The 2008 Formula 1 season began this weekend in Australia. There was two big changes introduced this year in Formula 1. These were the standard ECU (developed by McLaren and Microsoft) and the banning of all electronic driver aids. This means no launch control or traction control.
After the first practice session on Friday morning, it seemed as if Ferrari and McLaren were once again set to dominate the rest of the field. However, over the course of the next two practice sessions and qualifying, things started to go pear shaped for Ferrari.
Raikkonen made it through the first stage comfortably, but a small way into the second stage he was struck with a fuel pump problem and attempted to limp back to the pits. Unfortunately, he stopped less than 100m shy of the entry line and was deemed to have stopped on track. He was therefore prohibited from taking any further part in qualifying. Raikkonen would end up in 16th after qualifying, but 15th for the start of the race after Timo Glock was handed two 5 grid position penalties.
Felipe Massa qualified in 4th position. There was some speculation that he was carrying more fuel than those in front of him, but we can’t be certain as I’ll detail later.
It was a great but rather uneventful qualifying session for McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen, who in 1st and 3rd respectively. Perhaps the biggest surprise in qualifying was the excellent pace of the BMW Sauber team. Robert Kubica qualified in 2nd place a tenth of a second slower than Hamilton. Had Kubica not run wide on the exit of turn 12 he would have been on pole. His team mate, Nick Heidfeld qualified in 5th position.
Personally, the race was hugely exciting while also being disappointing in some ways. The ban of launch and traction control meant the start was going to be interesting and it was. At the front end of the field, Massa attemped to pass Heikki Kovalainen at the first corner but as he came alongside he used too much throttle and spun the car hitting the wall relatively lightly, but easily enough to damage the front wing. Thankfully he did not take out Kovalainen.
Further down the pack there was more carnage with Giancarlo Fisichella (who nows drive for Force India) getting some air. Japanese driver Kazuki Nakajima lost his front wing somehow and was involved in an incident with Anthony Davidson, which in turn took out Mark Webber on the first lap. This was hugely disappointing because Webber had good speed earlier on in the weekend.
I’m not going to summarise the whole race, as it’ll be a huge task. But I will say that I was shocked at the huge number of cars that retired during the race. Out of 21 starters, only 7 cars were running at the end!
- Giancarlo Fisichella
- Sebastian Vettel
- Anthony Davidson
- Jenson Button
- Mark Webber
- Adrian Sutil
- Jarno Trulli
- David Coulthard
- Felipe Massa
- Nelson Piquet Jr
- Takuma Sato
- Timo Glock
- Robert Kubica
- Kimi Raikkonen
- Sebastien Bourdais
Every one of those drivers retired from the race. However, Raikkonen and Bourdais were classified as finishing because they made it within 10% of the race distance. Even so, it seemed as if Ferrari would finish the round scoring absolutely no points until Rubens Barrichello was later disqualified for exiting the pit lane under a red light, effectively pushing Raikkonen up into 8th which is worth 1 championship point.
Lewis Hamilton went on to win the race quite easily as he encountered no problems or misfortune. His team mate looked like he had 2nd place in the bag until a safety car meant he could not pit under ideal conditions and ended up finishing 5th. Nick Heidfeld finished 2nd for BMW and Nico Rosberg scored his first podium finishing in 3rd for Williams Toyota.
No doubt there will be a lot of debate in the near future surrounding the ban of drivers aids and whether or not it was the cause of most of the DNFs. Ultimately, even if it was, I think it’s better this way. Bear in mind, this was the first race under the new rules and it will take a few races for the drivers to get used actually racing without TC. No longer can you aim your car where you want it to go and floor the throttle, passing off the hard work to a software program.
One last thing. I always enjoy the coverage of the Australian GP more than any other round of the championship. Why? Well some of it has to do with the increased amount of coverage. We see 2\3 practice sessions, qualifying and the race. Not to mention all the support races. But mostly, because I don’t have to listen to James Allen. He is one of the ITV commentators. Channel 10 use their commentary for all foreign races, while doing the Australian round themselves. At least, that’s how it was last year and the year before and the year before that, etc. This year however, we had to endure his Hamilton deep throating for qualifying and the race. It was TERRIBLE.
I’m guessing Channel 10 felt the need to use them because Neil Crompton no longer works there, after moving to Channel 7 with the V8 Supercars. But still, Greg Rust, Jeremy Shaw and Cameron McConville would have been many times better.
Update – 21/03/08: It seems as if my silent prayers may have been answered. The other day, it was announced ITV has lost the rights to cover Formula 1 to the BBC! This is excellent news, if it means I no longer have to put up with James Allen. Please let this be the case!
