A Trend Develops: Ferrari 1-2

By Erik Nielsen
Photos courtesy and copyright Ferrari Media

Again, if you were a Ferrari fan this weekend, life was good. If not, well, maybe it's time to pick another sport to follow. There hasn't been such a lop sided battle in the Middle East since Desert Storm. Still, rather than being a totally Ferrari dominated race, there was some excitement to keep people entertained. It's just that none of it was at the front of the grid.

For the second time this season, Ferrari crunched the numbers correctly and finished a perfect 1-2 with only a 1.3 second gap (but Michael had almost a 10 second lead at the beginning of the last lap). After speaking with some friends from Brazil, I found out that Rubens is known locally as "Burino", Portuguese for "little donkey" because of his runner up status with the red team. He did that job well this weekend.

Technical followers of the sport were concerned that the extremely high temperatures would favor the Michelin shod cars better. There was a shower before the race started and the temperature was much cooler Sunday than it was on Saturday. One less advantage for everyone else.

BAR-Honda is starting to come on strong. They've made excellent use of the money that they were pissing away on Villeneuve and put together a car that is reliable and durable. Jenson Button was on the low level of the podium for the second time this year. He knows that it will be tough to get on the other two, but still, it's not a bad place to be for a tier two car. His team mate, Sato-san, proved that he really is worth his endorsement check and finished fifth.

Flavio's kids also did well this weekend. Jarno Trulli brought his Renault home in fourth and Fernando Alonso finished sixth. Two teams with larger budgets wished they had this level of reliability. Hell, even Jaguar's Mark Webber finished with more points than the silver arrows did this weekend.

Okay, back to the usual suspects. If your wardrobe is all white and blue, Ralf finished with 2 points way the hell back in seventh. A small run in with Sato-san and two of his pit crew capped off a forgettable weekend. His louder mouthed team mate was running as high as third, but mechanical problems near the end caused a drop back to thirteenth. But, remember, he made the move to go to a stronger team next season - McClunken-MerFlaming.

If your wardrobe is all black and silver, well, it might be time to go get some new clothes. McLaren bombed this weekend. Kimi didn't finish. Again. This time with spectacular results. Even Mika couldn't blow an engine like that. One of the best clips of the season will be that engine letting go. David Coulthard showed that it wasn't just the hapless Finn having problems this weekend. After an unexpected pit stop, where the crew basically had the "what? that thing is still running" look on their faces, the lump gave up its ghost at the end of the pit lane. For the people watchers in the crowd, all of this happened in front of Mercedes boss Juergen Hubbert. Not a good way to impress the boss. If Ron Dennis doesn't get his act together, times could get tough at Woking. Maybe the new SLR stretched the team too thin? Let's revisit that thought later in the season.

Toyota captured the first two non points paying positions. All of this with speculation that Ralf will be driving for them next year. Save the money. Develop the car.

The also-rans were just that again. As always.

Well, three races into the season and Ferrari is starting to develop a nice gap. The circus will return to Europe in three weeks, so the teams will be able to bring out all of the goodies that they've been working on. At this pace, it's going to be another Ferrari run away like 2002. It's a great time to be a tifosi, but a boring time to be an F1 enthusiast.