahead of Villeneuve, and behind Button. Michael suddenly found some pace that he hadn't had before, and reeled in Jenson Button at an alrming rate, taking as much as 3 seconds out of Button's lead in one lap. He was clearly flying, running wide a couple of times, and putting his wheels on the grass in turn 1. Finally, on lap 34, his luck ran out. Just moments after Montoya had done the same thing, he ran wide out of the last turn, hit the kerb, and got airborne at an oblique angle. The car was unrecoverable from that position, and he slammed into the wall, and slid across to the pit wall, precipitating the third safety car of the day.

Michael appeared to be unharmed, but as he walked back into the pits, he walked past the Ferrari garage, and into the Toyota garage, then got terribly confused and didn't know which way to turn, before he exited through the rear. Perhaps he hit his head in the collision? Either that or he has a brain tumor.

All of the major players took the opportunity to pit, and Raikkonen took the opportunity to have his nosecone changed. The stop was long, and caused Montoya to stack his pitstop - he had to wait for about 5 seconds for Raikkonen to clear the box.

The safety car came back in at the end of lap 38. Alonso's restart was comfortable, partly because he had the two Midlands between himself and Heidfeld, and Heidfeld could not, of course, pass them before the start/finish line.

There was yet more craziness, however. Practically straight after the restard, Luizzi crashed into the wall between turns 2 and 3 (he claims that he was tagged by Villeneuve, although it is hard to see if there was contact on the video replays - in one angle you can just see Liuzzi and Villeneuve side by side coming out of turn 2, but it is impossible to tell if they were touching). This precipitated the fourth (yes fourth) safety car of the day.

Now here is where it gets confusing. Even though the official "safety car deployed" signal was sent, the SC boards were not being displayed, at least not for a few seconds. The real confusion came between turns 6 and 10. Several cars were passing each other, and I wasn't sure who did what and when. So I looked at the tape in slo-mo - Ralf passed Heidfeld just yards before the first SC board. Montoya, Button, and Fisichella, however, all passed under yellow (Montoya passed Heidlfeld, Button and Fisichella passed one of the Super Aguris). However, no-one was penalised for these transgressions.

Before all of that started, Button tagged the back of Montoya, but there was no damage to either car.

At the end of lap 40, the safety car came back in, and it was a straight fight to the end. Alonso walked away into the sunset, whilst the only real battle on the track was between Fisichella and Button. On lap 46, Montoya ran wide at the exit to the last turn in a near carbon copy of Michael's accident. However, Montoya was able to keep it pointing in the right direction with some incredible car control skills, reminiscent of Nigel Mansell! Bob Varsha described the wild sliding as "porpoising". I guess that's a synonym for fishtailing.

Montoya, however, was not able to continue, because his trip over the kerb dislodged something electronic, and the car coasted to a halt right in front of the McLaren pit.

So, the last few laps of the race trickled away, but there was drama right to the end. At the very last corner of the very last lap, Jenson Button's engine expired in spectacular fashion (a Steve Matchett "Ka-blammo") right in the face of Fisichella. Button could have coasted over the line to gain some points, but instead elected to stop before the line, thus ensuring that he could take a penalty-free engine change for the next race.

And so Alonso took a stunning and easy victory (on the penultimate lap he came on the radio and said "I'm completely relaxed". The response was "I'm fairly chilled out myself mate"!), with Raikkonen a somewhat distant second, despite setting the fastest lap of the race on the very last lap. Ralf managed to keep out of trouble and, despite a drive through penalty managed to come home third. Much to my chagrin...

It was another case of "what could have been" for Jenson Button - I agree with David Hobbs: "It will be interesting to read the Jenson Button book of excuses for this weekend".

And the drama didn't stop with the end of the race. Scott Speed came home 8th, but was given a post-race 25s penatly for passing Coulthard under yellow flags. In the stewards meeting after the race, little Scott apparently lost his temper and used some naughty language and "got physical", landing himself a $5000 fine. Now, can you imagine if he had pulled that with Mansell - he would have got his jaw broken! He then accused the Stewards of siding with Coulthard just because he is the more experienced driver. Well, experience and attitude counts for a lot Scott. Your attitude is, I suspect, being noted.

So, on to the San Marino Grand Prix and the first European race of the season. Let's hope that it is a little less crazy than Melbourne was!

Labels: Australia, Formula 1, Grand Prix