Nick Heidfeld is beginning to sound like a guy worried about his drive for next year. The normally confident Heidfeld has not come close to Robert Kubica at any point this year and now it may be showing.
Although he has been strong during every race, he has had to battle from poor qualifying positions especially in the last 2 races where he qualified 9th and has started no better than 5th on the grid. Robert Kubica on the other hand has had a podium and BMW-Sauber’s first pole position along with finishing higher than Heidfeld consistently.

I think Heidfeld is a pretty good driver, not stunningly fast, and given a pretty good car he usually can get a lot out of it. This year that doesn’t seem to be the case as he has struggled with driving the F1.08 ever since it was launched. He even crashed it during a demonstration. Kidding aside, the F1.07 was a very different animal, one much more suited to Heidfeld’s smooth driving style. It was much easier to handle than the F1.08 which after much development in the last few months is quite fast, but twitchy and very stiff. It requires an aggressive driver, one who wants to tame the car and a driver who likes the car challenging him. Is this Nick Heidfeld?

Nick has complained about the car since the beginning as I said, but now his tone is beginning to soften a bit as he is now admitting that the car is good, but he’s just having a hard time driving it. Maybe he’s come to a realization that he may never be as comfortable in this car this year as he needs to be to be really competitive.

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What’s up with the weather in Barcelona? I read reports that light rain is forecast for some of the weekend, but looking at the weather widget on my right sidebar, the weather forecast looks good. I’ll wait a little longer to be sure. Anyway, time to have a quick look at the 3 top teams and their drivers coming into the Spanish Grand Prix.

At the top of the leader board Ferrari, BMW-Sauber, and McLaren seem to be a little psyched out by each other and really don’t know what to expect. Who knew McLaren would stumble out of the gate and who knew BMW-Sauber would charge to the front. So far the only sure bet is Ferrari.

Kimi Raikkonen looks good to go now after his shaky drive in Australia finishing 1st in Malaysia and 2nd to his team mate in Bahrain. Maybe he had an ear infection in Bahrain that bothered him and maybe he didn’t. I see no reason Kimi won’t be 1st or 2nd this weekend.

Felipe Massa has narrowly escaped the media after easily winning in Bahrain in what seems like years ago now. It’s not unlike Felipe to bounce back after a shaky start to the season and if he has the form of Bahrain he may get some believers back. I think he’ll be in the fight this weekend.

Is the new Ferrari ‘hole in the nose’ effective? I couldn’t tell in testing because Ferrari is fast anyway.

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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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Now that we’ve got a bit of testing out of the way I can begin to see how things may unfold. My big word is “may”. Most teams have put a lot of testing miles on the new cars using both primary drivers as well as test drivers. Weather has been a factor in some sessions (as it should be). There have been long and short stints, simulated qualifying sessions etc.

Since day 1 when Ferrari launched their car and put it through a shakedown, little has gone wrong. They have consistently been at or near the top of testing times with all drivers performing well and the F108 appearing to handle just about every specific test they throw at it. Both Kimi and Felipe are by all accounts happy with what is taking place in their camp and are itching to get the season under way.

The latest from Bahrain has Kimi Raikkonen on top enjoying another good and productive day.

Barring a complete meltdown at Ferrari, this team is going to be tough to beat this year.

McLaren have also for the most part been breezing through testing with no real surprises. The MP4-23 seems to be where they expect it to be at this time. Short testing, long reliability stints, tires, and the car remains at or near the top. Lewis has had a few hiccups, but nothing worth speaking about. Heikki Kovalainen seems so happy to be at McLaren, he can hardly contain himself. That enthusiasm is really showing on track and he has been at the top in testing consistently as well.
Martin Whitmarsh seems happy but predictably subdued:

“The progress we are making is quantifiable and the drive within the team to continue to push remains high.”

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