2007 German Grand Prix
From Frikipedia
First of all, let Friki clear one thing up once and for all. Rain is rubbish. Thanks to the fact that, as with most things, Great Britain seems set to get short changed out of the whole climate change deal, Friki knows whereth it speaks on this particular type of weather. Indeed it hasn't stopped raining on Friki HQ since some point in mid-May, making Friki's declaration of Tit Monday in mid-April seem particularly laughable. Rain does not make things more exciting, it simply spends it's time mindlessly oblitirating large swathes of central England and bequeathing a totally unnecessary niche fishing industry on Sheffield town centre.
The argument regarding rain + F1 = "a good thing" largely stems from the idea that unnatural conditions somehow bring out the best in drivers and separates the wheat from the Toro Rossos. This has never really sat well with Friki. Is the only way to find out who is the best at a particular sport the act of making them ply their trade in totally unfamiliar circumstances? Will we finally find out if David Beckham has a left foot of any note whatsoever now he is mired in the amateurish dross of Major League Soccer? Will we only ever really find out who is the best at tennis by forcing Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal to play a five set match blindfolded in a zoo's lion enclosure whilst both being covered from head to toe in warm giraffe entrails and having their testicles wired up to a sporadic voltage supply? Methinks not. All rain does to an F1 race is effectively nullify anything that has happened up to that point, allow for scenes of car after car plunging into the middle of a gravel trap full of tender marshals busy checking whether the first guy that crashed there left the keys in the ignition, and the kind of stupid bouts of blind luck that lead to some Spyker or another leading a race by 30 seconds. "Oh my God! How kerazee is that?! ROFLMAO!" Etc.
Except it's not. It's bloody stupid. Friki was actually rather looking forward to the race yesterday, what with the grid looking as tempting as a freshly grilled fillet steak. With Tyler trying to drive through the field after his qualifying prang and Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa having a massive scrap for the win in an attempt to close the respective gaps to Tyler in the championship, it was all looking intriguing. Admittedly, as the rain came, Hamilton had already got caught up in Ickle's misguided attempts to show his team-mate Bignose the kind of frolics he used to have at Prost with Jean Alesi and was already out of the serious running, and Alonso had been jumped by Massa, so the race was probably deigned to be a Ferrari walkover and Friki should be pleased the weather became as biblicaly bad as it did. And yet it can't bring itself to like rain. If it wanted to see cars struggling to negotiate a sodden stretch of tarmac, it would set itself up with a deckchair and a six pack on the hard shoulder of the M25. Friki actually wanted to spend it's afternoon watching some sport. In the end, the TV director put the lottery on instead.
Contents |
Race Result
1 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes 60 Laps in 2:06:26.358
2 Felipe Massa Ferrari +8.155
3 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault +1:05.674
4 Alex Wurz Williams-Toyota +1:05.937
5 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault +1:13.656
6 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber +1:20.298
7 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber +1:22.415
8 Heikki Kovalainen Renault +1 Lap
9 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes +1 Lap
10 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault +1 Lap
11 Boobens Honda +1 Lap
12 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda +1 Lap
13 Jarno Trulli Toyota +1 Lap
Ret Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari DIDN'T OVERDRIVE THE CAR
Ret Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda Probably the engine
Ret Ralf Schumacher Toyota Got Ickled
Ret Markus Winkelhock Spyker-Ferrari Ferrari engines rule
Ret Jenson Button Honda Pay and Display
Ret Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari Pay and Display
Ret Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota Pay and Display
Ret Tonio Liuzzi Toro Rosso-Ferrari Pay and Display
Ret Scott Speed Toro Rosso-Ferrari Pay and Display
Friki Review
So, sigh, where to start. The drizzle was already drizzling by the time the cars started, leading to a pathetic first lap of mess ups. As Friki has already said, Ickle began his shocking afternoon by clumsily driving into his team mate, with Hamilton picking up a puncture as he attempted to evade the BMW massacre. Elsewhere, the Williams boys crashed into each other, whilst David Coulthard also went a-spinning as he attempted to climb up the order following another abject qualifying run. Happily for Tyler and his tyre woe, everyone had to pit for tyres at the end of the first lap anyway. Well, everyone did except for Kimi, who duffed up the pit lane entry and had to do another lap, dropping him well back from the lead.
As the rain worsened and fans faces got inexplicably happier, the first turn became a joke. Car after car aquaplaned into the gravel trap, including Jenson Button, who can at least claim he was the first to do it and the rest were just copycats. Rookie legend Adrian Sutil followed suit, as did The Cheese, both STRs (again wishing they'd just stayed at home again) and, shockingly, Tyler. What happened next was a bit odd. As the big tractor thingy came on to wheel the cars away, Hamilton's McLaren was winched back onto the track and allowed to continue. Hrm.
The official explanation for this seems to stand up to scruitiny. Given the number of cars that were careering into the already packed gravel trap, the position of the cars certainly constituted a "dangerous position", and as such the marshals were allowed to get the cars moving again if they could. It would appear that Hamilton was the only driver canny/cheeky/lazy enough not to switch his engine off, and therefore was the only one placed back onto the track. Seems ok so far, until you consider the vitriol that was spouted towards a certain M. Schumacher esq after he was pushed back onto the track a few years ago after he ended up beached in a gravel trap having come off second best in another tussle with portly genius Juan Pablo Montoya. Again, Schumie had kept the engine running, again he was in an unquestionably dangerous place, so again there shouldn't have been any problem. A similar set of media-based double standards seems to have been applied here as were applied to Lewis's recent predisposition to "Schumie chop" across the track at the start. Unfair? Yes. Unexpected? Not really. Besides, Friki can only really apply this theory to the partizan British media. For all it knows, Das Bild et al have labelled Hamilton a big cheaty cheater with the face of a cheater. The acid test for Hamilton's morals may come down to his conduct in a final race title decider and whether he writes a new chapter for Godwins Law or not. Friki awaits Martin Brundle's decision that Lewis was "a bit naughty" when he swerved into a rival Ferrari and dumped them both in a gravel trap with baited breath.
Anyway, the race. Well, by this point, it was over. Even the powers that be had decided that rain was stupid and red flagged the whole thing. Which was a bit tragic for Spyker rookie ignoramus Markus Winkelhock, who had started from the pit lane with wet tyres and inherited a 30 second lead when the rest of the field dived into the pits. Upon the restart, his lead lasted considerably less than the distance from the start line to the first corner.
The restart behind the safety car brought another turn of luck for Hamilton. Having been a lap down, the baffling new safety car "rules" that nobody got the hang of in Canada meant that any lapped car can "unlap" itself behind the safety car. Notwithstanding the question of what would happen if a car was, say, four or five laps down by this point, or indeed the fact that none of this seems particularly safe at all, it was also utterly pointless, as Lewis made a call to pit for dry tyres as soon as the race restarted, then found it was still too wet for them and effectively slipped a lap down anyway.
The rest of the race was largely ordinary, albiet with the slightly odd running order that all the "kerazyness" had produced. So we had Mark Webber scrapping with Forrest for the final podium place (after Kimi's car blew up, which was, Friki must stress, not Kimi's fault), we had David Coulthard making Webber green with envy as he nicked 5th place and we had the somehow still racing BMW twins eschewing the BMW place in favour of 6th and 7th. Ickle somehow beat Bignose to the line, despite having another Prost moment when he drove into Ralf Schumacher, which proves that rainy conditions favour drivers who race better and, erm, actually it doesn't, does it, given that a car that spent most of its afternoon crashing into other cars can beat a number of others that didn't.
The best bit of Ickle's crash with Ralf, other than the obvious fact that it got Ralf out the way for the remainder of the race, was the German's comically angry response to the whole thing. For a moment, it seemed like Ralfie wanted to do a NASCAR-style fist-shake at his foe when Ickle came round again, presumably simultanously putting on his best redneck voice and screaming "whyiaughta" at the same time. Thankfully, Ralf got bored of waiting and made do with petulantly shoving a marshall and moaning to Louise Goodman. Goodman had her day in the sun (as it were), given that ITV's reporter who interviews drivers is a bit of a dull job in these days of precious few retirements and she normally has to make do with some torrid conversation with some dullard backmarker, whereas here she could barely move for drivers wanting to be accosted by TV reporters and say "the conditions....very difficult" at them.
In the closing stages it rained again, which was lovely in the way that it wasn't, but it did allow Alonso to make his move on Massa for the lead a few laps from the end, which was actually rather exciting, and allowed for some weird argument to develop after the race between the two resident hotheads of the pit lane. It wasn't quite Piquet vs Salazar, more just a similar sort of bitchy argument you get between a couple of random drunk slappers outside a 70's themed club night in some tawdry part of any city centre on a Friday night. Something like "oh my god, I can't believe you just did that, you bitch", followed by some sort of "yo momma" rebuttal. Still, it was nice to see something akin to a rudimentary personality being developed by a couple of F1 pilots, even if Alonso did totally lose his bottle and say sorry for everything in the press conference afterwards.
Incidentally, Friki watched some of the race on ITV and listened to some of it on BBC radio, who had Murray Walker making another "final one-off appearence" in the commentary box because the usual commentator was away having a baby, or something. He really is dreadful these days, bless his heart. His reaction to Alonso's pass on Massa was to scream like a pensioner sitting down on a cold toilet seat and shout "AND...THEY'VE GOT....WHEELS!" which as commentary soundbites go, is either a piece of sheer understated brilliance, or proof that Walker was past it at some point towards the end of 1999. He also spent the last lap constantly reinforcing the fact that Alonso was from Oviedo in Spain, though emphasising that he doesn't live there anymore because he's too popular, so instead lives "somewhere quieter, in Oxford or somewhere". Lovely.
So then, nil points for the first time in his career for Hamilton, despite Brundle asserting on lap 28 that he'd be in the points by "lap 40", and Alonso and Massa creep closer to Hamilton's points lead. Kimi has dropped off the champinship pace again, but on a level playing field, he still looks to be the fastest of the "big four" out there. Rather lamentably, we're off to Hungary next, which consistently delivers an abortion of a sporting spectacle. Still though, maybe it'll rain. KERAZEE!!
Friki's Unanswered Questions
- Don't F1 races get capped before they go over two hours these days?
- Will Winkelhock ever race in F1 again?
Unofficial Friki F1 Race Points in association with Celtic Crosses
1 Mark Webber 5 Celtic Crosses (Resisted the temptation of 5th place.)
2 David Coulthard 4 Celtic Crosses (Tempted by 5th place.)
3 Markus Winkelhock 3 Celtic Crosses (KERAZEE!!!)
4 Fernando Alonso 2 Celtic Crosses (Bothered to overtake someone.)
5 Felipe Massa 1 Celtic Cross (For the bitch-slapping.)
6 Rain -5 Celtic Crosses (Friki's got a hate on.)
Unofficial Friki F1 Championship Standings in association with Celtic Crosses
1 David Coulthard 13 Celtic Crosses
=2 Ickle 10 Celtic Crosses
=2 Lewis Hamilton 10 Celtic Crosses
4 Adrian Sutil 9 1/2 Celtic Crosses
=5 Fernando Alonso 9 Celtic Crosses
=5 Giancarlo Fisichella 9 Celtic Crosses
=5 Takuma Sato 9 Celtic Crosses
8 Jarno Trulli 8 Celtic Crosses
9 Mark Webber 7 1/2 Celtic Crosses
10 Alexander Wurz 7 Celtic Crosses
=11 Robert Kubica 6 Celtic Crosses
=11 Felipe Massa 6 Celtic Crosses
=13 Jenson Button 5 Celtic Crosses
=13 Heikki Kovalainen 5 Celtic Crosses
=13 Kimi Raikkonen 5 Celtic Crosses
=13 Scooch 5 Celtic Crosses
=13 Jamie Murray 5 Celtic Crosses
18 Nico Rosberg 4 1/2 Celtic Crosses
=19 McLaren 4 Celtic Crosses
=19 Jelena Jankovic 4 Celtic Crosses
21 Markus Winkelhock 3 Celtic Crosses
=22 Boobens 2 Celtic Crosses
=22 Safety Car man 2 Celtic Crosses
=24 Adrian Newey 1 Celtic Cross
=24 Scott Speed 1 Celtic Cross
=24 STR 1 Celtic Cross
=27 Brighton 1/2 a Celtic Cross
=27 Canada 1/2 a Celtic Cross
=27 Ferrari 1/2 a Celtic Cross
=27 The Goo 1/2 a Celtic Cross
=27 Tom Varndell 1/2 a Celtic Cross
=32 GNER -5 Celtic Crosses
=32 Rain -5 Celtic Crosses
Review
Dramatic changes at the top of the Unofficial Friki F1 Championship in association with Celtic Crosses. Webber wins the battle, but, shockingly, Coulthard is winning the war. A massive three celtic cross championship lead is the biggest ever seen for as long as Friki could be bothered to check back to, and Ickle and Tyler need to fight back soon. Webber does improve to 9th place and Alonso moves nearer to the top than Friki is comfortable with. Rain receives the same level of Friki's ire as GNER, and looks unlikely to win the title fight.
