Posts Tagged Australia

Well, no-one would have thought 3 weeks ago that the Australian GP would end in the way it did. It was a fairy tale coming true for the Brawn GP team. A month ago no-one was sure whether the team would even be racing this year, never mind win the first race of the season in such dominant fashion. The team didn’t have an engine at the time, and made a last-minute deal with Mercedes to supply them. This engine was cobbled to the Honda gearbox and drive train in record time. Amazingly this resulted in the quickest car on the grid, with bullet-proof reliability.

Everyone thought we would never see Jenson Button or Rubens Barrichello on the F1 grid again. Now they have been rejuvenated, and both are hungry to win races and maybe even the championship. The same goes for the rest of the team. Almost 700 workers were about to lose their jobs, however only about 200 were retrenched in the end.

What’s even more shocking is that both Button and some other drivers (most notably Sebastian Vettel) have hinted that the Brawns have not even shown their true pace yet. Button was never really threatened throughout the entire race, and Barrichello was able to easily fight his way back from eight to fourth on the grid, passing some of the big guns on the way.

As for the rest of the field, only the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel and BMW of Robert Kubica presented even a remote threat to the dominating Brawns. Unfortunately, they fell over each other only a couple of laps before the end of the race. Vettel was on the much softer Bridgestones and was much slower than the BMW, plus Vettel ran wide through turn 1, thus opening the door to Kubica for a pass. Vettel never really had much of a chance of staying ahead of Kubica in the closing laps, and should have settled for third rather than ruining both drivers’ day. If he had just kept a cool head and not outbraked himself, all would have been well.

The crash between Kubica and Vettel resulted in both their cars continuing without their front wings. This resulted in both drivers smashing into the wall in the next corner. Kubica was not able to continue, but Vettel carried on, dragging his left-front wheel along with him. It kind of made sense for Vettel to do this, as the safety car was being deployed due to Kubica’s heavy crash into the wall. This means no-one would have been allowed to pass him while the safety car was out, and he was still in a point-scoring position at the time. Plus, it was only 3 laps before the end of the race, meaning that the race would probably end behind the safety car (and it did). However, Vettel was not able to drive the entire 3 laps on three wheels, and parked his car half a lap later, thus ruining this plan. To add insult to injury, FIA regulations state that no driver may continue with a broken car. Thus they slapped Vettel with a $50,000 penalty. They also awarded a 10 places grid slot penalty at the next race to Vettel, for causing the crash between him and Kubica.

The title contenders of 2008 had a horrible day in Australia. Both the Ferraris started on the softer of the Bridgestones available, which wore down much quicker than expected. Only six laps into the race the Ferraris were more than 5 seconds off the pace. Both had to move their pit stops forward, to put on a set of harder Bridgestones. After this, the red cars showed some good speed, being able to keep up with the Red Bulls and the lone BMW of Kubica. However, the two safety cars ruined any chance they had of a podium finish. Both cars were on target to finish in the points, but neither finished the race. Massa retired with a broken suspension upright, and Raikkonen smashed into a wall. He was able to continue, but stopped in the pits after it was obvious he would finish outside the points.

McLaren didn’t have a much better day. Kovalainen was involved in the first-corner carnage, and retired on the first lap. Hamilton, 2008’s championship winner, fought brilliantly from the back of the grid. His strategy worked great with the two safety car periods, resulting in him finishing in fourth place on the track. He was promoted after the race to third place, due to Trulli being given a 25 second penalty for passing Hamilton behind the safety car. However, despite Hamilton’s unexpected podium, he was never able to match the pace of even the mid-field. His best lap was slower than even the Force Indias.

BMW also had a bad day. Kubica was able to keep up with Vettel into the closing stages of the race, but retired because of the aforementioned crash. Heidfeld retired after the first-corner melee.

Mark Webber in the other Red Bull had yet another horrible home GP. He was hit by Barrichello in the first corner, and sustained some heavy damage to his car, which caused him to lose a lot of downforce. He eventually finished last.

Toyota was another surprise of the first race of the season. Both cars had to start from the pit-lane due to a regulation problem with their rear wings. However, they fought back brilliantly, with Trulli finishing third on the track and Glock in fifth. Due to Trulli’s penalty, in the end he was placed in twelfth and Glock in fourth.

The Williams of Rosberg also showed great promise. He was consistently able to match the front-runners at the start of the race, and would probably have finished on the podium had he not had a problem during his first pit stop. His team mate Nakajima retired in the first corner incident.

The Renaults showed some pretty average pace. They never really featured in any fights, and Alonso was even passed by the McLaren of Hamilton. Alonso was only able to finish in fifth due to everyone having problems in front of him, and Piquet crashed after the first safety car due to his brakes not having enough temperature.

The Torro Rosso’s showed some good potential. They both ran a good uneventful race, and the only rookie of the season, Sebastian Buemi, picked up two championship points in his first race. His team mate, Sebastian Bourdais finished right behind him in eighth place. All in all, a good start for one of the smallest teams on the grid.

Finally, the Force Indias made up the rear of the grid. Nothing special seemed to come from the team, with Fisichella (one of the most experienced drivers on the grid) even missing his pit slot at one point.