My oh my. The Ferrari fans must have had seriously a very bad evening. The Singapore´s night grand prix had all needed to become a fantastic Ferrari-domination-presentation, but in the end, everything turned out to be totally different.
This wonderful track, where watching the race pretty much reminds me of the street races in the US Champ car series, showed us some wonderful scenes yesterday. Even with this result, I think that every F1 fan has to be happy with at least something he saw yesterday. And somehow, Fernando Alonso climbed up to the very top of the podium to get the victory he wanted so much.
The start was pretty unspectacular, which was bit a surprise, just Kubica giving Kovalainen a small knock to show him that he is not afraid of the mclaren. Then a pretty suspicious thing happened. Piquet crashed into the wall, seconds later, Alonso enters the pits, before it gets closed.
I mean, on one hand, it was probably a perfectly timed pit stop, somehow from Alonso's people must have made a fantastic decision to take him into the pits, but on the other hand, someone (including me) could have thought, this was a kind of team-order. Maybe totally irrelevant at this point of season with no chance whatsoever for Alonso to get something in the championship, but anyway..
And there will probably be another talking point where everyone will give his opinion to: The refuelling machines. What happened to Massa and then to David Coulthard in the latter stages of the race, was not just bad luck, it is something that could be seen during the entire season.
And not only this. Either the refuelling mechanism is not really a well-designed-machine, or are the mechanics just making mistakes under pressure. If talking about the under-pressure-making of mistakes, the Slovak commentator Andrej Studenic (a touring car driver as well), had a very good point yesterday by stating, that "there is a thing i have realised about Massa.
As long as everything is OK and without any problems, he keeps on performing superbly well, but if any problem occurs, he starts making mistakes."
This is very true. This year is Felipe's first attempt to reach out for the title, there it is understandable that he makes mistakes (a couple of spins yesterday after the unlucky pit stop), but yet again, Kimi Raikkonen simply has to be criticised. Zero points from the last four races, where from three times he did not finish because a mistake, that is pretty much.
And, although he was really driving superbly yesterday during the race, one pushing over the limit in the worst possible place cost him the race and a few points.
And Lewis Hamilton just keeps on driving and although he is at the moment not better than Massa, he just does not have so much bad luck and does not make many mistakes.
And that is the way how to clinch the title. You have to be consistent and try to make the best out of the situation, but also be mentally strong in case of some unexpected problems (in F1 you can not really expect any problems in advance).
There is just one outstanding thing to say about yesterday. The way Nico Rosberg was pushing his Williams yesterday, was amazing. In my opinion, he would have deserved the victory more than Alonso, but anyway, you had to be fast and must not have received a penalty in order to win the race. Congrats, Mr. Alonso!
Anyway, I am looking forward to the remainder of the season, with Ferrari having the better car and spent their bad luck until the end of the season already, I think Lewis is not yet the World Champion for the year 2008.
1 comments Last one added 9 months ago — Leave a Comment
Anthony 9 months ago
I think once Massa gets into a situation like he was in Singapore he analyzes the situation and if he decides that there is not a point in pushing he doesn't push. I am not sure where he is on gearbox rotation. His engine had taken a beating trying to pull out a lead from Hamilton and then he had to let it cook for roughly a solid minute and half in the pit stop error then the rear tyre puncture.
When you drive on the limit your concentration is at peak you have to slow down due to mechanical telemetry and realizing he had nowhere to go in Singapore and he just shut it down and in doing so yes, he looses his concentration but any driver does at that level. F1 cars are made to drive at their limit and if they are not; the car doesn't behave well brake temps especially. I never heard anything decisive about the Brembo brakes vs whatever everyone else is using but, nursing that Ferrari around a tight track with worn brakes and a potential engine/transmission failure must have been a bitch stuck behind slow cars. Then he got out of his car and patted his teammates on the back and said let's go to Japan. He is not MS or Senna. He has his own personality. I wrote an article on Massa as well and discussion led to comparison to Fittipaldi or Prost. I think if Massa wasn't mentally strong he wouldn't be driving a Ferrari. And he would have thrown a tantrum at Singapore when the team let him down again. He is a quiet introspective self effacing individual. if that is mentally weak,OK.
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