Race red flagged in Sepang

Jenson Button sealed his 2nd victory with Brawn GP in Sepang amidst utter chaos and drama, when the race had to be stopped due to torrential rain after 32 laps. The race never started again and ‘finishers’ got half points according to FIA rules. Heidfeld, Glock, Trulli, Barrichello, Webber, Hamilton and Rosberg were declared as the points scorers.  Trulli, Webber and Rosberg received their tallies in fractions. And considering the fiercely aggressive competitiveness shown by teams this season, these half points may well decide the champion this year.

This is not a new affair in Formula-1. Here is a list of races that were red flagged. Out of these races, half points were offered at 4 races.

1. Spanish GP, 1975
2. Austrian GP, 1975
3. Monaco GP, 1984
4. Australian GP, 1991

The most significant 1 was Monaco GP, 1984 which changed the whole picture of the season. Mclaren star Alain Prost was declared the winner but got 4.5 points. Interestingly, he lost the season to his teammate  Niki Lauda by only half point!

Back to Malaysia. Before the rain, we witnessed some excellent racing action. Rosberg jumped to the pole from 4th position because of slow start by Button. Alonso found a weirdly empty passage on the grid and he was 5th from his original 9th position by turn 1. Kimi also showed some nerve by making some bold overtaking moves, but subsequently managed to settle down on 6th, gaining only 1 spot. For the first time this season, Brwan cars were struggling for pace. In the middle, Alonso was defending a convoy of Kimi, Glock and Webber for almost 8 laps, before conceading. As nobody was losing time, they were moving like a train as if an imaginary string was attached to them.

Then came the deciding moment; the pit stops. The rain delayed a bit from the initial prediction. As the first batch of cars tooks their first stops, nobody bothered to switch to intermediates. A few laps later, Ferrari brought in their lead driver for the race, Kimi and in a shocking move, put him on not even intermediates but directly on wet weather tyres. All the other drivers being on slicks, Kimi was losing 20s a lap to the race leaders. Ferrari desperately needed rain (I was picturing Stefano Domenicali and Michael Schumacher doing a rain dance in the pits!) Ultimately when the rain finally hit the track and everybody had taken their 2nd stop for tyre change, the classification showed Kimi with only 1 stop but on 16th spot! As always, a bold move by Ferrari ended up in disaster. In this chaos though, Massa surprisingly entered point scoring zone but again caved and ended up 9th.

Brawn GP were criticized for their slow and lazy pit stops in Australia. But here in Sepang, they showed perfection both in strategy and implementation which put Button back on the lead. The rain persisted long enough to summon safety car and finally when the drivers started feeling like swimming with a blindfold in their cars, the race was stopped. The long wait eventually ended with a completely different classification from what we expected.

2009 Formula 1 season Hamilton vs FIA update: FIA 1- Hamilton 0

In addition to the F1 season, I am now following yet another sport which turns out to be highly entertaining. The clash between Hamilton vs FIA is getting yummier. Last season, Hamilton won this game on sudden death by winning the title, which made all the initial troubles irrelevant. Its only been a week this season, and Hamilton already took his 1st blow from FIA. Although this time, it was altogether caused by his constructor.

We got a dramatic start to the season with 1st FIA hearing in 1st week. FIA, which has been trying to confuse itself with self made laws, ruled in favor of Toyota driver Trulli and excluded Hamilton along with its constructor. Surprisingly, this turns out to be a logical and fair judgement! (How often do you see that with FIA!) The stewards took into consideration the tape of team radio instructions to the Mclaren driver and ruled that Mclaren tried to  mislead them. How dumb are these stewards to get disoriented so easily? It takes them 2 hearings to reach such a simple  judgement. Apparently they did not have access to  the team radio tape during the 1st hearing. How convenient! I have started to imagine FIA office like administrative section of my college now. Nobody is accountable and nobody cares about the person on the other end.

Brawn GP creates a history at Melbourne

Ross Brawn is arguably the happiest man on the earth right now and he should be. He managed to put both of his drivers on top in first ever race under his own title, Brawn GP. Button and Barichello were ecstatic as they walked to the podium and the crowd in Melbourne was loving it. Another person who will be as happy as team Brawn is Bernie Eccleston. He got what he wanted; F1 is alive again with a new spirit. (It would be impetuous to claim that the whole season would be as exciting as this race, being that this race was in Melbourne. But the quality of overtaking maneuvers and overall competitiveness was excellent)

The turning point of the race was a crash between Kubica and Vettel. Fighting for 2nd place, Vettel was defending his position with all his might when an idiotic overtaking maneuver by Kubica on a turn kicked them both out of the race. The safety car was summoned and Vettel tried to limp behind it for a couple of laps on 3 wheels, but eventually gave up. This changed the whole picture. Barichello, who suffered an initial blow due to a poor start, jumped right on top with Button and Trulli came 3rd. Hamilton was at right place at right time and manged to score valuable championship points due to his ability to keep cool when others were on a rampage; unlike reckless Ferrari drivers. Both Kimi and Massa had an excellent start thanks to KERS but lost the positions due to poor tyre and fuelling strategies by Ferrari. In addition to that, the amazing skill of both the drivers to go off track without anyone’s ‘Help’ made sure that the team was well out of scoring zone. Just like last year, Ferrari got a start they didn’t want. Newbie Buemi also took advantage of last minute confusion to grab a few extras, along with Alonso.

P.S- Thanks to adamant BCQC Abhimanyu organizers, I had to miss the live telecast of the race. So I planned a media blackout, just like in How I Met Your Mother (The SuperBowl Sunday episode). And it was successful!

Australian GP Qualifying: How did this happen?

I am tempted to compare Brawn GP with a phoenix bird, very much rising through the ashes. A team which didn’t even exist a month ago managed to put both of the drivers on the front row of the grid for the start of the season at Australian GP, 2009. The relentless efforts put by team chief Ross Brawn seemed to have worked perfectly fine. Jenson Button grabbed the pole position followed by team mate Rubens Barichello (And the team managed to get sponsorship from Virgin group) Vettel manged to go 3rd fastest in Q3 to prove that he is worth the trust put on him by Red Bull management.

The biggest disappointment of the day would have to be Alonso and Hamilton, former and reigning world champion. Hamilton barely made it into top 15 but never came on track for Q2. He will start the race from that poition. Alonso failed to make it to the top 10 after all the speculation. He is 12th on the grid. It was a mixed day for BMW. While Kubica will start the race from 4th position on the grid, his teammate Nick Heidfeld managed only 11th spot. Interestingly, Heidfeld was using the new KERS while Kubica was not. Apparently, Kubica’s weight was a problem while accommodating KERS. But it meant better weight balance and that seemed to have worked.Next surprise was Nico Rosberg. He is 5th but he could well end up on the podium tomorrow.

The qualifying started under speculations over the performance of the tricky new rear diffuser designs used by Brawn GP, Williams and Toyota. Their design is able to generate more downforce leading to better car control and cornering speeds. Though FIA has cleared those designs for this weekend, they are still under the scanner and decision to an appeal made by few other teams is under consideration. Whatever the outcome is, it seemed to have worked well for the teams as except for Nakajima, rest 5 finished in top 10.

Ferrari had a rough day. Both the drivers managed to squeeze as much as possible out of a dull F60. Massa will start 7th and Kimi 9th. The car was not tuned properly. At a particular moment in Q3, Massa actually felt that a tyre was punctured! Looks like they will have to witness the others ‘Blitz’ past them tomorrow. Mclaren have already decided to let this race go without even thinking about the points. Force India, well, lets just say this shouldn’t be how a team has to start a season.

One thing is for sure; new rules have rejuvenated the sport like never before. All the teams look extremely competitive and there is hardly anything to seperate between the top 5. This will definitely make the season more interesting.

McLaren Finishes in style

Coolheaded Hamilton won the Australian GP without a hitch and gave team Mclaren a stunning season opening. Teammate Kovalainen finished 5th. Williams and BMW drivers made it to the podium and made it clear that the championship is not going to revolve only around two teams like last year. The germans Heidfeld and Roseberg were 2nd and 3rd.

But the dramatic retirements and accidents of drivers stole the show with only 6 drivers actually crossing the finishing line! Safety car had to be brought out 3 times. Only 8 drivers got classified with 90% completion rule. Barrichello, who crossed the finishing line, was disqualified as he left the pitlane on a red light after his 10sec-stationary penalty for an earlier pit stop blunder. See Results

Ferrari had a very disappointing finish as both the drivers failed to finish the race. Kimi received 1 championship point after Barrichello’s disqualification. The reigning world champ had a rough race. Starting from 15th on the grid after 10 spot penalty of Timo Glock, he managed to reach 8th position on the first lap itself. At the start of 2nd safety car period, Ferrari crew showed some wits by giving a ‘Just-in-time’ call to Kimi and warning him to stay on the track just as he was entering the pits. This saved from losing his track position. Just after the 3rd safety car period his car went off the track during an overtaking maneuver and was thrown at the back. This happened again as he tried to take over Nakajima. Finally, with 3 laps remaining Kimi retired due to engine problem. Massa also retired earlier in the race due to an engine trouble. Ironically, neither of the Ferrari engine car could complete the race today.

The luckiest man on the track was Fernando Alosno. He managed to finish 4th. But again, this was entirely due to reliability of his Renault. He was clearly struggling for speed. The only remarkable overtaking was in the penultimate lap when he took over Kovalainen to regain his own position which he had lost at the previous corner. But their lack of pace will be important factor in the coming race. Let us see how things turn out.

My prediction about Alonso turned out to be wrong. But my other prediction was correct. That was about the accidents due to the track. The major reason for accidents was of course lack of control due to the ban on electronic driver aids. But out of the 8 drivers who crashed out, at least 2 were the victims of the track. Jenson Button crashed his car into the wall when he tried to avoid hitting Anthony Davidson, who was slow due to damaged tires. Had there been a proper run off zone, he would have just lost time. The other 1 was rookie Timo Glock. He went off the track, but there was no proper run off zone at that corner. The grassy patch was very bumpy and so his car lost its contact to the ground, and went tumbling on the track.

This race has shown that absence of traction control and engine braking is going to take its toll. The teams have to be very very careful in the coming races. I really hope the next weekend at Sepang will not be as EVENTFUL’ as this 1. F1 fans will be more than happy, I think, with a less dramatic race.