Alonso Sees ‘Red’ Again
For most of the year, Renault’s Fernando Alonso has qualified fifth or so, and still motored forward to take the win. At this weekend’s European Grand Prix at Germany’s famed Nurburgring, he took the pole and most thought that was that - another win for Renault and Alonso. Mr. Schumacher, Michael that is, had other ideas.
Starting from second, Schumacher stationed his Ferrari on the rain light of Alonso’s Renault. The first stops came and went, with no change in the order. “We obviously chose to stay out an extra lap, which honestly doesn’t give you two tenths,” Schumacher said after the race. “The reason Fernando gained the two tenths was because I didn’t get a perfect lap and he obviously did and that’s where it went.”
What did change was Ferrari’s strategy. They - as it turns out - added enough fuel to give Michael three extra laps before having to make a second stop. During those laps he set a series of fastest race laps, pitted, took the lead when rejoining the race, and it was over.
Schumacher won his second race in a row, and has emerged - like I said a month ago - to be the only threat to Alonso and his second World title.
In the post race press conference, Schumacher talked about why he can now challenge for the championship.
“We are good now, because, with the exception of Malaysia where we probably weren’t that competitive, in the rest of the races we had the package available,” Schumacher said. “We didn’t make use of it all the time like in Australia and now it’s just normal development, where you go through the bits and pieces that are coming, aerodynamic, engine and so on where you make little steps. As I said at the beginning, the important thing from now on is who has the quicker rate of development. We have been good, traditionally, in the past, not very good last year but sometimes everybody needs a break.”
Alonso is also concerned about how quick the Ferrari boys have their mount up to speed since returning from the first three ‘fly-away’ races.
“I think we came here with some questions as to how Ferrari will perform here, McLaren, us,” said Alonso. “I think today we saw the normal picture again that we now need something more to win. At Imola we were ready to fight - I think we were quicker than Ferrari during the race but I think here it was a question of time: when do they overtake us? At the first stop, second stop, but it was nearly impossible to keep them behind for sixty laps,” Alonso added.
While most watched the action at the front, Canadian Jacques Villeneuve had an eventful weekend, and by far, his best outing for BMW. JV had been on the pace all weekend, practicing in the top five, and then in qualifying he made it to the final group. He held sixth for a while, before dropping to 8th at the end of the session. Villeneuve was dropped to 9th by the stewards when it was determined that he held up Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella in one of the earlier qualifying sessions. Fisi was incensed, and marched down to the BMW garage to vent at Villeneuve.
“All I can say is that I am really angry - as people probably saw from the TV this afternoon,” Fisichella said. “For me, Villeneuve’s behaviour was unacceptable. As drivers, we know that if you are on the out-lap, you give way to the guys coming past on their quick lap. But Villeneuve didn’t move over, and held me up all the way through the final sector and I lost a lot of time.”
Of course, Jacques didn’t exactly see it that way, and he said, “Giancarlo Fisichella seemed to be really angry and I am not exactly sure what happened. I thought I was ahead of him and I was trying to get out of his way, maybe I slowed him down a little bit but I never thought he was that close to me. I will go and talk to him because it was not done on purpose.”
Maybe a little anger is what Fisi needs, as he actually looked racy towards the end of the race when he managed to get past JV and finished in 6th. Villeneuve ran competitively in the race and came home 8th; most importantly grabbing points for his team, scoring ahead of his teammate (Heidfeld) in the race and moving ahead of him in the points standings - by 1. The BMW is not there yet, but it shows more promise each weekend.
American Scott Speed - the only one out of the four Red Bull cars to finish - had a solid run, finishing 11th.
“I think our pace was even better today than at Imola,” Speed said. “I think I was quicker than Heidfeld (BMW) and the Toyotas. I think we need to sharpen up our pit stops - me and the team - as that’s where we lost time today. But the race pace is great, the car was awesome and I had a good little battle with Heidfeld for a while,” Speed added.
Finally, for the life of me I can’t understand how Nico Rosberg still has hair. By now, I’d be pulling it out if I was him. First, Williams has to change engines, so he starts from the back. Has a fantastic drive up to fifth on a one stop strategy. He comes in on lap 32 - over halfway - and then is back up to sixth once the others stop, and he has to stop again with 11 laps left. Even still, Rosberg fought until the checquered flag, and was rewarded with two points for seventh.
Oh, and Felipe Massa scored his first podium, inevitable considering he’s got MS’s Ferrari at his disposal, but to be fair the little Brazilian did it with fewer tire changes than Schumacher, as he, taking one for the team, used his up when setting up the car - benefiting Michael.
“I am really happy with my first podium, everything has worked fantastically for us this weekend, the car was working perfectly,” Massa said. “My car was very competitive and consistent during the whole race. I did a good race without mistakes which is good for me. Fighting every race is important for us and hopefully now we can.”