The story Surrounding Rubens Barrichello becoming the most experienced F1 driver ever isn’t a new story by any means. Throughout April many spins were written, but largely focussed on which race would be number 256 and how he may end his career as a big disappointment to Brazilian fans. Funny how controversy and the negative rule in the media, how the real story gets pushed aside as a trade in for readership. Now, a week before the Turkish Grand Prix, I say congratulations to Rubens Barrichello.

Yes, there is some confusion over just how many races he has qualified as having competed in. Statistics from the Grand Prix Guide have the Turkish Grand Prix as his 255th because it doesn’t consider Barrichello to have started the tragic 1994 race at San marino where Ayrton Senna and Roland Ratzenburger died and he himself almost died in a crash in Friday practice. The 2002 Spanish Grand Prix is another sticking point, a race he qualified for, but after encountering problems on the race formation lap, did not actually compete.

There are a few more discrepancies, and if you want to be picky, you may never agree on which race is the 256th. This is the reason the 2008 Turkish Grand Prix has been selected as THE race and that’s just fine with me. When he does compete in this race, Rubens will be surpassing Ricardo Patrese with his 256th grand Prix.

“As a boy, when I looked over the wall at Interlagos to look at Formula One, I always wanted to be there and to be a race winner.”

“I never thought I was going to be the longest driver in F1 history.”

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3 posts in one day is a little off for me, but today, well…it happened.

Another good weather day at Jerez except for the wind. 16 driver were out today and some because of wind ended their day early not expecting to get the data they needed. Lewis Hamilton was one of them, quiting early at 15:00.

Even though wind was a factor, Mark Webber in the Red Bull came out on top with a 1:18.628 in 72 laps and had both Williams right behind. Fuel loads were probably pretty good to achieve those times and clearly Williams has solved their wing mounting problem. Honda continue to struggle with not much difference in their time from yesterday, but at least they weren’t last.
BMW-Sauber with Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica piled on the laps today, but initially had long runs scheduled, but again, wind prevented any clear results and they abandoned that idea.

A few incidents on trace disrupted things a little. Coulthard parked unexpectedly on track and Nelson Piquet jr. copied later with an engine failure, and then Sebastien Bourdais caused a stoppage right near the end of the session.

1. Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1min 18.628secs 72 laps
2. Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1min 19.091secs 98 laps
3. Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota 1min 19.215secs 91 laps
4. Fernando Alonso Renault 1min 19.710secs 104 laps
5. Robert Kubica BMW-Sauber 1min 19.829secs 116 laps
6. Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1min 19.857secs 68 laps
7. David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1min 19.883secs 97 laps
8. Sebastian Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1min 19.889secs 114 laps
9. Nelson Piquet Renault 1min 20.014secs 110 laps
10. Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes 1min 20.152secs 84 laps
11. Nick Heidfeld BMW-Sauber 1min 20.201secs 109 laps
12. Sebastien Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari 1min 20.536secs 76 laps
13. Jenson Button Honda 1min 21.147secs 85 laps
14. Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1min 21.376secs 101 laps
15. Rubens Barrichello Honda 1min 21.710secs 58 laps
16. Adrian Sutil Force India-Ferrari 1min 22.244secs 86 laps

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Technorati Tags: Jerez, Lewis Hamilton, Mark Webber, Red Bull, Williams, Honda, BMW-Sauber, Nick Heidfeld, Robert Kubica

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Day 2 at Jerez is over and the times all in.

McLaren are continuing to improve and are an easy 2nd behind Ferrari. It would have been cool to see Ferrari today so we could see what kind of gaps are left for Mclaren.

I see BMW-Sauber are finally coming to grips (literally) with their car and now posting some respectable times. Robert Kubica up in 3rd, off 4 10ths, that’s 4 10ths behind Lewis in the McLaren, not Ferrari. Nick Heidfeld quite a bit slower than Kubica.

Renault not far off. A great fight is shaping up between BMW-Sauber and Renault.
Force India behind Super Aguri? They did evaluate a number of chassis set-ups in the SA07B interim car. I still expect more from Liuzzi.

Honda Honda Honda, what is happening there. Ross Brawn must be tearing his hair out. Alex Wurz only pulling out a 1:21.950 in 86 laps.

Nick Fry:

“I’m very much enjoying myself, and going home with a sense of achievement as opposed to going home with a sense of frustration that no matter how hard we tried, progress was slow.”

Jenson Button

“The RA108 is completely new which means we are starting from zero in terms of developing the set-up,” he told the official Formula One website. “We are also working on driveability as we adapt to the new ECU.

“These challenges were reflected in our speed at our debut test in Barcelona, especially on single fast laps, but our long-run consistency improved. We have a good basic car with new opportunities for aerodynamics and other areas and a clear plan for addressing any issues in the coming tests.”

Basic car? Honda has so much experience in F1 it’s amazing they can’t come up better by now.

Technorati Tags: McLaren, BMW-Sauber, Robert Kubica, Nick Heidfeld, Renault, Force India, Super Aguri, Honda

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What was more anticipated, the car or the livery?

Honda revealed a different coloured car than we saw earlier this week at their official launch. The launch took place this morning at their headquarters in Brakley.

We’ve already seen the new RA108 on the track in it’s initial shakedown and a little bit of testing and initial impressions are, well, it’s better than last years car.

Honda has reaffirmed it’s commitment to F1 and is determined to revive a hurting team. One process in achieving this was to change direction in car design philosophy and this is exactly what is happening with help from a stronger engineering team with more experience. Ross Brawn having taken leadership has also steered this team in what they hope is a new direction and the right direction.

Livery! Toned down quite a bit and incorporating the teams’s Earthdreams Program. Essintially this is a concept representing Honda’s commitment to harnessing the passion of Formula One and its partners to provide support and investment for good causes through a unique cause related marketing initiative.

I’m really pulling for Honda this year. It was an embarrassing 2007 season Honda who have had such a successful time in F1 over the years. Let’s hope they can shave a few seconds.

Ross Brawn, Team Principal says:

“The RA108 car is a wholly different concept to its predecessors, in terms of its aerodynamic layout and mechanical structure. The design philosophy has been developed to allow greater scope for aerodynamic packaging and exploitation, particularly to facilitate the introduction of performance upgrades through the season.

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Rubens Barrichello has been in the news the past few days with his team, in particular the team’s CEO Nick Fry defending Rubens’ will to win. The jist of what he is saying is that yes Rubens has been around a long time and it is natural to get unmotivated when after driving top cars you get a ‘dog’. He gives Rubens the thumbs up for this year feeling that Rubens will be driven to perform and get everything out of the car. He was also talked up earlier in December by Ross Brawn when he says:

“Rubens has one year remaining of his contract.” “I think the past year was very difficult to judge either driver because of the problems with the car.”

“Personally I think there is no reason not to continue with them (Barrichello and Button) as both have proven that they can win races and they are both on very high standards.

“I don’t have any concerns about the drivers. There are much bigger challenges for the team overall and for me than the drivers.”

That said, Rubens gave an interview after some testing of the new RA108 and I just thought he was a little flat.

He says the car is better than last year’s, but that’s not saying much.

“There is not much to say,” Barrichello told autosport.com during testing at Valencia. “You could quite easily say it is better than the other one. That is not so difficult as the other one was tremendously bad.

“There are small issues like temperature here and there, the small bits we deal with in shaking down a new car. The initial feeling is okay, not bad. We will see what happens.”

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Now that the McLaren-Ferrari espionage scandal is officially over, the teams can get back to the business at hand; preparing for the 2008 season.  We’ve read news story after news story about this for months now and it’s time to move on. 

News stories we would all like to read have been pushed back in the pages to accommodate this mouth watering event and I for one am glad we can move on.  Writing on these scandals can be exciting and feedback and opinions, well, there’s plenty of it, but I’m looking forward to the 2008 season now and am hoping for a relatively clean season.  The team drivers have almost been chosen with prominent names moving about and looking at the drivers lineup as it stands right now, I see some great opportunities for a few notable teams and drivers.

Fernando Alonso signing with Renault again is pushing the team to perform at a much higher level than in 2007.  Fernando quite possibly will have a competitive car and will be in the hunt at every race without having to deal with an ‘interfering’  team mate.

McLaren with Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen and strong backing will be a tough pair to beat.  Heikki with a great package underneath him may push Lewis on the track rather than off and Lewis is looking forward to it.   Now, If McLaren stick to their ‘equal driver’ status, who will be the better driver?

Ferrari have basically maintained a status quo with their drivers and why wouldn’t they.  Both drivers are capable of winning races time and time again and coming off the high of Kimi Raikkonen winning the 2007 championship Ferrari are confident in getting back to the Michael Schumacher winning years.

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It has been an off season of questions surrounding Rubens Barrichello.  Does he stay with Honda or does he shift to Super Aguri or even somewhere else.  These are questions that have been raised and have people wondering what’s up with Rubens?  For now at least, Ross Brawn is giving him the thumbs up at Honda next year and with enthusiasm no less.

It has been quite clear that last year (a complete disaster for Honda) was all about the car (or lack of one).  Huge mistakes were made in the design of the 2007 Honda creating a situation where neither Jenson Button or Rubens Barrichello could drive the car let alone perform well.  Brawn seconds that by saying the main issue for the team does not revolve around the drivers

Rubens has one year remaining of his contract.”   “I think the past year was very difficult to judge either driver because of the problems with the car.”

“Personally I think there is no reason not to continue with them (Barrichello and Button) as both have proven that they can win races and they are both on very high standards.

“I don’t have any concerns about the drivers. There are much bigger challenges for the team overall and for me than the drivers.

We as sports fans and in particular F1 fans are quick to criticize athletes when their performance has dropped or hasn’t been nearly as good as in previous years and this seems to be the case with Rubens.  Rubens spent from 2000 to 2005 at Ferrari as Michael Schumacher’s second and even as second driver, experienced great success.

In his second last year with Ferrari  in 2004, he finished second behind teammate Michael Schumacher in seven of the first thirteen races, but he won both the Italian Grand Prix and the Chinese Grand Prix to clinch second place in the championship with 114 points and 14 podiums.  I don’t mention 2005 simply because of the poorer performance of the Ferrari with the Bridgestone tires.

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