renault completes hat-trick

[melbourne]

alonso and renault takes another victory from what must be the most frantic and eventful grandprix since suzuka last year. renault has won three out of three, and alonso taking 28 points out of the maximum of 30.

a repeat of 2005?

only thirteen cars finished the race, with many of the cars finding the wall due to what i belive to be tyre warming problem. jenson, heidfeld, and michael all seemed to have problem in that aspect, probably judging the weather wrong and thus making wrong tyre choices. furthermore, the race was stopped four times for safety car, and that certainly didn't help warm the tyres.

alonso, however, seemed to have no problem at all with warming the tyres. once he got through the slow-moving button, he sailed away instantaneously. kimi was closed behind, but he had vibration problem due to a flatspot he got after overtaking jenson. ralf did well to get to the final step of the podium, after a drive-through penalty for speeding in the pitlane, had no apparent problem with the bridgestone.

total disaster for ferrari with a weekend gone horribly wrong. massa was the first casualty which brought out the first safety car, which certainly didn't help their hard compound tyres to get warmed up. what more, michael was four second a lap slower and was overtaken by liuzzi in a toro rosso! when the car finally got the speed, the ferrari crashed into the barrier. more embarassingly, a frustrated michael was seen wandering off into the wrong garage after retirement...

further embarassment for fisichella when his engineer lambasted him over the radio about how damn slow he was. the problem is, everyone watching the broadcast heard the message. i wonder how that will hurt his feeling, and more importantly, his career. while alonso was displaying messages of how it was "comfortable" and "chilled out", fisichella got a mean word or two from flavio and symonds.

finally, pole sitter jenson couldn't finish his race and his engine blew at the last corner of the last lap of the race. his engine blew smoke, oil, and fire as he desperately tried to cross the line. i don't believe all those bullshit from nick fry that they've decided not to cross the line, so as to not get a ten slot penalty for changing the engine in imola. the car simply just couldn't cross the line. that was pretty humiliating as well.

the irony is, barichello picked up honda's points even though he was driving like shit. and scott speed got the last point for str, beating coulthard in redbull's team a (colthard got some embarassing message through the radio as well). crazy results.

overall, a very eventful race. lots of great overtaking, good tussles among teammates, nice crashes, and some nice strategies. a little too many safety car for my liking. but imagine without the safety car interruptions, we might just see alonso lapping kimi. 2006 looking to be a complete renault domination again.

winner of the race:
bmw has been improving so fast they have overtaken williams. at melbourne, their efforts paid off having both cars in the points. heidfeld drove a consistent race to finish fourth, while jv got into sixth after starting from the back of the grid. i'm sure bmw will be celebrating after this.

loser of the race:
michael schumacher could have got into the top five; instead he pushed the car, which is actually below par, a little too hard. the pit never suspected him to crash, and you could see their disappointment. although montoya made the exact same mistake, going wide in the last corner and catching that bump on the curb, there's just no excuse for that.



previous posts:
melbourne: jenson grabs pole down under
sepang: sepang revealed more problems
sepang: engine changes dominate qualifying
bahrain: thrilling bahrain
bahrain: an exciting start to 2006


[tagged: honda, melbourne, jenson button, formula 1]