‘09 Belgian Grand Prix – Saturday Qualifying – Giancarlo Fisichella scores Force India’s first Pole Position

Giancarlo Fisichella scored Force India’s first-ever Pole position of their F1 career as he drove a superlative lap to take P1 at the Qualifying session for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps. It sure was a long time in coming and despite the steady improvements the team has been bringing into each of the last few races, no one expected a pole position for the team! Getting into Q2 and score points were their targets and they sure did better on the first one, can tomorrow’s race see them achieve their second target! I sure hope they do…

Toyota’s Jarno Trulli will start second on the grid as the Toyotas finally came good. So did the BMW’s who have Nick Heidfeld starting on P3. Rubens Barrichello will start fourth on the grid with Robert Kubica and Kimi Raikkonen behind him. Timo Glock, Sebastian Vettel, Mark Webber & Nico Rosberg make up the top ten on the grid.

Q1 was a very good session for Force India as Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil were 1-2 atop the timesheets as the chequered flag fell and even though it was just the first session, it bode well for the team. A good way to impress the bosses at Ferrari since Fisichella’s being rumoured to fill-in for Felipe Massa for the last five races of the season! Luca Badoer again propped up the rear of the grid and to add insult to injury, he span out on his last flying lap and that was that! The ones to be relegated were Sebastien Buemi, Jaime Algersuari, Kazuki Nakajima, Romain Grosjean and Luca Badoer. Fernando Alonso escaped relegation by the skin of his teeth as he made a mistake on his flying lap and just scraped through another run just as the flag fell and so did Hamilton, who was teetering on 15th and must be thanking the heavens that no one went any faster!

‘09 Malaysian Grand Prix – Sunday Race – Jenson Button wins a truncated wet race

The Malaysian Grand Prix turned out to be a damp squib – literally as well as figuratively – as torrential rains caused the race to be red-flagged by the end of 33rd lap with Jenson Button leading the race everyone else a lap behind. After a lot of dilly-dallying, it was decided that the race would not be restarted and the top three as they finished in the penultimate lap were: Jenson Button in 1st, Nick Heidfeld in 2nd and Timo Glock in 3rd. Since the race finished before 75% of the laps could be completed, only half points would be awarded.

It was a disappointing ending to what started off as a frenetic race and with the prospect of rain looming large, some interesting passing manoeuvres and lotsa pit-stop gambles were expected. We did have some amount of that but it was a pity that it couldn’t be carried all through the 56 laps.

Initial predictions said rain will arrive into 10 laps of the start but that never happened and we had a delightful start to the race. Nico Rosberg was the quickest off the blocks and emerged in the lead at the end of turn one. Robert Kubica stalled his BMW on the grid and did get going but ultimately ended after half-a-lap with fire billowing off his engine. Heikki Kovalainen was another first-lap casualty as what looked like a driveshaft failure caused him to spear off the track. Fernando Alonso had a great start and was up into third place behind Rosberg and pole-sitter Jenson Button and managed to hold off much of the field behind him for the better part of the initial laps but ultimately had to give in to the lighter cars behind. At the back of the grid, both Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton had good starts and crept up into the top ten.

Hamilton Penalised; Belgian Grand Prix win handed to Massa

In an interesting development, the Belgian Grand Prix victory was handed over to Ferrari’s Felipe Massa as the stewards decided to penalise Lewis Hamilton for his overtaking manoeuvre on Kimi Raikkonen by handing him a 25 second add-on. This drops him to 3rd place and promotes Massa and Heidfeld to 1st and 2nd respectively.

Ferrari’s Felipe Massa has been declared the winner of Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix after McLaren’ Lewis Hamilton was handed a 25-second time penalty following the race. Hamilton drops to third place as a result, with BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld moving up to second. Hamilton was penalised after stewards decided he had gained an advantage by cutting the final chicane in his late-race battle with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen. McLaren plan to appeal the decision.

The revised result means that rather than extending his championship lead over Massa, Hamilton now sees it cut, with the Briton heading the Brazilian by just two points, 76 to 74, with five races remaining. [Source: Formula1.com]

This surely throws a spanner in Hamilton’s Championship hopes and increases Massa’s chances dramatically. Though if McLaren win their appeal (and I think they will), the advantage is back with Hamilton!

Belgian Grand Prix – Sunday Race – Raikkonen loses to the rain

Rain was the biggest hero/villain at the Belgian Grand Prix after it came down with just 5 laps to go and changed the entire complexion of the race (and probably the World Championship!). Hero, because it shook up the race like anything at the end and gave us few hold-your-breath moments of racing. Villain, because it had a part in scuppering the chances of Kimi Raikkonen, who had drove a corker of a race up until that time! He and Lewis Hamilton were playing out a humdinger of a race at the top of the pack and with just 5 laps to go, the gap between these two was a mere 2 seconds. Then the rain came and some hectic slipping, sliding, passing and re-passing later, it was Hamilton who emerged unscathed as Raikkonen hit the barriers. Thus ended the Finn’s hope of a fourth consecutive win at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit. The Championship battle also seems over for Kimi as with five more races to go, the gap between him and leader Hamilton has increased to 23 points!

 

Felipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton and Nick Heidfeld on the Podium at the Belgian Grand Prix

Felipe Massa finished the race in 2nd position after Kimi’s shunt and now Ferrari must surely put all their efforts behind him. BMW’s Nick Heidfeld clinched 3rd place after some daring passing moves in the wet on the last lap of the race! Fernando Alonso took fourth place, after pitting and putting on wet-weather tyres on the penultimate lap. Fifth place fell to Sebastian Vettel with Robert Kubica, Sebastian Bourdais and Timo Glock taking up sixth, seventh and eighth places.

The winner maybe Hamilton but the drive of the race was produced by Kimi Raikkonen. What more can be a better way to answer your critics than to get a good start, pull off two overtaking manoeuvres – one over your teammate and another over pole-sitter & Championship leader – & drive a stormer of a race! Of course he took home zero points but it showed that the racing fire is still burning steadily. It was sheer bad luck, coupled with unfavourable conditions and some better level-headed driving from Hamilton that saw Kimi lose out. The Championship race must surely be a two-horse one, with Hamilton and Massa separated by 8 points going into the last 5 races of the season. Robert Kubica jumps into 3rd place with a 1 point advantage over Kimi Raikkonen. It will now be a straight shootout for the title and I feel Kimi will be more helpful to Massa than Kovalainen will be to Hamilton. But again, Hamilton is ahead in points so its pretty much balanced out.

Image Courtesy: BBC Sport

Canadian Grand Prix – Sunday Race – Kubica & BMW’s first Victory

BMW and Robert Kubica took their first ever Formula One victory in a very very unpredictable and topsy-turvy Canadian Grand Prix! In an incident-filled race, BMW scored a 1-2 finish with Nick Heidfeld following his teammate in 2nd position. Red Bull and David Coulthard tasted a rare success with a 3rd place finish. Toyota took the 4th and 6th places with Timo Glock and Jarno Trulli, with Ferrari’s Felipe Massa between them in 5th. Honda’s Rubens Barrichello finished 7th and Sebastian Vettel, who started from the pitlane, took the last point in 8th.

Front-runners Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen were involved in a pit-lane accident and both were out of the race. Adrian Sutil’s stall brought out the safety car and the lead runners pitted, afraid that the pit lane would close anytime. While Raikkonen was at the end of the pit exit waiting for the light to go green, Hamilton ploughed into the back of him and Nico Rosberg hit the back of Hamilton! Kimi’s and Lewis’ cars were damaged beyond repair and both got out, shook hands, and retired into their garages. Rosberg was able to continue after changing the nose wing. After the shakedown, Nick Heidfeld emerged as the race leader and had a 20+ seconds gap over teammate Kubica with a pit stop still to be made. Drivers who were caught out by the marbles on the track included the Renault of Fernando Alonso whilst teammate Nelson Piquet retired with brake problems.

The race threw up a great result for BMW who are just 3 points behind Ferrari in the Constructors’ Championship but more importantly, Robert Kubica is leading the Drivers’ Championship from Hamilton and Massa who’re tied on points with Kimi Raikkonen further behind in 3rd place. This sets up the battle for the title race rather nicely. The next race is in two weeks time – the French Grand Prix at Magny Cours.

Image Courtesy ITV F1