This weekend sees the final role of the dice in what has been an eventful season, but one I have to say has been marred by politics and paranoia to a degree that has plumbed new depths, even by F1 standards. The FIA and Mr. Mosley in particular have never played with a straight bat, but this season things have gone into meltdown. This weekend sees another ridiculous ruling for the FIA. They have decided that McLaren will have to have FIA appointed official to oversee the McLaren garage, to make sure that Alonso gets the same treatment as Hamilton. What of course Mr. Mosley is saying, in his usual roundabout way, is that McLaren are cheating Alonso out of the title. That McLaren have cheated all year and that any form of humiliation he can heap upon the team will be granted. Strange that Ferrari regularly shafted Schumachers team mates, but no observers were ever sent in the red cars garages. Strange that the FIA let Ferrari run an illegal car in Australia. Strange that they disqualified McLarens constructors points in Hungary for a matter that was purely a matter between two McLaren drivers. If anyone has the right to feel paranoid about what is going on it is Ron Denis, but it is of course Mr. Alonso who sees a conspiracy every time Hamilton goes faster than he does. It is amazing that a governing body should so easily acquiesce to a request from the president of the Spanish motorsport federation to place an observer with one team, to ensure fair play. I wonder if Damon Hill, in his capacity as president of the British Racing Drivers Club, asked Mr. Mosley to send in an observer into the Ferrari garage to ensure that Felipe Massa is given a fair chance to win his home grand prix. Team orders are banned in F1 are they not? I suspect Mosley would call him a moron and refuse any such request. The ‘rules’, whatever the FIA deem them to be, have never been applied in a fair, consistent and even handed way, but 2007 has seen any hint of FIA neutrality go out the window. Please go now Mr. Mosley, while the sport still has a chance to be seen as such. Anyway, rant over, there is a race this weekend. Brazilian GP – Preview. Team orders at Ferrari will of course be to get Massa to help Raikkonen win the race and possibly the title. This will start on Saturday’s qualifying session when Massa will have to compromise his race strategy by qualifying on low fuel, to ensure he can get on the front row of the grid, hopefully to act as a cushion between Raikkonen and the two McLarens. This was the plan in China, but he failed to execute his final flying lap and ended up 3rd on the grid. I would be very surprised if his biggest priority for the weekend is not to stick it on the front row, and a Brazilian on pole for the Brazilian GP would be a good start to the weekend would it not? Of course, there are three things that might stop him, Raikkonen, Hamilton and Alonso. Raikkonen will be flat out all weekend and needs to be on the front row. Even on a lower fuel load, Massa will have to be mistake free to beat the in form Finn. As for the two McLaren drivers, it depends on whether their car will be favoured by the Interlagos circuit, and whether Ferrari have been able get over their problems with the super soft tyre that will be used for Q3. Interlagos is a track that features two fast and flowing sectors which should suit Ferrari, but the slow twisty middle sector makes up around half the total lap time and the longer wheelbase Ferrari will struggle there. Ferrari have struggled with the super soft tyres on the three occasions that Bridgestone have used them, Canada, Monaco and Hungary. All races won by McLaren. They say they have done some work on sorting out the problem, but some doubts have to remain. If McLaren do have a small car advantage, and if Ferrari do still struggle on the supersoft tyres, then the battle for pole should be between Alonso and Hamilton and it is Hamilton who has had the edge over Alonso on the super soft tyres. In Monaco it was Alonso on pole, but Hamilton was carrying a lot more fuel and had his qualifying lap compromised by Webber, on level terms and without Webber, Hamilton would have been easily inside Alonso’s time, despite having more fuel on board. In Canada he had two more laps of fuel, but was still 0.4 seconds faster and in Hungary, Alonso was about to get another shafting before the paranoid Spaniard came up with the wizard wheeze of parking his car in the pit box. So, if, and it is very much an if, McLaren do have the edge on the track and on the supersoft tyres, Hamilton has to be favourite for pole. Yes, but there is a fly in the ointment. Rain. Yes the wet stuff looks like making an appearance for the third race weekend in a row. Did you know that the nickname for the city of Sao Paulo is ‘land of drizzle? Well, it will live up to its name on Friday, but Friday only. The problem for Hamilton is that he has never driven this track before and if we do have a wet or damp track on Friday, his only chance to learn it dry will be the one hour on Saturday morning. Lewis has done very well on the tracks that have been new to him, he has won three of the four ‘new’ tracks this season, but if we do have a wet Friday, it really has to be an advantage to his more experience rivals. So the crucial qualifying session looks to be wide open and a good argument can be made for any of the ‘big 4’. I was hoping that Friday would give a strong indicator of which car the track would suit, but if it does rain, Friday is going to be a bit of waste of time. At this moment in time I am not going to put up any bets for pole position, it is just too close to call. Better to wait until after Saturdays free practice. The fact that the last two races have been wet races means that the most recent form has a cloud hanging over it. Can it be totally trusted? Probably not. Rain muddies the water, but the improvement in the pace of Red Bull and more so their sister team Torro Rosso has been eye catching. Torro Rosso have said that that it is all down to new parts designed for next years car being put on this years car. Whether they can do it in a dry race remains to be seen and again I will hold fire on this. Nico Rosberg has not enjoyed the last two wet races, but he should be able to end his year in the points on a track on which Williams have a good record. His odds to finish in the points look to be a bit of value now as he was in the top 7 for four consecutive races before the rainy season hit F1 and anything above evens looks backable. 4 points Rosberg to finish in the points @ 2.38 with Paddy Power. won 5.52 points Post Friday Free Practice update. Yesterdays free practice sessions were rain affected, just as the forecasters said it would be. At least the second session was drying as the session progressed and there was a small amount of dry runs at the end of the session. The McLarens were quickest, but I wouldn’t read too much into that just yet. The newly resurfaced track was pretty ‘green’ and it is sure to change as more rubber goes down. Today’s session should be more representative. Just one more bet at this stage. 5 points Kovalainen to finish in the points @ 4/5 with Stan James. lost 5 points The price looks too big based on the fact that Kovy has finished in the top 8 on 11 occasions this season, but more importantly 7 of the last 8. He only just missed out in China by 0.4 seconds in what was a bad race for Renault who never got the car set up well for the tyres on that track. The team was much happier after yesterdays free practice and on recent form Kovalainen really should be much shorter odds. |
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