Australian Grand Prix Review

With the car design regulations remaining stable, and the engine freeze making little difference apart from costs savings, it was only procedural changes that were tested for the first time in Melbourne. As could be expected, some worked, some didn’t, and some - especially the safety car rules - didn’t get to be tried at all. But the extension of practice sessions on Friday, and the limiting of the two-race engine rule to Saturdays and Sundays only, ensured more track action on Friday than anyone could remember.

The tyre rules though, forcing everyone to use both of Bridgestone's compounds during the race, did not have a positive impact. The softer compound made little difference to lap times and quickly began to grain, so there was not much variety in tactics because the softs simply were not a viable alternative. As Mark Webber said, tyre strategy was a "no-brainer". That is not to say that the tyre rules won’t spice up the action on a track where both compounds are feasible choices, so we will reserve judgment at this stage.

More importantly, Bridgestone’s lazy solution of putting a small white circle on the sidewall of the softer tyre was a failure. It was hard enough to tell when the car was standing still, let alone when it was in motion. Bridgestone suggests that anything else would be too difficult to implement, and while that may be true of red sidewalls like they have in Champ Cars, why not painting one of the grooves as Sam Michael suggests, or painting a larger circle on the sidewall in yellow or some other non-white colour?

Bridgestone have also argued that, since there are four different compounds (super-soft, soft, medium and hard), which two are taken to each race will change, and therefore which one is the softer tyre might alter from race to race. The point that needs to be remembered is that it doesn’t have to be the softer tyre that gets marked; we simply need a way of distinguishing between the compounds. As long as it is made clear, it doesn’t matter if the marked tyre is the soft compound one week, the hard one the next.

Qualifying proved to be one of the most thrilling sessions since the introduction of the knock-out formula, with less than a second covering the top 16 in segment one. Apart from those we expected to be up there, namely Ferrari, McLaren, BMW and Renault slightly behind, we saw the potential of the Red Bull, the threat that Super Aguri poses with their old Hondas, and fighting efforts from Williams and Toyota. The moral is that one late run in Q1 and Q2 might be too big a risk for some of the front-runners.

Raikkonen’s pole-lap in Q3 was commanding, and after getting away cleanly at the start, it was a comparatively dull race for The Iceman, becoming the first man to win on debut for Ferrari since Nigel Mansell in Brazil in 1989. We suspected that he had been foxing in testing as Felipe Massa seemed to have the edge, and as the weekend progressed in Melbourne, he worked himself into ominous form. Barring one small lapse of concentration late in the race, it was a perfectly controlled 10th Grand Prix victory.

The trifecta of pole, fastest lap and race win was the perfect way to start a year in which he is widely expected to win the World Championship, and to answer the doubters who have question marks over Kimi and Ferrari’s ability to cope without Schumi and Ross Brawn. It also gave him a handy head start over Massa, whose bandwagon many pundits had begun to jump onto, and who proved that pre-race pace means little if it doesn’t come together on a race weekend.

The Brazilian remained dignified by race’s end, but he must have found it galling that, having dominated pre-season testing and Friday practice, a gearbox failure in qualifying and an engine change relegated him to the back of the grid. No matter how stunning the race pace of the F2007, just getting into the points required some serious effort. And to his credit, although he only clawed his way back up to 6th, it had been a tremendous drive on a one-stop strategy.

Massa’s strategy did have some considering a loophole in the tyre rules though. Given his strategy, one could have assumed that he had run on hards throughout. Now the rules don’t appear to say that you need to do a minimum distance on both compounds. What was to stop him from pitting on the last lap, putting on softs, and driving to the end of the pit lane to cross the finish line? Though in fact he didn’t have to, as he had already used his softs, it’s a tactic that doesn’t seem beyond the rules at this stage.

McLaren may have lost, but they had little reason to leave Australia disappointed, having proven that they are Ferrari’s closest challengers and leading the constructors championship after one round. Amazingly, Hamilton’s awesome debut relegated World Champion Fernando Alonso’s performance to workmanlike status. Matched by Hamilton throughout practice and for two-thirds of the race, he did what he had to do to leapfrog into 2nd, but there was nothing special and the spotlight rightly wasn’t on him.

The fact that Fernando was on slightly different programs and missed out on clear laps meant that Lewis was faster in practice, and as expected in his first F1 qualifying session he was just shy of his double-champion team-mate. Having been chopped viciously by Robert Kubica off the line, he then showed the pure racer’s instinct that made him GP2 champion by calmly rounding the Pole, and a startled Alonso, on the outside of his first turn in a Grand Prix! A candidate for overtaking manoeuvre of the year, already.

He was then disarmingly assured throughout the race, despite two minor wide moments at turn 14, kept Alonso behind at the first stop, led on debut, and only fell back after his second stop. It was by far the best F1 debut since Jacques Villeneuve back in 1996, and perhaps even better, for the Canadian had stepped into the best car in F1 and, at the time, did not have a World Champion as a team-mate. Plus Lewis did it with a humble, amiable demeanour and attitude that won him a huge legion of new fans.

But, as feared, gearbox problems struck and, if you discount Scott Speed’s puncture-induced retirement as a real mechanical failure, then Kubica’s was the only mechanical DNF all race. Having perhaps had a slight edge all weekend, Heidfeld claimed 4th but his strategy to run short on softs early on was strange, even if it lifted him to 2nd for a while. He who pits first is always on a severe disadvantage. But Nick pitted first by a significant number of laps, because his tyres couldn’t last a longer stint. That was plain silly.

As for the reigning constructors champions, Renault arrived Down Under knowing they had work to do, and left having confirmed that impression. In truth, Fisichella didn’t perform too badly at all, and his long-run consistency on Friday was impressive. But without the sheer one-lap speed to propel him any higher on the grid than 6th, he was always going to struggle for track position and maximum race pace, and in the end he was a minute behind Raikkonen, and besieged by Massa for 5th place.

Compared to Hamilton, any other rookie would have looked ordinary, but frankly Heikki Kovalainen had a shocker. With the pressure of anticipation coupled to a below-expectation R27, the Finn froze in qualifying, missed the top 10, then responded by trying too hard in the race, going off no less than 4 times. Flavio Briatore never minces words, labelling his performance as “horrible” and “rubbish”, but one wonders if what Heikki really needed was to have the pressure taken off for the next round or two.

Despite having stayed away from the Bahrain test, Williams’ form in Barcelona suggested that they might have been a dark horse, and so it proved. Aided by the confidence that comes through reliability, they were in the top 10 after Friday but missed the last segment of qualifying. Undaunted, they put Nico Rosberg on a superb strategy, his exceptionally long first run vaulting him into the points where he stayed for the rest of the race, claiming 7th as he did in the season opener last year as well.

To be honest, the Austrian had shown signs of race-rustiness in qualifying and race trim, and a one-stop strategy for him wasn’t working, but he would have got a terrific fright when the Red Bull’s undertray came slicing through perilously close to his head. Still, Williams had a lot to be pleased about at the close of the weekend. One wonders if, as they continue picking up points and entrenching themselves in the upper-midfield, their concerns about customer cars might start to dissipate.

Williams could also have the satisfaction of getting one up on their new engine partners Toyota, who once again delivered an inconsistent weekend combining lousy practice pace with an unsorted car, an unexpected turn of speed in qualifying (complete with Jarno Trulli trying to take the rear jack with him out onto the circuit), and an uninspired, drifty race on a conservative strategy that saw both cars outraced by Rosberg’s Williams and under threat from the wayward Kovalainen.

Schumacher did earn a point for 8th which is more than most expected, but teams like Super Aguri and Red Bull showed a great deal more potential than Toyota ever did all weekend. And then there was Honda, living up to their pre-race pessimism with a showing even worse than expected. The Earth Car looked surprisingly good aesthetically on the track, but on-board shots, especially through the last corner, revealed the RA107 was handling like a midget on some dirt track in the American Midwest.

Rubens Barrichello missed the first qualifying cut despite only being 1.035s off the pace, and then last year’s polesitter Jenson Button was no real hope of getting past the second cut. Although Button’s race faltered, hindered by a heavy first stint and then a drive-through for pit lane speeding, Barrichello raced well, starting on softs, passing Jenson on the track, then getting on top of Sato in the pits and tagging onto the back of the Trulli-Kovalainen battle at the end.

REJECT OF THE RACE
David Coulthard
Veteran knew better than to try ambitious move

But still, it was incredible to see Anthony Davidson and Super Aguri well up in practice and Q1, and perhaps slightly unjust that Takuma Sato chimed in to pip Davidson for the final slot in Q3. The Englishman has been around so long in a testing capacity, it was also easy to forget that he was only in his 4th Grand Prix, although his previous 3 races in 2002 and 2005 had been unimpressive, and his performance on the Sunday did little to dispel some lingering doubts about his ability as an F1 racer.

He nearly stalled at the start, squandering his 11th grid position. After being hit by Adrian Sutil, he then suffered back pains that afflicted him for the rest of the afternoon. Sato, meanwhile, may have competed for points, but poor stops from the team not used to having to fight for every tenth of a second in the midfield left him languishing in 12th by the end. Assuming they survive the customer car row with the SA07 as it currently is, they will need to perfect race strategy quickly in order to maximise the car’s potential.

Red Bull will also want to start maximising the RB3 chassis’ promise, having glimpsed that Adrian Newey’s design might ultimately be a rocketship after all, with Webber hauling it to an exceptional 7th on the grid. No one expected it to last, given the myriad of mechanical niggles the team had dealt with all weekend, and of course it didn’t last, the Australian dropping out of the points after the first stops, his fuel flap staying open causing aerodynamic disturbance.

He then dropped to 13th behind Sato thanks to a silly spin entering pit lane for his second stop, but there had been more positives than Webber would have expected initially. Coulthard will need to draw on those positives as well, even if there was little encouraging about his weekend. A poor qualifying and race ended in that ridiculous attempted passing move on Wurz, something completely uncharacteristic for a man of his experience, and with 'Reject of the Race' written all over it.

However, Liuzzi did regroup well, racing strongly to finish only a lap down and just 7 seconds behind Webber, whereas Speed was thrown off the track thanks to his slow front punctures at the worst possible place - the ultra-fast turns 11 and 12. But the latent ability of the RB3/STR2 chassis will have done nothing to reduce the ire of the folk at Spyker, who will be appalled at the thought that, as we predicted, their new car is only around 2.5 to 3s off the pace but still bringing up the rear.

Interestingly, it was Sutil who set the benchmark Spyker pace, his team-mate Christijan Albers driving wildly most of the weekend as if he was rattled by the pace of the newcomer. He was way off the pace in qualifying, started the race from the pit lane in the spare car, and became the first retirement of 2007 by crashing when fiddling with his earpiece! Although his pace was good, Sutil also blotted his copybook with two drive-throughs for ignoring blue flags and crossing the pit exit white line - rookie errors both.

Spyker have of course now protested against the Super Aguris, although it is expected that Spyker and Williams will join in a combined action that will bring in the Toro Rossos and Red Bulls as well, and the stewards in Melbourne have washed their hands of the issue and left it for the FIA, given that it is a Concorde Agreement matter. Frankly, it is an annoying political sideshow. After all, at this stage no one is suggesting that Super Aguri and the Red Bull teams will be thrown out or forced to make new cars.

At most, this is about constructors title positions and the monetary rewards that go with it - matters which most fans don’t care a great deal about. They just want to see good racing. Plus, if it comes down to politics, who are the FIA going to side with? The little Dutch battler, or the influential Dietrich Mateschitz and the Honda B-team, not forgetting that Honda have devoted themselves to the environmental cause which is also high on the FIA’s current agenda.

In the end, Super Aguri, Red Bull and Toro Rosso are all within the letter if not the spirit of the law, and there’s not much the FIA can do about that. Spyker would be better off by showing some pluck and gradual improvement even in the face of adversity whilst stuck at the back. Often it’s teams like that that win over the neutral fans. But unfortunately it looks like the customer car issue will drag into Malaysia, the next round of what is already promising to be quite a riveting season indeed.