Fernando Alonso tried his hardest to make winning a second championship in a row look easy this weekend as he led from pole and almost lead every lap to win the British Grand Prix. Kimi Räikkönen and Michael Schumacher attempted to put up a fight, but towards the end, the Spaniard proved that the Renault is the package to beat in 2006.
Michael Schumacher kept things interesting in the championship by finishing second, but he will need to finish ahead of Alonso for most of the remaining season if he really wants to fight for the title. The Ferrari is quick, but doesn't seem to be quick enough to get ahead of a certain blue and yellow car. It was a better finish for the German driver since Monaco and he certainly has talent, but he'll need luck, too, if he wants the tifosi to have reason to cheer at the end of the season.
Kimi Räikkönen stayed in the fight with the would-be-challengers after staying ahead of Michael for the early stages of the race, but in the end, the team couldn't answer Ferraris strategy of amount of fuel or the German's pace on fresh tires to make it really interesting. There's no telling where the Finn will end up next year with hot and cold performances like he has been having.
Giancarlo Fisichella was the first of the non-podium finishers demonstrating that, while he may not be the best driver on the grid, even without much talent, the Renault really is that good. Towards the end of the race, the second blue and yellow car looked like it could catch and pass Kimi, but it didn't come together as Renault would have liked. It was, however, a good high points paying position for a team that wants to win both titles.
Fillipe Massa finished in the middle of a couple of packs in fifth place this race. While fifth is a decent place to end up if you're an also-ran, the expectations for the young Brazilian are much higher than your average second string driver. After all, when the son of the race director is managing a driver's career, you'd expect excellent results, not just a high paycheck that allows for redistribution of wealth once the management cut is taken off the top...
Juan Pablo Montoya drove a race that not many people really paid attention to and finished in sixth place. The only ones that noticed were team mates that weren't cheering for the flying Finn, his family, and the remaining six members of his fan club. He did give Mercedes Benz bragging rights for the short term by finishing ahead of both BMWs, but when you're competing against the likes of Jacques Villeneuve, who really cares.
Speaking of the BMWs (which is now rumored to stand for "Big Money Waste" again), Nick Heidfeld finished ahead, again, of the former world champion. I guess few people remember the dominance of the Williams the year the French Canadian won his only title. It was similar to the dominance of the Renault this year, only difference was some people actually cheer willingly for Alonso. As bad as BMW is doing, they're still doing better than Toyota.
Rosberg was the only other car to finish on the lead lap, but he didn't finish in a points paying position. Williams has definitely been on a slide in performance since the mid 90's and there are no signs of that changing any time soon. He did finish, which could not be said of his team mate after a first lap incident with Scott Speed's Red Bull.
The rest of the field put up what is becoming normal numbers. Rubens Barrichello still isn't the fastest of the bunch, but he is quicker (and can drive more reliably) than the over rated Jenson Button. Hopefully the backers of Honda will stop drinking the KoolAid soon and see that there is better talent available for less. The British fans didn't get the race they were hoping for when their fellow Brit blew the motor and spun on his own oil.
Toyota? There have got to be conversations by now in Japan that start off something like "tell me again what we are doing and why we are spending so much money on Formula One?"
Red Bull? Still there, still selling over-sweetened drinks that are way too expensive. Marketing genius or dumb consumers? I'll let the average reader be the judge on that one.
Midlands? Sucks. Now for sale. Or haven't they always been, now that I think about it.
Not so Super Aguri? Who cares? The only thing about the team that F1 thinks about is where are the moving chicanes now?
On paper it looks like there is a fight developing, but the lead that Alonso has right now seems to indicate that a team will need to make a dominant technical breakthrough to really pull ahead. With two fly-away races next on the schedule, that's starting to look less and less likely, but we will not know until the races are done.
Race Results
