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 It was a hot day! Not only the audience were sweating buckets, but the pit crews aswell. But they were sweating for other reasons, because with extreme heat and humidity comes trouble.
And trouble came in form of explosions and hydraulic failures all over. First new comer Nico Rosbergs Williams car blew its engine in a spectacular way, shortly after that David Coulthard experienced hydraulic failure, and a couple of laps later the second Williams car gave up with the same problem and Mark Webber had to join his team mate on the side. Fast forward 11 laps and watch Christian Klien park his Red Bull car with, you guessed it, hydraulics failure. Over the remainder of the race we saw Yuji Ide, Scott Speed and Nick Heidfeld all exit the race with various engine and mechanical problems.
Overall, out of 22 cars leaving the grid, only 14 finished the race.
The only one who didn't have to leave the race because of problems with his car, was poor Kimi Räikkönen who got hit by Christian Klein  in the second turn of the 1st lap, effectively ruining his rear suspension and rendering his car impossible to keep on the track and finally sent him onto the grass on the third turn. What can I say, is there a curse on McLaren or on Räikkönen? Cause one of them obviously has some BAD karma to take care of.
One guy that seemed to have nothing but GREAT karma yesterday was Giancarlo Fisichella who not only managed to get a pole position in the qualification, but managed to hold that 1st place through out the race,  putting him on the 1 place in a F1 race for the 3rd time in his career. Good on him!
After a fueling misshap in saturdays qualification, Alonso started on a 7th position and made a daring dash forward in the grid during the comotion of the start and managed to get up to 3rd place right away. However, Jenson Button on seccond place managed to hold him off for the first two thirds of the race.
But with different fuel strategies, Button ended up alone for a while and fought to lap Scott Speed who wouldn't let him pass right away, effectively slowing Button down and thus allowing Alonso to overtake him when Button went in for his re-fueling. Needless to say, Button wasn't happy with new comer american Scott Speed.
Button fought with Alonso for a while trying to regain his position but his Honda just couldn't produce enough speed to overtake Alonso and they finally finished with Alonso on second and Button on third place.
McLarens second car with driver Juan-Pablo Montoya had a pretty uneventful race as the distance to Button and alonso infront of him was too far to catch up, and the distance behind him to Felipe Massa and Michael Schumacher was too great for the two Ferrari drivers to catch up, Montoya drove alone for the major part of the race and finally finished on a fourth place.
Since Ferrari had to change engines in both their cars after engine failures in Saturdays qualification they were penalized and had to start with Schumacher on 14th and Massa on 22nd place. (you're not allowed to change motors so soon before the race as it is considered to give you an advantage)
Alltho starting on 14th instead of 4th as he qualified for, Schumacher was looking strong, but Massa turned out to be even stronger as he managed to overtake his team mate, advancing from last place to finishing on 5th place, with Schumacher practically in the back seat just behind him on 6th place.
 Overall a very eventfull race, perhaps not in the way that many had hoped for, but eventfull still.
It'll be a hard wait now with 2 weeks until the next race starts, this time at Albert Park in Australia, or whats left of it after Larry is done. Seems like a nasty fellow...
But fear not! I'll be back with more F1 news as they come!  |
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