Point2Point

Congratulations to Brawn GP for its 1-2 finish! Great weekend for the team with debut pole position and victory sweep. It's good to see the new Mercedes powered team take the win right out of the box.

xvvvz

Definitely an interesting race and good to see MB power win, especially with a new team that was almost disbanded a few months ago. Button and his car were the class of the field.

I am surprised at Hamilton's ability to get 4th. Yes, others had to crash out but making the most of any situation is part of racing.

Ifari

Lewis has been awarded 3rd place as Trulli was penalised 25 seconds for passing under yellow.
Lewis Hamilton is the best driver in F1.
He makes the most exciting racer since he came on the scene.

BMWEATR

Sweet race and i like the new car configurations, the passing and overall racing was really good! no more follow the leader. Good job to L.H but i see Alonso did pretty good and I pick him to win it all this yr even though i can't stand him!

Nola

Unbelievable. Those Brawns are incredible. And its not even the diffuser... Rubens' broke early on.

tthoang1

Agreed. I was pleasantly surprised that after 2 contacts with other cars, one in the front wing, and the rear diffuser, Rubens was able to finish 2nd. Bravo to JB, RB, and Brawn. I don't know what the court of sporting appeals will say about the diffuser. Bravo to LH for finishing 3rd from 18th on the grid. I was really bummed when he didn't get out in Q2. The Brawn cars dominated the entire race, regardless of the safety car. It's going to be a great year. C'mon Ferrari, get it together!

kchristos

Wait until Adrian Newey implements the enhanced diffuser in the Red Bull cars and they will be a force to beat as well. Vettel qualified third and at certain moments was gaining ground on Button during the race without having the benefit of the diffuser.

The story with Trulli's penalty is a bit strange to me because Hamilton admitted that he was instructed by his team to let him pass by after his incident so why is Trulli being blamed about it ?

tthoang1

With respect to the diffuser issue, apparently since the matter is under appeal, the race results are not finalized until after the appeals court rules. So they'll be racing under a few more races until this happens. I doubt the appeals court will void the decision of the stewards.

tee_tz

One of the best races I've seen LewHam in, no question. The McLaren is way off the pace, but he pushed it to the very limit (even against the Ferrari & Renault at one point). I think if he can get a point in Malaysia, he will have a very good chance at the Championship starting in China (where he's very strong) provided McLaren get it together by then.

Unlike others I'm not jumping on the Brawn wagon. First, I will say congrats! I'm happy that they've managed to get on the grid when just a couple of months ago they were ready to sit out and what an amazing weekend for them. As we all know Brawn began developing that car mid-last season after Honda pretty much 'wrote 2008 off' and started spending towards this year.

There's no doubt the Brawn is quick, but remember Kubica was narrowing the gap on Button BIG TIME on those final laps; he may have ran out of laps in the end, but he would have pushed Button to the finish line. I think if you get the rear difussor on the BMW, you're going to see it move really quick.

Unfortunetely, for McLaren, with only 1 week seperating these opening race weekends, we'll likely see them struggle again and only the same amount of luck could see them get up on points. However, a decent grid position (i.e. 12-15) could see them run a great tire strategy again and wind up in points (who knows). Either way, it's critically that both cars finish the race to help with the development; especially Heikki's.


Tee_Tz.

kchristos

The BMW was quick because Kubica was on the hard tires while Vettel and Button were on the soft ones which degrade massively after a few laps (they become about 4-5 secs slower than the hard ones). In qualifying Kubica had the least amount of fuel out of the rest cars, that's why he qualified reasonably well. In my opinion the team to watch after the solution to the diffuser issue (whether all teams use it or all teams remove it) unless some other team makes a massive improvement, Red Bull/Vettel is going to be the fastest car on the grid.

tee_tz

+1

Red Bull's pace is actually very impressive, and with Vettel you have a highly motivated driver, although prone to mistakes (as you can see).

Yes, the BMW was on the harder compound tires, but it shows you Brawn cannot expect to run away with this. BMW, Red Bull and Williams (Nico set the fastest time of the weekend) are all breathing down their necks and don't think Ferrari & McLaren will sleep the entire season, the time will come, it's a matter of when.


Tee_Tz.

Case1906

Now 1-2-3 for Mercedes Benz powered cars! Great drive by the World Champion for 3rd after starting 18th.

The Toyota cheated and got demoted.

Nola

You do know how this went on right? Trulli went off track so Lewis overtook him... but this happened over yellow flag, so McLaren told Lewis to MOVE OVER AND LET JARNO PAST, to avoid a penalty. Lewis slowed down and moved aside... Jarno says that he thought that Lewis had a problem in his car and simply kept going. To avoid passing Lewis, Jarno would have had to read his intentions and almost stop on track. I don't see this as Toyota cheating at all, and the cynics will no doubt say it was a dirty McLaren tactic.

tee_tz

I think it was simply a honest mistake and case of confusion.

No, the McLaren GARAGE WOULD KNOW that Lewis is rightfully running P3 because the front car has gone off the track, thus allowing the rear car to overtake and change the running order. The problem was that Lewis did not know he was allowed to and tried to cede the position to Trulli, who wasn't allowed to overtake.

Problem for Toyota is it doesn't matter what happened - Lewis' overtake was legal and Trulli's wasn't for the simple fact that Lewis' car was STILL MOVING, slow, but STILL MOVING.



Tee_Tz.

Nola

Are you sure about that?

And now it seems like golden boy was caught lying and they want to talk to him again...

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74137

And this one is more sensationalist

http://en.f1-live.com/f1/en/headline...01193004.shtml

kchristos

"STILL MOVING" is a very vague statement. The pace car is doing speeds of ~170mph on the straight to allow for the F1 cars to keep their engines relatively cool. If Lewis was doing 20mph for example, then to me that would be a reason to assume that there is something wrong and overtake. After this incident, in case some car brakes down or has some damage behind the pace car it could potentially create a situation because the car behind him would be very hesitant to overtake.


I agree with this statement which is basically implies that Trulli didn't make it on purpose and therefore at the very least his banishment should have been one position only and not 10 places!!!

This is ecactly the reason that FIA is reviewing the is indent again, take a look at this:

http://f1.gpupdate.net/en/news/2009/...r-trulli-pass/

It seems that Lewis tried to play a political game again;

"It has now emerged, however, that the World Champion explained to race stewards in Australia that he did not deliberately yield to the Toyota, despite seemingly telling SpeedTV the opposite just minutes before."

"The governing body has also received a copy of McLaren's radio communications from the race, which was not available to race stewards on Sunday night. It is now looking more likely that - if Hamilton is judged to have changed his story - Trulli will reclaim his podium finish, and could mean the Englishman finishes further down the order taking his original fourth position."

Nola

Liar liar pants on fire! One of the many reasons I can't stand golden boy. Or his dad. Or Ron Dennis.

Nola

PS: Now I'm thinking it might be an April Fools joke... !

hakaida442

the donkey is being a crybaby again.
http://www.dailystar.co.uk/motorspor...left-in-rear-/

Nola

AAAhahahahAHAHahahahAhah!!!!!

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/74146

kchristos

and here are the Lewi's interviews and transmissions to his race engineer during the incident:

http://www.fia.com/en-GB/mediacentre..._decision.aspx

It is funny that they told him to "go by the book"! What is surprising to me is that since McLaren was talking to the stewards during the incident, the Stewards should have known that his team told to let Trulli by. It seems that his race engineer didn't tell the stewards during their communication that they instructed Lewis to do so. If that's the case, probably his team has to do something with Lewi's explanation to the Stewards, it may not have been his sole decision to lie to them.

I admire Lewi's strive to get every point he can get but dishonesty is one attribute I despise in people. I was a long time (Hakkinen/Kimi)/McLaren fun but after the spy saga and Lewi's incident with Alonso (I blame both of them) I am no longer a fanatic supporter. At least Alonso did what he did in front of the cameras he didn't try to hide.

Nola

The stewards say that they asked point blank if Lewis let Jarno through, and if there was an order from the team to do so. Lewis and McLaren answered NO to both questions. Then the tapes come out, and the Team indeed gave an order (although they later backed it out), and Lewis indeed says "I already let him through". You could say that in the heat of the moment, neither McLaren nor Lewis actually listened to their words before meeting with Stewards. lewis could have said "I let him through", meaning I didn't defend the position. Also, because the team reversed the order very quickly, it's possible they didn't remember the first order, or thought Lewis was still disagreeing so did not consider it an "executed' order.

Whatever the case, the "damning" part of this is that Jarno must have been in the room, saying that he could not avoid going past Lewis. How could they straight faced deny that there had been an order, and that Lewis They are either disingenious or stupid. And Whitmarsh's attempts at saving face? laughable.

kchristos

Actually hid engineer told him to "Allow the Toyota through" and then Lewis said "OK" !! It was after that that they told him to stay ahead and that they are talking to Charlie and he replied that he let him pass already. To me that indicates a clear communication to his team.


it was after that that Lewis said "I let him pass already"

Nola

If you try to get into Lewis's mindset as God's gift to the racing world, he probably also thinks that "I let Jenson win this GP"

tee_tz

I think it's rather foolish to say Lewis or McLaren somehow cheated for the simple fact that they were trying to establish the rules with the race director. Had Lewis cruised from overtaking Trulli crossing the finish line running P3, he faced a possible 25 second penalty. Yet he does the latter and still loses.

Major problem with F1 today is more action happens off the track than on it. Perhaps I won't watch this weekend's race, I'll wait until Tuesday or Wednesday and find out the adjusted results. For me, it's really simple: Lewis is either 3rd or 4th place, depending on whether Trulli did something legal or illegal on the track.

I understand a lot of people will celebrate this because they hate Lewis Hamilton for being not only the youngest ever World Champion, face of F1 for years and years to come, the most talked about and celebrated driver since Shumi, and like they hated on Shumi -- they'll do the same with LewHam. But for me (as a Hamilton fan as well), I'll accept the disqualification and I'm happy McLaren have let it go for the same reason that I was happy McLaren did not pursue the BMW's illegal race setup at Intelagos 2007 that would have made Lewis world champion; or when Lewis was stripped of his 10 pts in SPa (2008) because it comes down to one thing for the haters:

Lewis will never have a "*" when he wins his world championSHIPSSSSS. He will win them with no help of the FIA, no complaining, and most importantly, on the track!



Tee_Tz.