Is it really only May? It is, and the start of ’silly season’ may have begun already for one driver anyway at least. The talk is around BMW-Sauber driver Robert Kubica and who wants him? BMW-Sauber have him this year and have an option on him for 2009, but now Ferrari and Renault have started early and are knocking on his door.

Kubica has driven his BMW ‘to the max’ so far this year and has out driven Nick Heidfeld in just about every race so now his stock is beginning to go up substantially. This hasn’t escaped the eyes and ears of Ferrari and Renault and they have begun poking him to see where he’s at with BMW.

This could all be ‘bogus’ and a ploy on the part of Kubica’s agent Daniele Morelli to ‘up’ his salary and it probably is, but 2009 is an option year for Kubica and maybe a better offer will swing him one way or another.

Problem is, Ferrari have Kimi Raikkonen and don’t plan on sending him packing any time soon. Renault have Fernando Alonso and they hope to not have him packing any time soon either. Where would this leave Robert Kubica then? BMW-Sauber, that’s where.

Kubica is showing a great talent with his aggressive driving style and will to win and with the stats to back him. This doesn’t jive with being a second driver to anyone. BMW-Sauber have a no number one driver policy and so far it works for them. Ferrari and Renault on the other hand have a history of number one drivers and blatantly so, despite weak attempts on their part to convince us they don’t. Felipe Massa is suffering with this and Fernando Alonso certainly wouldn’t take driver equality or number two status under any circumstance.

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This was race that could have been a little boring, but with Lewis Hamilton on a 3 stop strategy and more passing and re passing on the track than usual, there was plenty to watch. In the end, Felipe Massa does own Istanbul Park as he won his 3rd consecutive Turkish Grand Prix.

The race started in typical fashion with the cars bunching up into the first turn. Kovalainen and Raikkonen had a minor touch which slightly damaged Raikkonen’s front wing and punctured Kovalainen’s left rear causing a slow leak. Kovalainen after going in for a tire change re entered the circuit way back. Being loaded heavy with fuel and at the back of the grid, Kovalainen spent the rest of the day fighting hard to move up.

Even though bad luck hit Kovalainen, he put on a good show for us with some great passing. He and Timo Glock went back and forth for a while including a pass and re pass before Kovalainen’s faster McLaren got rid of Glock on the long straight. It was a bitter pill for Kovalainen because in the end 11th was all he could manage.

After Jarno Trulli was almost stopped after being held up in the first turn, Fisichella came storming up behind everyone and before he could even think of stopping his car, he was hard into the back of Nakajima and then up in the air and over top stopping dead in his tracks in the gravel trap. Nakajima with horrible damage to the rear of his car initially thought he could continue, but in the end, both he and Fisichella were the first lap casualties. There was something new however, Sebastian Vettel made it past lap one and actually finished the race.

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After dealing with my host Network Solutions and tearing my hair out, it’s time to lighten things up a bit. Man, I need it for sure.

If you haven’t seen this video of Nick Heidfeld showing off the much improved F1.08 to the employees who helped produce it, have a look. Poor old Nick is much better on an F1 track than he is on a road.

Tags: bmw sauber, nick heidfeld

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Are BMW-Sauber and McLaren Mercedes evenly matched? That depends on who you talk to I guess.
4 races down and the drivers championship standings Ferrari, McLaren, and BMW-Sauber look like this

1. Kimi Raikkonen 29
2. Lewis Hamilton 20
3. Robert Kubica 19

5. Nick Heidfeld 16
6. Heikki Kovalainen 14

In Australia Lewis Hamilton dominated with Heikki Kovalainen finishing 5th 18 seconds back of Hamilton and set the fastest lap of the race. Nick Heidfeld finished second 5.4 seconds back of Hamilton and Robert Kubica finished 9th with a retirement.

In Malaysia, Raikkonen was dominant winning the race easily, but second belonged to Robert Kubica 19.5 secs back and quite a bit ahead of Kovalainen who was third and 38.4 secs back. Lewis Hamilton qualified poorly in 9th and finished 5th 46.5 secs back. Nick Heidfeld finished 6th 49.8 secs back of Raikkonen, but set the fastest lap of the race.

On to Bahrain. Again, Ferrari dominated this race with Massa winning and Raikkonen 2nd. 3rd place was Robert Kubica 4.9 secs back of Raikkonen and 4th place to Nick Heidfeld who was 8.4 secs back. Heikki Kovalainen, the best of McLaren once again finished 5th behind both BMW-Saubers a full 26.7 secs back of Raikkonen. We can safely say that Lewis Hamilton didn’t figure in any leader stats in this race.

At the Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton bounced back finishing 3rd behind both Ferraris 4.1 secs back of Kimi Raikkonen, but only 1.5 secs behind Felipe Massa. Unfortunately Kovalainen had a bad crash, but until then was keeping good pace with a fastest lap time of 1:22.453 and was in 6th place at the time of his crash ahead of Nick Heidfeld.
Robert Kubica finished the race in 4th after starting 4th only 5.6 secs back of Raikkonen. Robert Kubica was pushing Hamilton and both cars pitted together and came out the same way. In this race it was pretty clear that as the race progressed BMW-Sauber and McLaren Mercedes were running pretty much the same pace as the gaps didn’t change through to the end.

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Another race of attrition today along with a serious looking crash by Heiki Kovalainen. In turn 9 what looked like a left front wheel rim broke sending Kovalainen straight and hard into the tire barriers. Thankfully he will be ok with what looks like no serious injuries.

Kimi Raikkonen led the race from start to finish with perfect pit stops, smooth driving, and a fast (not fast enough according to him) car winning the Spanish Grand Prix in fine style.

As I said, this was a race of attrition with only 13 cars finishing the race and that’s got to be disappointing to many of those teams. This track has seen kilometers and kilometers of testing by all of the teams including just last week. Brand new aero packages as well as other improvements yet crashes and failures littering the track.

The race started with Massa getting the best start moving quickly past Fernando Alonso and right up behind Raikkonen, but predictably backed off of a pass attempt on Raikkonen.

Heart break kid Sebastien Vettel was again knocked out of the race in a first lap crash. David Coulthard and Adrian Sutil bumped, Sutil spun and Vettel had no where to go but into the side of Sutil. Three first lap dnfs for Vettel is hard to take. Sutil, who had been squeezed onto the grass, but had plenty of room to get back to the track bumped Coulthard, was sent spinning, taking out Vettel. Too bad for Sutil with a dnf as a result, but to me, the crash was his fault and bad luck continues for Vettel.

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First qualifying since all the new aero parts and there certainly is some improvements and changes in the top 10. First is Renault and wow, Alonso 2nd after holding pole until Raikkonen pulls out a last lap to squeeze by Alonso. It’s a good bet that Alonso was light on fuel and will be one of the first to pit in the race. Both Renault in Q3 with Piquet in 10th. Now that’s an improvement for Renault with their new fin and Alonso driving.

BMW-Sauber’s Robert Kubica looked great throughout, but last laps of Q3 send him to 4th when Raikkonen and Alonso battled for pole. BMW sits 4th with Kubica and 9th with Heidfeld.

It was up and down for McLaren all through qualifying and in the end, they still need some speed from that car. Hamilton finishing 5th with Kovalainen in 6th.

Down the grid a bit and disappointment for Honda who had hoped for at least one car in Q3, but not today. Barrichello just missing in 11th and Button 13th.

Both Williams made it to Q2, but that’s as far as they got. Nakajima out qualified his team mate Nico Rosberg by 3 places and starts 12th with Rosberg in 15th.

Mark Webber did his job well today covering for a David Coulthard who failed miserably. Webber into Q3 and will start 7th ahead of Jarno Trulli in 8th and Heidfeld in 9th. His team mate Coulthard, the fast Coulthard in morning practice didn’t even make Q2 and will start 17th in more crash territory. Coulthard did have trouble with traffic and said he wasn’t able to get his tires up to temperature.

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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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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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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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