the fans let out a huge groan when michael schumacher fucked up his second qualify by going wide in one of the corners. he only managed to qualify 14th on the grid after qualify 3rd in the first qualify. disastrous.
millions of tifosi were furious and the ferrari boss was disgusted. instantly, michael schumacher went from hero to zero.
i felt totally dejected. i dreaded wanting to watch the race, a race where overtaking is highly impossible and grid position determines the winner. i imagined all the mockery and smirky comments i was going to endure, for yet another race weekend, from my peers rooting for the ferrari/michael oppositions. then i realized that the fight was finally over for the world champions.
however it wasn't meant to be. defying all odds, the genius of michael schumacher came to the race with a vengeance, rampaging through the other drivers by out-maneuvering them and totally crushing them with sheer speed. even after refueling, the car performed flawlessly. eventually, he jumped from 12th to 3rd in a single pitstop after burning the track with fast laps after fast laps.
f1 circus is finally back! i just can't stand the three week absence. with the return, comes newly improved aerodynamics to the cars. here are some notable ones:
the championship leaders indeed leads. it now has the aura of what ferrari used to have and people look to renault to emulate whatever they throw out. how will the contenders react to the above new front wing?
williams has put up the side wings on its chimney. quite a brilliant design, but how will this affects/improves performance? only time will tell. at the moment, the williams isn't threatening anyone.
then there's ferrari, introducing a more realiable and faster(?) f2005. with it came a brand new bargeboard. it seems much larger, with more jagged edges and huge 'teeth'. i got to say the f2005 doesn't look as impressive. somehow it just looks squarish and stubborn. the design might seem a little backward as well. to quote peter windsor:
"Personally, I was a little disappointed to see that the new Ferrari is still basically a development of the old car.
Renault have set new standards with their use of their six-speed gearbox and their V-keel front suspension system, yet Ferrari, with lots of time on their side, have retained their seven-speed 'box and their old, central-keel system."
so are we going to see another renault victory, or is ferrari going to crawl out from their graves? two more days to tell.
Following their sluggish start to the new season, the World Champions introduced the F2005 two races ahead of schedule.
While the new car appeared to have more pace than its predecessors, Rubens Barrichello was hampered by a gearbox failure in second qualifying and failed to score a point while Schumi was forced to retire from the grand prix after a transmission failure.
Tellingly, it was Schumi's first retirement from a grand prix in three years.
Nevertheless, the German has insisted that Ferrari were right to bring forward the car's completive debut.
"I think it was very calculating and it was the best decision we could have taken.
"My feeling is that I picked up some debris on the circuit following Fernando, which may have caused the radiator some problems."
While Fernando Alonso's lead over Schumi is now a significant margin, the World Champion voiced a note of defiance before leaving Bahrain to begin what will presumably be another exhaustive spell of testing.
"We now have three weeks [of testing] to give us extra confidence."
Losers
Michael Schumacher, Ferrari DNF
I may be wrong, but I got the distinct impression that on Sunday morning qualifying Schumi took a lot of fuel out of his car to make sure he got his 63rd pole. The look on his face when he got P2 was almost like he’d been sent to the back of the grid.
Knowing that even if he got P1 the Renault was likely to out-traction him into the first corner, the fact that he was on the front row should have been good enough. But no, there was no wry smile, the joy had drained from his face.
The pole record of Ayrton Senna is the last serious F1 record he doesn’t have, barring Riccardo Patrese’s most GPs. Is The Schum hell-bent on getting four poles in 2005...?
In the race the pace of the Ferrari was certainly up with the Renault, though some of that might be down to the fact that both Ferrari drivers had opted for the soft tyre, which Rubens conclusively proved, didn’t last to the end.
Ferrari
They’re not making many friends in 2005. First they refuse to sign a testing ban with the other nine teams – which you can kind of understand given that they have a test track right outside their factory gates.
Then they sign a deal with Bernie Ecclestone that guarantees them the most money in F1 and gives them a veto on any rule change – which is not particularly fair, but then again they are the biggest and most prestigious name in the sport.
But when their cars break down, they never tell you the reason, and any reason they do give is not necessarily that accurate. "Stone through the radiator…?" And when their cars come in to retire, a rarity indeed, all the mechanics form a wall to prevent any TV pictures getting out.
And while all the other teams allow access to team radio, so that TV fans can get a better picture of the race, Ferrari maintain radio silence. It’s no big surprise really, when Bernie ran his digital service in 2002 they were the only team to say no then.
So if there’s a certain sense of schadenfreude about this dreadful weekend, Schumi’s first breakdown in 58 races, the first new Ferrari not to win on its debut in six years, no points for the Scuderia etc, then maybe they’ve brought a little of it on themselves.
briatore adds salt to the wound [www.planetf1.com]:
A buoyant Flavio Briatore described Fernando Alonso's win at Bahrain as 'very, very easy', and claimed that his dominant Renault team had forced Ferrari into making the apparent mistake of introducing their under-prepared new car ahead of schedule.
Briatore's Renault team have won all three of the opening races of the 2005 season to open up a huge advantage over the World Champions.
The Italian's protégé, Fernando Alonso, has been in dominant form, leading from start to finish in the desert and, once Michael Schumacher had retired with a transmission fault, leaving his rivals trailing in his wake.
"After Michael stopped we dominated. There was no problem at all," beamed Flav.
"It really was very, very easy."
The Renault boss was also unsympathetic towards the plight of the malfunctioning F2005, suggesting that Ferrair had been panicked into making a mistake, in the form of introducing their new car before it was ready, due to Renault’s impressive start to the campaign.
"We are pushing Ferrari are very hard," he told ITV. "This [the F2005s' glitches] was the risk. If you have budgeted the car for Barcelona and you bring it out forty days early? For us it is impossible. Ferrari is a big organisation but today we see..."
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