French Grand Prix Circuit de Nevers Mangy Cours 1 July 2007

Race weekend report , Q1. Q2 . Q3 and race times click here

The Race
Kimi Raikkonen needed it - Kimi got it. OK the Ferraris had the upper hand this weekend, Massa making a faultless start with Kimi slipping past Lewis to hold second position until the second pit stop when he managed to leap frog his team mate Felipe Massa who had been held up in traffic during the second stage. McLaren were resounding thrashed this afternoon by Ferrari with Lewis Hamilton a distant third, his team mate providing most of the excitement with his duel with Nick Heidfeld. Fernando had made a number of failed attempts in to the Adelaide hairpin, but frustrated by this, tried something different to catch the German by surprise. No one could have expected he would finally pass Nick at the entry to the super fast Nurburgring corner, with a run on Heidfeld, Alonso pushed his MP4-22 up inside of the BMW giving Nick two options - a big crash or drive straight over the chicane. He was to loose all this hard work in the second pit stop and try as he may he just could not catch the German for a second time. He had hoped that by electing to go for soft tyres in the first stage that he could possibly have overtaken more cars than he did, his overtaking of Heidfeld probably when the tyres were off their best, which made the maneuver even more thrilling and audacious!
Giancarlo Fisichella held off Alonso's late advances to finish sixth, the double World Champion having to settle for seventh. Jenson Button proving his pre race prediction, that the car was better in race form than in qualifying, took the final point to give Honda their first point of the season in the upgraded RA107. Robert Kubica made a convincing return to the cockpit after the horrendous Montreal accident by taking a mightily impressive fourth, having qualified fourth, ahead of team-mate Nick Heidfeld and could have been nominated "Driver of the Day".

Incidents were in the first lap of the race when Anthony Davidson misjudged the turn one concertina affect and sliding into the back of Tonio Liuzzi’s Toro Rosso, collecting the spinning Italian and causing substantial damage both cars. He later admitted his error. At the Adelaide hairpin on lap 1 with the pack streaming through Jarno Trulli left his braking too late on the inside of corner, clipped the back of Heikki Kovalainen´s Renault causing the car to spin in front of the pack, forcing the Toyota driver to retirement, Fernando Alonso having to take avoiding action having made up two places by Adelaide. Kovalainen went to the back of the field and then into the pits. Albers Spyker had to be wheeled of the start line as it would not start and his team mate Sutil had an incident in the pits when he drove off with the fuel line still attached to the Spyker!

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Second Friday Practice
Ferrari dominated once more as Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen set the pace in session two, but Scuderia Toro Rosso's Scott Speed was the star with third fastest time.......click here

First Friday Practice
Kimi Raikkonen top as Ferrari dominates. the Finn proved uncatchable at Magny-Cours on Friday morning despite the very best efforts of his team-mate Felipe Massa.
Fernando Alonso had a quieter session, ending up third, some 0.772s slower than Raikkonen's. Lewis Hamilton's engine protection system on his McLaren-Mercedes switched off automatically, stranding him out at the entry to the Adelaide Hairpin on only his third lap but still managed to set the sixth fastest time. Nico Rosberg's fourth fastest time indicates that the new aero tweaks Williams has brought to France are working well.

Felipe Massa - “Our car was very well balanced and we immediately found a good level of grip, along with a consistent performance,” the Brazilian told a media conference at Magny-Cours.commenting on the new aerodynamic package at the Silverstone test, where he topped the timesheets on the final day.

Fernando Alonso admitted in the Thursday press conference at Magny-Cours that switching to Bridgestone tyres has required a big change in his approach to the first seven races of the season. "For me, it has been the tyres, how different they are to drive on,"

Giancarlo Fisichella reckons that Renault now has the measure of BMW. "Obviously for this weekend [the objective] is again to get to the end of the race and to score points. We would like to fight for the podium because it is a very important grand prix for us, but I think McLaren and Ferrari are maybe a step forward, maybe two steps forward..., But I think we are quicker than BMW. Or I hope. And for the rest of the season it is just to make progress as we have so far. I think for Budapest we will have a new front wing which is a good step forward. So, we just make progress in each race and get closer to McLaren, Ferrari and BMW."

Heidfeld confident of BMW reliability asked about the cars reliability at the Silverstone testing last week after his Indy problem?
“No, at the test it was fine.
Actually we tried some new things to rectify the problems that we had at Indy, that I had at Indy. It all worked OK, and actually the parts that failed we had on for a very long time before, also during races. Sometimes you can do so much testing and you still don't know if something will fail just after however many kilometres. We tried to change it and I'm quite sure it's going to be OK now.”

United States Grand Prix Indianapolis - 17 June

Race weekend report , Q1. Q2 . Q3 and race times click here

The Race
Lewis Hamilton drove faultlessly having resisted Fernando Alonso´s initial attack during the first two laps and then later on lap 38 when Fernando pulled out of Lewis´s slipstream and attempted to overtake going into turn 1. Behind at the start Ralf Schumacher and David Coulthard made contact with both drivers having to retire and also Rubens Barichello, but there was no need for the safety car. Learning from Canada McLaren pulled both cars in earlier than anticipated for their pit stop. Hamilton was superior in the first stage, then it looked as if Alonso had the upper hand in the middle sector, but in the third sector with the two McLarens out front and apparently in no danger from the Ferraris they could ease off. It was thought that Kimi Raikkonen´s soft compound would allow him to overtake Felipe Massa but in the end it was the Brazilian that took the third place. Heikki Kovalainen followed up his fourth place in Montreal with fifth place at Indy and 2005 pole sitter Jarno Trulli drove his Toyota into sixth place ahead of Mark Webber, ending his run of bad luck and BMW's teenage ace Sebastian Vettel to eighth, giving him the final point on his debut. Commentators this weekend were alert to the possible tensions between the two McLaren team mates but on the podium the body language was one of friendship today. Nick Heidfeld once again looked strong until he had to retire after 55 laps and driver of the day last weekend Takumo Sato retired after only 13 laps with an off. Had he not retired he would have got a 10 second penalty for overtaking under yellow flags. The stewards have given him a 10 place drop on the grid for the French Grand Prix as his punishment......

US Grand Prix on ITV
Live qualifying Saturday 16 June 1730-1930 ITV4
Qualifying re-run Saturday 16 June 2355-0125 ITV1
Live race Sunday 17 June 1700-2000 ITV1
Highlights Sunday 17 June 2345-0045 ITV1
Highlights re-run Monday 18 June 1800-1900 ITV4

Alonso not 100% comfortable at McLaren

Fernando Alonso has revealed that he has not felt truly comfortable at McLaren since joining the Woking squad last winter.

In an interview with Spanish radio station Cadena Ser, Alonso admitted that he is finding it hard having a British team-mate in a British team – but said he had never expected it to be an easy situation.

“From the first moment, I wasn’t comfortable with everything,” he said.

“It's completely understandable that the results of each Grand Prix are going to provide both the British and the Spanish media with an opportunity to hang on every word that the drivers say - and sometimes quotes are taken out of context which can put a completely different spin on an innocent remark,” Dennis told McLaren’s official website.

At Indianapolis on Thursday, Hamilton told a news conference that he was surprised by Alonso’s comments.

“I find it strange he said that because I feel that ever since he joined McLaren, the team have been extremely motivated to push us both toward winning,” he said.

However this blog has noticed the body language of both drivers for a few races now and they indicated to me that all was not well.

A Spanish friend of mine thinks that Fernando will eventually join Ferrari. I personally think that the amount of media attention on Lewis is being overdone and that maybe this is having an effect on Fernando´s mental attitude. A win at Indy is what the doctor ordered Fernando

Grand Prix du Canada. Gilles Villenueve - 10 June 2007

Race weekend report , Q1. Q2 . Q3 and race times click here

The Race
Please Please said Lewis Hamilton as he came out of the last corner yesterday hoping that he could get his first F1 pole position. Hamilton was slower away off the line than and Alonso looked set to sweep around the outside of the sister McLaren going in to turn one or maybe forced onto that line by a rapidly starting Heidfeld. Alonso outbraked himself and decided to cut across the grass at the first chicane but appeared to damage the underside of the chassis which was to cause problems for the rest of the afternoon, Jenson Button stalling at the start, no gears,having been confident on the grid of picking up some points this afternoon. Lewis had opened up a substantial lead and made his
first pit stop when the first safety car came out when a Spyker crashed into the wall at turn 4.

This was the first of 4 incidents which caused the safety car to come out the worst being on lap 29, when the race went green, the Kubica had an enormous crash after touching the right-rear wheel of Jarno Trulli’s Toyota on the 180mph approach to the hairpin. Prior to this Alonso and Rosberg mistakenly made a pit stop when the the safety car came out, were investigated and given a 10 second drive through penalty. Later Massa and Fisichella as they went to re-join the circuit, they jumped a red light at the exit of the pit lane, whilst Kubica waited, an infringement that led to the Ferrari and Italian driver being black flagged with just 19 laps to go. (Later it was reported that Kubica had sustained a broken
leg).

To cap a quite extraordinary afternoon Sato challanged Alonso in the closing stages out braking Alonso into the final chicane with two laps to go to take sixth, Fernando Alonso possibly yielding rather than making in issue out of the place, attempting "damage limitation" to the afternoon. Fernando said afterwards mistakes were inevitable as he tried to make up lost ground, out-braking himself at turn one for a four time, the last time letting Kimi through. He added about Lewis win - “Very lucky as well as we were on very similar strategies and if the safety car comes one lap before the stop we would have been eighth and ninth today."

There is a "refran" (saying in Spain) that men commit the same mistakes twice, and it would appear that if he had indeed tried to take Hamilton into the first corner that he had made the same mistake as in Barcelona. The team, and drivers, are trying to play down the pressure between the two drivers, but it can only increase. Lewis Hamilton drove a faultless race despite all the pressure and deserves being "nominated driver of the day", but close must be Nick Heidfeld and of course Alexander Wurz who had started twentieth on the grid and in the poles Sato was second favorite for this nomination. Monday - Sato overtakes Hamilton as Driver of the day 60.1 % (3178) v 28.97 % (1532). Walker Murray reckons that Lewis Hamilton could be the 2007 World Champion who says that he is "onanother planet". Will Bernie be running an event on Mars in the not too distant future?