Lost Opportunities

The team seemed to be well positioned to change that record with a 1-2 on the grid following qualifying, but after leading for the first half of the race, the red and white cars were once again out chess-played by Ross Brawn resulting in Jenson Button’s third win of the season.

The Brawn cars didn’t sweep qualifying, kicking the rumor mill into high gear and the various team spin doctors claiming that they had closed the gap with recent development. Toyota felt that they were in the driver’s seat. But once the race started (fortunately with zero chance of rain), it became a battle of strategies. Classic Brawn would have seen the brilliant engineer in red coveralls, eating a banana, waiting for the race to come to him. The overalls have changed and I didn’t see a banana, but everything else was classic. The Toyotas came in early for fuel and it was game over.

Without judicious use of the safety car, the race was rather
uneventful and became a battle of who was going to pit and when. Jenson Button, of course, made the most of it, but hot on his heels was the Red Bull of Sebastian Vettel, who managed to hold of Jarno Trulli’s Toyota, filling out the podium. Some people would have thought I had a serious pharmaceutical dependency if I had predicted this podium three months ago. Now it would seem like I was crazy if I didn’t predict a similar result once the circus lands back on the continent.

Lewis Hamilton had his best finish, but the soap opera that has become the McLaren-Mercedes team still seemed like a more interesting story this week. The team has placed the driver into serious spin control, and utterances of not wanting to leave the team or the sport have done little to convince the critics that all is well in Woking. We will see if the tune changes if the team is handed a significant penalty in Paris during the Lie-gate hearing. Mercedes Benz may try and distance themselves from the team now that they have a predictable partner in Brawn F1. With the willingness of the Germans to take more control on the SLR project, one could guess that they would be willing to pull out if it suits their interest.

There was a sigh of relief in Maranello (and most of the rest of
Italy) when Kimi Raikkonen finished in sixth place and earned Scuderia Ferrari their first points of the season. Pretty scary when the tifosi start getting excited about a handful of points. Rumblings in the team indicate that they may write off the rest of the year (sooner than some banks or other car companies are writing off the year) and will focus on the 2010 car. Still way too soon, but make a bag of popcorn, learn Italian and start reading the local press to see the pummeling they are sure to receive.

Alonso received the final point of the weekend; it seems like all of last year’s top teams are having issues this year. All of the
sponsors of those teams will be having second thoughts about renewing. After all, who wants to be seen writing a huge check for a loosing team in a bad economy?

The circus returns to Europe in two weeks. After the fly away races, the teams will have all of the new tricks that the engineers back home have been polishing for the last several weeks. The bar will be moved; the question becomes, Will the other teams catch up or surpass the leaders; or will the current teams be able to squeeze just a little bit more performance out of the new chassis?

Regardless of what happens, it will be interesting.

Race Results

1	BUTTON	Brawn-Mercedes	1h31m48.182s
2	VETTEL	RBR-Renault	+ 7.1s
3	TRULLI	Toyota	+ 9.1s
4	HAMILTON	McLaren-Mercedes	+ 22.0s
5	BARRICHELLO	Brawn-Mercedes	+ 37.7s
6	RÄIKKÖNEN	Ferrari	+ 42.0s
7	GLOCK	Toyota	+ 42.8s
8	ALONSO	Renault	+ 52.7s
9	ROSBERG	Williams-Toyota	+ 58.1s
10	PIQUET	Renault	+ 65.1s
11	WEBBER	RBR-Renault	+ 67.6s
12	KOVALAINEN	McLaren-Mercedes	+ 77.8s
13	BOURDAIS	STR- Ferrari	+ 78.8s
14	MASSA	Ferrari	+ 1 lap
15	FISICHELLA	Force India-Mercedes	+ 1 lap
16	SUTIL	Force India-Mercedes	+ 1 lap
17	BUEMI	STR-Ferrari	+ 1 lap
18	KUBICA	BMW Sauber	+ 1 lap
19	HEIDFELD	BMW Sauber	+ 1 lap
20	NAKAJIMA	Williams-Toyota	+ 8 laps, oil pressure
Fastest Lap	TRULLI	Toyota	1m34.556s

Driver’s Championship Standings

1	BUTTON	Brawn-Mercedes	31 Points
2	BARRICHELLO	Brawn-Mercedes	19 Points
3	VETTEL	RBR-Renault	18 Points
4	TRULLI	Toyota	14.5 Points
5	GLOCK	Toyota	12 Points
6	WEBBER	RBR-Renault	9.5 Points
7	HAMILTON	McLaren-Mercedes	9 Points
8	ALONSO	Renault	5 Points
9	HEIDFELD	BMW Sauber	4 Points
10	KOVALAINEN	McLaren-Mercedes	4 Points
11	ROSBERG	Williams-Toyota	3.5 Points
12	RÄIKKÖNEN	Ferrari	3 Points
13	BUEMI	STR-Ferrari	3 Points
14	BOURDAIS	STR-Ferrari	1 Point

Constructor’s Championship Standings

1	BRAWN-MERCEDES	50 Points
2	RBR-RENAULT	27.5 Points
3	TOYOTA	26.5 Points
4	McLAREN-MERCEDES	13 Points
5	RENAULT	5 Points
6	BMW SAUBER	4 Points
7	STR-FERRARI	4 Points
8	WILLIAMS-TOYOTA	3.5 Points
9	FERRARI	3 Points