BlogF1

David Richard’s Prodrive company has been announced as the twelth Formula One team for the 2008 season. After beating the other 10 hopefuls, Richards has been quoted as being delighted at the FIA’s decision, but is under no illusion of the task that now awaits him.

The FIA chose Prodrive because of Davids proven track record. He has previously managed the Benetton team (which is now Renault) and also was in charge of BAR when they made their leap forward in 2004. DR helped to nurture Jenson Button and has been a keen participant in F1 for many years. Outside of the crazy circus, Prodrive has won multiple World Rally Championships with Suburu, and has also won the British Touring Car Title and the GT1 Class at Le Mans.
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Now everybody has had a chance to think about the San Marino Grand Prix, and as news from the drivers and teams is filtering through, here is a round up of the key events from the Imola circuit.

Firstly, that decision to bring Alonso in early. Pat Symonds claims that the decision was justified because Fernando was only carrying one more lap of fuel than Schumacher and thus wouldn’t have been able to overhaul the deficit. It has to be asked how Renault knew when Michael was actually going to stop (as the timings were inconclusive), and why the team didn’t realise that Ferrari would have reacted to the stop immediately to ensure Schumacher the best possible chance of retaining the lead (by minimising Alonso’s clear laps)?
Despite fuel loads and tyre degredation, I believe Renault should have waited until the last possible moment to pit Fernando. But I do agree with Symonds when he says, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. And in this case, nothing lost.”
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Michael Schumacher has converted his pole position at Imola into his first win since the 2005 US Grand Prix, and his first in 18 months when competing against similarly paced cars. In a processional race, Michael led from the start and despite a slow middle stint, Schumacher managed to defend his place to a charging Fernando Alonso.

Lap one saw an incident caused by the inexperienced Yuji Ide when he tried to sneak up the inside of Albers. However, the gap just wasn’t big enough and the Japanese driver clipped the rear right tyre of Alber’s Midland which sent him into a somersault through the gravel. Chistijan walked away from the incident, but it is scenes like these that raise questions as to the validity of running vastly inexperienced drivers in a sport where the smallest of errors or mis-judgment can lead to potentially serious accidents.
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Michael Scumacher has claimed his 66th pole position and beat Jenson Button and a resurgent Rubens Barrichello to the top spot. Whilst Felipe Massa was a second behind his German team mate, he still managed to keep 4th place, ahead of Fernando Alonso and Ralf Schumacher. Completing the McLaren sandwich (Montoya 7th and Raikkonen 8th) was Toyota’s other driver, Jarno Trulli. Mark Webber completes the top ten. With a time of 1m 23.771s, Fisichella would have qualified 6th had he managed to get to the final session, but alas was knocked out in the second and will start 11th.

It was good to see Schumacher back on form, and his expression after the qualifying session was nice to see - he always manages to look so overwhelmingly happy after a good performance. The pace of the Ferrari was confirmed with Massa starting 4th (albeit a second behind), and although Alonso is way back in 5th, I cannot count him out on having a good start and a good strategy for tomorrows San Marino Grand Prix.

For the record, Michael Schumacher now holds the record for most career poles, eclipsing Ayrten Senna’s record of 65.

Scott Speed has been apparently fined $5,000 for swearing at David Coulthard during a stewards meeting at the Australian Grand Prix. It is reported that he told Coulthard to f*** off in front of an audience of people who gasped at the language Scott used.

The actually event of swearing doesn’t bother me too much. Giancarlo Fisichella’s colourful language was broadcast to several million viewers recently when the FOM cut the live show to Giancarlo’s radio. Obviously unknown to him at the time, Fisi decided to vocalise his discomfort with the car. I don’t believe Fisichella was repremanded for this, afterall, it was a ‘private conversation’ between himself and his engineer.
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I’m back, and I promise I will get to all the comments and questions this week - apologies if you think I have been ignoring you, this isn’t the case. I’ve simply been enjoying a short break away from it all. Although typically, the week I am away and the week that nothing gets posted is the week the site receives its most hits! But seriously, thanks to all for linking, bookmarking and subscribing. Slowly but surely BlogF1 is taking shape and although this is rather impromptu (because of my cursory glance at the stats) I am so very pleased that so many people think to visit the site when they think of F1.

So I heard Jenson lost on the last lap (thanks to Heathrow’s BBC news report) and Alonso’s title campaign is starting to take a similar shape to 2005’s - it is starting to get a little hot, me thinks!

I will catch up on all the news, gossip and chatter after I have re-acclimatised myself to (UK) drizzle and post with earnest.

For an explanation to the post title, visit my personal site which will reveal all when I get time!

I’m going to be away for eight days enjoying a break from all things work. Enjoy the Australian Grand Prix and I’ll be back on Tuesday week.

Ollie.