The on track incident between Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso could have ignited the old fires and led to a war of words all throughout the season, but thankfully it hasn’t. Both drivers have been more than civil about it. Truly amazing!

Coming out of the turn, Alonso and Hamilton who was right behind him accelerated hard into the straight. Hamilton had a tow and moved to the right to pass Alonso. Alonso moved to the right too and Lewis ended up into the back of him. Alonso was able to continue and finish the race with a shark bite out of his rear wing as a reminder. Hamilton had to pit for a new nose and never recovered finishing a in an unfamiliar 13th.

Initially it was speculated by TV commentators and track spectators that Alonso ‘brake tested’ Hamilton almost as a sarcastic gesture, but to clear the air, Renault have extracted the car’s telemetry for anyone to see saying this is proof Alonso did nothing. At the time of contact Alonso was on the gas accelerating and had reached 227km/hr with no brake action.

From my vantage point on my couch, it did look like a braking move by Alonso at first look, but after having the benefit of replay, Hamilton was just too close when accelerating faster than Fernando.

In the end, Lewis Hamilton blamed himself saying he let the team down. Fernando Alonso responded later with:

“I think we were running too close and for sure maybe he didn´t realise how close we were. He jumped into my rear wing. I am sure on the first couple of laps, if you are eighth or ninth, you try to recover places too quickly.”

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After the Bahrain Grand Prix

Rubens Barichello, Mark Webber, and Giancarlo Fisichella so far are the standouts in this category with my edge going to Giancarlo Fisichella. I give him the edge over Rubens Barrichello just barely. Fisichella is silencing his critics just as much as Massa has to. After crashing out in Australia, he has rebounded and been very consistent has had 2 strong drives taking his Force to 12th position in the last 2 races. I might just give him a Ferrari to drive.
Honda has improved, no doubt and so has Rubens. By the end of the Bahrain Grand Prix, he was challenging Alonso for 10th place. It may have been a damaged Renault Alonso was driving, but nevertheless Honda has improved so far. I look ahead to Barcelona for the next aero change.
Mark Webber consistent at 7th place the last 2 races. He dropped one grid position in Malaysia starting 6th and finishing 7th. In Bahrain his qualifying was much worse starting 11th on the gird, but pulling again up to 7th. More importantly he has scored points in these last to races.

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It was Felipe Massa’s day to silence his critics by winning the 2008 Bahrain Grand Prix over teammate Kimi Raikkonen. This was a day that belonged to Ferrari from the get go and they never looked back.

McLaren wanted to bounce back after Malaysia, but it was a disaster. Lewis Hamilton couldn’t get his McLaren off the line and felt the wind of 7 drivers pass him by. Not a good way to come back. It didn’t end there when he ran into the back of Fernando Alonso out of turn 12, braking his front wing and wounding his car for the rest of the race. After a pit to replace the wing, he sat in a dismal 18th place a full minute behind Massa. 13 is all he got in the end. Heikki Kovalainen drove a consistent race finishing where he started, but had no pace to match either Ferrari or BMW-Sauber.

The collision between Hamilton and Alonso initially looked like Alonso was ‘brake testing’ Hamilton when Hamilton crashed into the back of him. After the race, Hamilton sort of took responsibility when asked what happened:

“I have no idea. I was behind him, I went to move to the right, he went to the right and I ended up in the back of him somehow. It´s racing.”

Pole sitter Robert Kubica of BMW-Sauber was beaten off the line by Massa and by the end of lap 3 Raikkonen took him for 2nd. That’s the way the top 3 ended up at the end, but interestingly enough, Ferrari were only able to shake Kubica during the middle pit stint and Kubica closed the gap once again.
Now for the first time, BMW Sauber leads the Constructors Championship by a point over Ferrari.

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Here are the results of the F1 2008 Bahrain Grand Prix. As always, results at a glance are on the right side bar with a link to detailed results.

Fastest lap: Kovalainen, 1:33.193

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Another great qualifying and this time it’s BMW-Sauber’s Robert Kubica grabbing pole on his last flying lap inching ahead of Felipe Massa of Ferrari.
As has been the norm lately, BMW-Sauber kept a low profile right up until qualifying and then showed what they really had.

For most of the weekend, Felipe Massa was the story as he topped the time charts just about everywhere he could including in qualifying right up to the end only to lose pole to Robert Kubica.

So far Kimi Raikkonen is flying under the wire and finishes in 4th outside second row and watching Massa take all the Ferrari glory.

Lewis Hamilton showed no ill effects from yesterdays shunt and managed 3rd best time just over a tenth off Massa.

Topping the top 5 is Heikki Kovalainen who still needs to find something extra from himself and his MP4-23 to challenge the new 3 team competition now including BMW-Sauber. However, Nick Heidfeld is frustrated with his car or shall I say his inability to get comfortable with it. He’s not liking the tight and twitchy car as much as Robert Kubica and it showed today with his 6th grid spot behind Kovalainen.

Honda continue to slowly improve as Jenson Button climbed into Q3 for the first time this season. Great drive for him especially since his position is one ahead of Fernando Alonso who will start 1oth. For Fernando, that’s got to hurt especially when he was very hopeful of a Q3. Rubens Barichello drove well, but was bumped in the dying seconds of Q2 and will start 12th.

Jarno Trulli for Toyota really outpaced his teammate Timo Glock. Trulli who of course can qualify with the best of them ended up 7th and Timo struggled to only 13th. I think maybe a top 10 for Jarno is achievable.

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It’s good to have some driving action again rather than the politics and Mosley issue and it started with Friday practice and ended with Lewis Hamilton into the wall and Felipe Massa topping the charts.

Hamilton is ok and his time before the crash netted him the 4th fastest time. Interestingly enough, Hamilton posted the 4th fastest time in both morning and afternoon test sessions.
Lewis must be worrying about Ferrari too much after driving too slow on the race line in Malaysia and now today not realizing he had to attend the medical center after his crash. Lucky for him the stewards left the matter alone after discussion and that Hamilton eventually did report to the center. Get with the program Lewis!

There was a little more excitement when Adrian Sutil and Fernando Alonso came together after Alonso braked late into the corner.

Fernando Alonso wasn’t pleased with his outings today saying they lacked grip and a lot speed that must be worked on before the race.

All in all it was a good day for Ferrari with Massa topping the times in both sessions showing everyone he can drive in the sand, the sand on the track of course. Raikkonen had another and predictably good day with the second fastest time in both sessions.

Bahrain GP, 1st free practise

1 F. Massa Ferrari 1:32.233 20
2 K. Räikkönen Ferrari 1:32.350 15
3 N. Rosberg Williams 1:32.415 23
4 L. Hamilton McLaren 1:32.705 21
5 H. Kovalainen McLaren 1:32.868 20
6 K. Nakajima Williams 1:33.121 24
7 R. Kubica BMW 1:33.333 16
8 J. Trulli Toyota 1:33.539 27
9 D. Coulthard Red Bull 1:33.788 20
10 F. Alonso Renault 1:33.815 19
11 T. Glock Toyota 1:33.929 28
12 M. Webber Red Bull 1:33.950 20
13 N. Piquet jr. Renault 1:33.981 24
14 N. Heidfeld BMW 1:34.106 17
15 S. Bourdais Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:34.235 27
16 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso 1:34.321 32
17 G. Fisichella Force India F1 1:34.892 20
18 J. Button Honda 1:34.915 16
19 R. Barrichello Honda 1:35.174 12
20 A. Sutil Force India F1 1:35.429 22
21 A. Davidson Super Aguri 1:36.145 6
22 T. Sato Super Aguri 1:36.536 6

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When you look at the map of the [tag]Bahrain International Circuit[/tag], it is clearly a long straight and high braking corner circuit. This means the old new phrase is back and that is ‘[tag]traction control[/tag] ban’. These high braking corners and extreme acceleration just might bite some drivers if they lack good grip and if the balance is off.

The track itself reminds me a little of Melbourne without the high speed corners that threw some drivers onto the grass a few weeks ago. Downforce should be a little less than Melbourne and clean aerodynamics at a premium because of 3 quite long straights.

Brakes are another big word for [tag]Bahrain[/tag] again because of the many high braking areas. Looking at the map again and watching the lap with Nick Heidfeld video, it is easy to see braking from over 300km/hr in high gear down to at least second gear 3 times per lap. Between turn 4 and turn 13 is quite a twisty curvy section where their brakes are used almost as much as the gas pedal.

Since this circuit is surrounded by desert sand, grip is an issue in Bahrain with sand always sticking to the tires. Although their is a lot of high braking areas into turns, the lack of high speed turns and a track surface not as abrasive as Malaysia, teams are talking about using only soft and medium compound tires like they did in Melbourne.

[tag]Ferrari[/tag] believe they have a little edge over [tag]McLaren[/tag] this year because of their test session in February. On the other hand, [tag]BMW-Sauber[/tag] are a little worried about wind and the high braking corners. The car is a good car, but is very twitchy as [tag]Robert Kubica says[/tag].

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