Massa reclaims Istanbul
Formula One cars at the sharp end have become so reliable that one thinks of them rather like a pair of feet. You don’t tend to look down at your feet as you walk. You trust them to do their job and deliver you to your destination. They are reliable as a general rule. But you may sometimes miscalculate things and find that your feet have their own ideas. Stepping onto the smooth marble floor of Liverpool Street station on a rainy morning last week, I learned why leather soles are not universally applauded. On a dry pavement, feet shod like mine were happy feet. They sailed merrily along with no thought to anything but the safe movement of Gitau from points A to B. On a smooth wet floor, well, said the feet, you’re on your own, matey. Thus, I found myself being lifted off the floor, my forehead having been where my feet had left.
Likewise, tyres are notoriously fickle things. We tend to forget that things can go spectacularly wrong in a race on account of the unpredictable nature of tyres. If you are racing a car on a track baking at 52 degrees, subjecting it repeatedly to a series of apexes such as the unique Turn 8, it is not unreasonable to expect that your tyres might just give up. So it was for Lewis Hamilton yesterday. One moment he was making mental calculations about how to leapfrog one or both of the Ferraris in front of him in the final round of pit stops when his right front Bridgestone exploded before his eyes. Then all he could do was wrestle the car for the better part of a quarter of a mile until he could get to the pits. There was quite major damage to the car’s front right wing but Hamilton chose to struggle on and just about managed to get the car home in fifth place; a valiant effort. It could have been a lot worse. On more than one occasion world championships have been destroyed by exploding tyres. Nigel Mansell had to park his car by the side of the track in floods of tears when his tyre gave up at the last race in Adelaide in 1986. Michael Schumacher saw his championship challenge explode in so much rubber at Suzuka in 1999 and all he could do was sit on a wall, distraught, contemplating what might have been.
At this stage in this exhilarating championship any mishap could well prove disastrous. There are now genuinely four championship contenders. Sixteen points separate first and fourth placed men Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen. In between Fernando Alonso is five points away and Felipe Massa a mere fifteen points down. But you’ve got to hand it to Massa. The young Brazilian has developed more than anyone else since his first win a year ago in Turkey. The place seems to have a special resonance for the Brazilian. It is his “special” circuit. Fuelled heavier than his team-mate, Massa dug deep on Saturday and pipped Hamilton to pole position by the skinniest of margins. Raikkonen knew then that the race was lost. The fire in the Brazilian’s eyes said it all. Come Sunday and nobody was going to take away his second Turkish winner’s trophy from him.
If you asked the McLaren team engineers who of their two drivers better deserved to suffer ill luck yesterday they would have said Alonso without hesitation. He unashamedly says he is “owed” because on account of him alone McLaren are six tenths of a second up from where they were last season. Talk about slapping your designers, engineers, test drivers, physicians et al collectively in the face! Prima donnas are not generally loved. Alonso seems determined to be unpopular. Most unwise. Good luck to the man…
I found myself smiling wryly at an interview ITV conducted with Lewis Hamilton on Saturday. I couldn’t help remembering that less than six months ago the lad was almost quivering with excitement at the prospect of meeting people like P Diddy. Now he complains bitterly about being hounded by the paparazzi and saying that he is soon going to be forced to move out of the UK and live abroad if the abuse does not stop. Nothing could have prepared Hamilton for the manner in which the world has taken to him. It will come home to him more clearly when the season is over and he has a little more time to live amongst other mortals. He will be stirred to his core at the realisation that life will never ever be the same again.
The final part of the season always has the best races. The next two, Monza and Spa, are particularly exciting. I have found it difficult to say things about any circuit being “a Ferrari circuit” because this year McLaren and Ferrari have been pretty evenly matched throughout. This is what makes 2007 so exciting.
If anyone ever had any doubts about Formula One they ought to be whacking their foreheads with their palms. Monza here we come in a fortnight.
Gitau
27 August 2007
Likewise, tyres are notoriously fickle things. We tend to forget that things can go spectacularly wrong in a race on account of the unpredictable nature of tyres. If you are racing a car on a track baking at 52 degrees, subjecting it repeatedly to a series of apexes such as the unique Turn 8, it is not unreasonable to expect that your tyres might just give up. So it was for Lewis Hamilton yesterday. One moment he was making mental calculations about how to leapfrog one or both of the Ferraris in front of him in the final round of pit stops when his right front Bridgestone exploded before his eyes. Then all he could do was wrestle the car for the better part of a quarter of a mile until he could get to the pits. There was quite major damage to the car’s front right wing but Hamilton chose to struggle on and just about managed to get the car home in fifth place; a valiant effort. It could have been a lot worse. On more than one occasion world championships have been destroyed by exploding tyres. Nigel Mansell had to park his car by the side of the track in floods of tears when his tyre gave up at the last race in Adelaide in 1986. Michael Schumacher saw his championship challenge explode in so much rubber at Suzuka in 1999 and all he could do was sit on a wall, distraught, contemplating what might have been.
At this stage in this exhilarating championship any mishap could well prove disastrous. There are now genuinely four championship contenders. Sixteen points separate first and fourth placed men Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen. In between Fernando Alonso is five points away and Felipe Massa a mere fifteen points down. But you’ve got to hand it to Massa. The young Brazilian has developed more than anyone else since his first win a year ago in Turkey. The place seems to have a special resonance for the Brazilian. It is his “special” circuit. Fuelled heavier than his team-mate, Massa dug deep on Saturday and pipped Hamilton to pole position by the skinniest of margins. Raikkonen knew then that the race was lost. The fire in the Brazilian’s eyes said it all. Come Sunday and nobody was going to take away his second Turkish winner’s trophy from him.
If you asked the McLaren team engineers who of their two drivers better deserved to suffer ill luck yesterday they would have said Alonso without hesitation. He unashamedly says he is “owed” because on account of him alone McLaren are six tenths of a second up from where they were last season. Talk about slapping your designers, engineers, test drivers, physicians et al collectively in the face! Prima donnas are not generally loved. Alonso seems determined to be unpopular. Most unwise. Good luck to the man…
I found myself smiling wryly at an interview ITV conducted with Lewis Hamilton on Saturday. I couldn’t help remembering that less than six months ago the lad was almost quivering with excitement at the prospect of meeting people like P Diddy. Now he complains bitterly about being hounded by the paparazzi and saying that he is soon going to be forced to move out of the UK and live abroad if the abuse does not stop. Nothing could have prepared Hamilton for the manner in which the world has taken to him. It will come home to him more clearly when the season is over and he has a little more time to live amongst other mortals. He will be stirred to his core at the realisation that life will never ever be the same again.
The final part of the season always has the best races. The next two, Monza and Spa, are particularly exciting. I have found it difficult to say things about any circuit being “a Ferrari circuit” because this year McLaren and Ferrari have been pretty evenly matched throughout. This is what makes 2007 so exciting.
If anyone ever had any doubts about Formula One they ought to be whacking their foreheads with their palms. Monza here we come in a fortnight.
Gitau
27 August 2007
posted by Gitau at 1:15 pm
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