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Currently: Reading F1 Magazine (May 2003 edition)
]Introduction - The Race Start - - Force India Eye View
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Introduction [0:00]
- Hello everyone! This is Alianora La Canta and you're listening to La Canta Magnifico Blog Pod, 12th May 2008 edition.
- The Turkish Grand Prix was quite eventful, even if it did have its quiet bits. This podcast aims to provide a good summary of events.
The Race Start [0:16]
- The race was dry but somewhat overcast, with a relatively cool track temperature. The build-up to the race was overshadowed by the GP2 race, where two wild dogs found their way onto the track. One triggered a Safety Car before wandering off again, but the other was struck by Bruno Senna, killing the dog and seriously damaging Senna's car.
- An investigation has (unsurprisingly) been launched, since any animal on the track can cause unjust sporting results - like the groundhog that ruined Anthony Davidson's race in Canada 2007 - and large animals can cause serious injury, like the deer which came close to killing Cristiano da Matta at Elkhart Lake during testing in 2006. No animals were harmed in the course of the Turkish Grand Prix.
- At the start of the race, there appeared to be an electronic glitch because the lights seemed to take forever to turn on. It was a surprise that none of the engines overheated in the extra wait, though perhaps the cool ambient conditions helped.
- The first corner usually produces a crash or two and so it proved in 2008. While Massa began to convert his pole into a good race result, second-placed Kovalainen and fourth-placed Raikkonen had a small collision in Turn 1. Raikkonen appeared to be unaffected - though his race performance never got going, suggesting there may have been hidden damage - but Kovalainen got a puncture and had to pit on lap 2.
- However, both of them kept going, which is more than can be said of Fisichella and Nakajima - their start-of-race collision removed both of them from the race. Had it not happened, it is likely the race would have featured only one retiree. Meanwhile, Vettel and Sutil crashed into each other, leading to both cars needing pit stops as well.
- Sensibly, the Safety Car was called at this point so that the marshalls could retrieve Fisichella's Force India (Nakajima managed to get his Williams to the pit before retiring with damaged suspension and disappeared rear wing). This took a short time and the race restarted on lap 3. The re-start was much tidier than the first start, with Massa once again leading Hamilton. Raikkonen, keen to make up lost ground, became fourth.
- Over the next few laps, Hamilton takes a series of fastest laps in an attempt to catch Massa. The latter begins to respond on lap 10 and takes the fastest lap on the next tour. Hamilton was having none of that and took fastest lap again on lap 12.
Pit Strategies and Kovalainen [3:01]
- The first driver to pit is Alonso on lap 15. Hamilton surprised many paddock observers by pitting a lap later and then having a short stop - which turned out to be the first of three stops. Nearly everyone else settled for two stops because that is the optimal number for Turkey. However, Hamilton had been instructed by Bridgestone prior to the race to take three stops to avoid tyre delamination. His driving style is much harder on the tyres than other people's. Since having a tyre tread flailing around is neither useful nor fun in a Grand Prix (as well as dangerous), Hamilton complied - but it resulted in an unseemly moaning session after the race.
- In the meantime, Kovalainen was staging a fightback of sorts. Having come out of the pits last of all, he passed Sutil on lap 12, then proceeded to take Vettel on lap 17. He was saved the trouble of passing Bourdais because he spun on lap 25. Sebastién was the third and final retirement of the race. It was quite astonishing that there were no conventional mechanical failures whatsoever, only accidents and accident damage.
- Just before Bourdais' spin, Hamilton caught and passed Massa. The ITV crew had time to get completely over-excited about the whole thing before Hamilton had another short pit-stop on lap 32, proving that he was on a three-stop strategy after all.
- Button and Glock were the last drivers to make their first stops, only taking on new tyres and replenishing their fuel loads on lap 31.
- Glock was the next target on Kovalainen's radar. Heikki had made the final sequence of corners his own when it came to overtaking, but Glock put up some resistance. When Kovalainen passed Glock in the early part of the final corner complex, Timo re-passed Heikki on the final turn. However, Kovalainen's McLaren had more engine power than Glock's Toyota, so the position soon became Kovalainen's for keeps. Kovalainen also passed Coulthard's car before the end, but even this only got him 12th place at the finish. A good attempt at a fightback, though not an entirely successful one.
- Raikkonen pressurised Hamilton for second in the latter stages of the race, but it was too little too late, which meant Raikkonen was 3rd and Hamilton was 2nd at the finish.
- Massa was the winner of the race. His position as such was never in serious doubt. This means he looks like a viable championship challenger alongside Raikkonen, Kovalainen and Hamilton. That said, Raikkonen still looks to have the consistency for the title, even if that consistency wasn't on display in the race.
- First of those missing out on a podium were the BMWs of Kubica and Heidfeld. They'd plugged away at the gaps to the leading trio all race without making much of an impression on the gap. Heidfeld, however, had made use of a good start and Kovalainen's misfortune to go from 9th to 5th.
Force India Eye View [6:14]
- The Turkish Grand Prix turned out to be quite an expensive one for Force India. Apart from Sutil having his first race of 2008 where he finished somewhere other than last, Force India didn't get much of anything out of it.
- Fisichella came up with a new definition of overtaking. Nakajima braked a bit early as well. There was a car on the left that had to swerve to avoid Nakajima. Fisichella was right in the path. It's the third time Fisi has found himself in Turkey's near-traditional first-corner composite crash in the past three years (the other time he's raced in Turkey - 2005 - he was on the front row of the grid).
- Sutil fared somewhat better in the first-corner kerfuffle, but still found himself a little closer to the back of Vettel's car than he would have liked. The resulting collision meant that Sutil required a new front wing and Vettel needed a new set of tyres. Sometimes I wonder what the pair of them have done to become so unlucky this year. Some would say it is sophomore syndrome, yet none of the other second-year races seem to have had
quite such drastic turns of fortune...
- It would be fair to say that the concertina effect well and truly caught out Force India in Turkey. Such are the perils of qualifying in 19th and 20th. Until the qualifying problem is resolved, there will remain a danger that such starts as this will be repeated.
- Adrian's race continued after the pitstop, when he was ahead of only Kovalainen. For the third race in succession, a driver of a car generally considered among the fastest found himself stuck behind a Force India wall for a substantial period of time. Kovalainen only got by on lap 12 - having stared at Sutil's rear wing for a considerable length of time beforehand. Later on, he defeated Vettel in the pit stop strategies, meaning he finished 16th out of 17. This is progress for the young German in what has been a difficult year for him. Hopefully this race marks the start of a vast improvement.
- That's all for this episode of La Canta Magnifico Blog Pod. Thank you for listening and have a good day
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Alianora La Canta — 12 May 2008 - Turkish GP Race
