Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonnen
by Erik C. Nielsen
Photos courtesy and copyright Ferrari Media
Red Bull’s second
Sebastian Vettel made the most of his pole position and dominated this week’s British Grand Prix. The young German blew away the competition and brought his Red Bull Racing car home to finish 1-2, setting Brawn GP on notice that the performance gap has been closed.
Mark Webber finished runner up to his teammate and was not in contention of losing the spot towards the closing lap. Red Bull has answered the performance deficit.
Kimi Raikkonnen leaving a pit stop
Rubens Barichello carried the Brawn flag and finished with the third spot on the podium. The Brazilian wasn’t seriously challenged by his fellow countryman, but it was clear that the Brawn team was not having their best weekend. Fourth place went to Fililpe Massa, and the tifosi were just happy that both red cars finished in the points. Being runner up to Red Bull and Brawn doesn’t seem like a bad thing right now. Kimi finished in eighth place, capturing the last point of the weekend and immediately headed to the bar.
Rosberg’s Williams finished ahead of Jenson Button this weekend. This year’s golden child had his worst performance of the season, and in front of his home crowd. Not the result he or the team was looking for. The bright side to this is that the lead he had coming into the race would still have left him at the top of the leader board even if he had a DNF. Jarno Trulli finished in seventh and one has to question how much more of this Toyota will put up with before they decide to exit stage right.
Filipe Massa ahead of the curve…
The race may have been relatively uneventful, but unlike Turkey a few weeks ago, the stands were filled, hopefully demonstrating that F1 racing is predominately a European based sport with a European fan base. Recent expansions of this model to developing markets have not been successful. Regardless of if the FIA or FOTA will be in charge next year, the fans are at the traditional tracks. If there is a good show that those fans think is worth the price of admission they will come in droves. As an outside observer to all of the proceedings and jockeying for position now occurring, it looks like FOTA has passed the point of no return. You can’t be a little bit pregnant, and it seems like there will be a breakaway series with the majority of the players entering that championship. Change is good.
Kimi Raikkonnen watching qualifying
The current model is broken. Racing now is about as exciting as watching a bag of Skittles being flushed down the toilet and trying to determine which color wins. (The wife says that’s what a NASCAR race looks like to her. A bunch of colors circling the BBQ grill.) Unless you are actually at the race, the last several years have been time to sleep on the couch or test drive the fast forward button on your Tivo. This sport (or circus) has been about developing the next generation of technology to find an advantage over the next team. Yes, the budgets are expensive, but that is only because teams keep finding sponsors to pay the bills and no one wants to finish second. It was incredibly refreshing to watch Le Mans last weekend with relatively loose technical regulations and see different solutions to the same problems to find the winner. The road cars you and I drive will be better because of endurance racing. All we have gotten out of F1 has been flappy paddle gear boxes and carbon fiber trim. More show than go, but that’s only a Mondial owner’s opinion. Too much glitz, some tacky glamour, but not exactly the reasons why I started watching this series in the first place back in the late 70s.
And I thought only the drivers had fan clubs.
The season will take its annual spring break and resume at the Nürburgring in three weeks. But just because the racing has taken a break, don’t think that we will not see more battles of the press releases between the various parties. Make a bag of popcorn for the summer and check the web, rather than picking up a paperback to take to the beach.
Race Results
| 1 | VETTEL | RBR-Renault | 1h22m49.328s |
| 2 | WEBBER | RBR-Renault | + 15.1s |
| 3 | BARRICHELLO | Brawn-Mercedes | + 41.1s |
| 4 | MASSA |
Ferrari | + 45.0s |
| 5 | ROSBERG | Williams-Toyota | + 45.9s |
| 6 | BUTTON | Brawn-Mercedes | + 46.2s |
| 7 | TRULLI | Toyota | + 68.3s |
| 8 | RÄIKKÖNEN | Ferrari | + 69.6s |
| 9 | GLOCK | Toyota | + 69.8s |
| 10 | FISICHELLA | Force India-Mercedes | + 71.5s |
| 11 | NAKAJIMA | Williams-Toyota | + 74.0s |
| 12 | PIQUET | Renault | + 1 lap |
| 13 | KUBICA | BMW Sauber | + 1 lap |
| 14 | ALONSO | Renault | + 1 lap |
| 15 | HEIDFELD | BMW Sauber | + 1 lap |
| 16 | HAMILTON | McLaren-Mercedes | + 1 lap |
| 17 | SUTIL | Force India-Mercedes | + 1 lap |
| 18 | BUEMI | STR-Ferrari | + 1 lap |
| 19 | BOURDAIS | STR-Ferrari | + 23 laps, accident damage |
| 20 | KOVALAINEN | McLaren-Mercedes | + 24 laps, retired |
| Fastest Lap | VETTEL | RBR-Renault | 1m20.735s |
Driver’s Championship Standings
| 1 | BUTTON | Brawn-Mercedes | 64 Points |
| 2 | BARRICHELLO | Brawn-Mercedes | 41 Points |
| 3 | VETTEL | RBR-Renault | 39 Points |
| 4 | WEBBER | RBR-Renault | 35.5 Points |
| 5 | TRULLI | Toyota | 21.5 Points |
| 6 | MASSA | Ferrari | 16 Points |
| 7 | ROSBERG | Williams-Toyota | 15.5 Points |
| 8 | GLOCK | Toyota | 13 Points |
| 9 | ALONSO | Renault | 11 Points |
| 10 | RÄIKKÖNEN | Ferrari | 10 Points |
| 11 | HAMILTON | McLaren-Mercedes | 9 Points |
| 12 | HEIDFELD | BMW Sauber | 6 Points |
| 13 | KOVALAINEN | McLaren-Mercedes | 4 Points |
| 14 | BUEMI | STR-Ferrari | 3 Points |
| 15 | KUBICA | BMW Sauber | 2 Point |
| 16 | BOURDAIS | STR-Ferrari | 2 Point |
Constructor’s Championship Standings
| 1 | BRAWN-MERCEDES | 105 Points |
| 2 | RBR-RENAULT | 74.5 Points |
| 3 | TOYOTA | 34.5 Points |
| 4 | FERRARI | 26 Points |
| 5 | WILLIAMS-TOYOTA | 15.5 Points |
| 6 | McLAREN-MERCEDES | 13 Points |
| 7 | RENAULT | 11 Points |
| 8 | BMW SAUBER | 8 Points |
| 9 | STR-FERRARI | 5 Points |