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Articles by Darren Galpin
| McLaren flattered by a safety car - Sun 11th Jul 2004 |
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There was hype, claim and counter-claim, but through it all came the Ferrari of Michael Schumacher as normal. But boy oh boy did he spout some BS over the weekend.
Saturday preliminary qualifying took place amongst rain showers, so a game of cat and mouse was played amongst the teams, with people vying for certain places in order to guarantee where they would start in final qualifying. During Michael’s run, a slight error sent him flying backwards across a gravel trap. Interviewed on ITV after his run, Michael hinted that he had done this deliberately. Pull the other one! I could just about go along with a deliberate spin theory if he had spun at one of the points where there was concrete run-off. In this situation, no damage could be done to the car, and he would have what he wanted. But across a gravel trap? Gravel would have shot into the engine bay, risking damage to the car, and the undertray would have taken a pounding. Plus there is always the risk that the car could have dug in to the gravel and flipped. Given the proximity of final qualifying, Michael couldn’t possibly take this risk, as if he needed to use the reserve car, they would have had to put his race engine in it or face a 10 place penalty on the grid. Face it Michael, you made a mistake. Why not own up to it?
The story of the weekend though was the performance of McLaren, and specifically the car of Kimi Raikkonen. He put his car onto pole position, but there was always a question at the back of the mind – just how much fuel was he carrying? This was answered when 2nd placed driver Rubens Barrichello pitted before he did – there was genuine pace in the McLaren. However, when Raikkonen pitted, Michael Schumacher had clear air and lapped over a second a lap faster than he had done previously. This was enough for him to come back out in first place after his pit-stop, and then he was away.
That was almost race over, even though Kimi managed to keep him within sight for a few laps. Michael was gently motoring away when Trulli’s suspension appeared to give way coming out of Bridge corner, slamming him into the wall and scattering debris across the track. Cue the safety car, and a free pitstop for the rest of the field. This closed all of the field up for the final run to the flag, and led to some pressure being applied by Kimi to Michael, but to no avail – Michael still won, albeit by a far smaller gap than would have been possible. The final gap was only a couple of seconds, but the true gap was nearer half a minute. McLaren have made a good step forward with their new B spec car, but they are not quite there yet.
What was novel in this race was we had overtaking. Not just one or two changes of position, but more than 20. There are long straights, fast corners, and the possibility of taking more than one line. It puts the inadequacies of tracks such as Magny-Cours or the Hungaroring into perspective. It also makes you wonder why the powers that be are always so critical of the track – it is one of the few where you nearly always get a good race, and Formula 1 needs to be doing all it can to keep the interest in the sport.
In the end, what was shown was the superiority of Ferrari, and also of Bridgestone, with the Bridgestone shod Sauber of Fisichella finishing in the points despite starting from the back of the grid. The Ferrari is clearly superior in the faster corners, as evidenced by its faster 1st sector times around Silverstone, and it isn’t really any slower than the others in the slower corners. This points to the car being more aerodynamically efficient than the others. Its that a-word again – the root of all problems in F1 today. Let’s give them barn doors for rear wings, and ban refuelling. We might then even get a Silverstone style race at Magny-Cours. Mind you, I’m sure that I have just caught site of a porcine style object flying over my house as I was typing that.
Quote of the week
“The grid is full of politicians pretending that they are marginally interested in Formula 1.” By Martin Brundle during his grid walk, as he tried to get to Jenson Button for an interview.
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