2007 Hungarian Grand Prix
From Frikipedia
Hungary! Woo! Yippee! Thrills! Spills! Yay! Yahoo!
Or not.
Friki was not looking forward to writing this review since the start of the season. The Hungaroring represented a really momentous event when it first lumbered onto the F1 calendar back in 1986, being the first "Eastern Bloc" Grand Prix and representing a hands-across-the-divide moment during the tepid Cold War, as F1 proved that when it comes to fag money and TV revenue, sport is more than capable of breaking a few political taboos. The problem is that while the world has moved on since then, F1 in Eastern Europe hasn't. There's the odd rumour of a Moscow circuit being built or something, but realistically, in terms of grand prix circuits, the Hungaroring is all they have. So we continue to return, year after year, to suffer a dullard waste of two hours of our lives as cars struggle to do anything of any fleeting interest.
Perhaps the most telling statement of the Hungaroring's penchant for the dull can be found on its Wikipedia page, where the "Trivia" section has only one entry, and is possible the most tenuous and facile piece of "trivia" ever committed to print. Namely:
- If rotated to the left and mirrored, the shape of the track bears a slight resemblence to a distorted version of Greater Hungary.
Thrilling.
Race Result
1 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 70 Laps in 1:35:52.991
2 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari +0.715
3 Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber +43.129
4 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes +44.858
5 Robert Kubica BMW Sauber +47.616
6 Ralf Schumacher Toyota +50.669
7 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota +59.139
8 Heikki Kovalainen Renault +1:08.104
9 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault +1:16.331
10 Jarno Trulli Toyota +1 Lap
11 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault +1 Lap
12 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault +1 Lap
13 Felipe Massa Ferrari +1 Lap
14 Alex Wurz Williams-Toyota +1 Lap
15 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda +1 Lap
DNS Sebastian Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari Didn't turn up
16 Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari +2 Laps
17 Boobens Honda +2 Laps
DNS Tonio Liuzzi Toro Rosso-Ferrari Didn't turn up
Ret Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda Spinny
Ret Jenson Button Honda Sucky
Ret Admiral Yamamoto Spyker-Ferrari Pearly
Friki Review
The Race
Erm, yes. The race. Well, Lewis Hamilton started from pole, led every lap and won. He was ably pursued by Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari throughout the race, without ever really looking like he'd lose out to the Flying Gin. Further back, the race provided brief entertainment as Fernando Alonso battled through the field from his penalty-imposed 6th on the grid (more on that in a bit) all the way through to an underwhelming 4th, failing to give the BMW place to Ickle, who finished one place ahead of the Spaniard and displayed his new shambolic beard/hair formation on the podium, which makes him look like a down-on-his-luck tramp nursing a can of Special Brew outside the local drop-in centre.
Pfff. Ralfie was a surprise success story, qualifying and racing his Toyota around to a stellar 6th place. Friki makes that two good drives this season now for Ralf, which is usually his self-imposed maximum, so expect more driving into stuff from him for the rest of the season.
Williams once again decided on a massively questionable strategy for Nico, with even the blond genius unable to "SAVE!" enough fuel to compensate. After qualifying 4th, he slipped to 7th. Still, lovely points, and he again finished some months clear of Forrest.
Ho hum. The STRs failed to give new kid Sebastian Vettel a debut, thanks to maliciously missing yet another race. And Felipe Massa was godawful. He messed up qualifying something rotten and started 14th, and after 70 glorious laps, he had rose to the giddy heights of 13th. Excellent work.
Finally, a quick word for Honda, who managed to plow even deeper depths than even they have managed thusfar in a season where The Goo's Honda B-team are ahead of them in the Constructors championship. Jenson Button won here last year, and this momentus anniversary was marked with a brief 30 second interview on the ITV coverage, squeezed in between a feature on Tyler's favourite cardigan and a breathless conversation between Louise Goodman and the bloke who lives next door to the man who walks Tyler's dad's dog. Poor Jenson looks awful these days. Gone is the cheeky grin and the Chris Martin-esque demeanour, replaced by the haunted eyes of a man who has had his soul ripped from his body and his vigour ground down by race after race of toiling around behind Boobens. Here, Jenson gave up halfway through, while Boobens himself spent most of the race in an epic scrap with rookie genius Adrian Sutil, before settling for a combative last place. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.
So, that's about it. A quick mention to Damon Hill, who filled in for the holidaying Martin Brundle in the ITV commentary box. Although he was strangely boring, spent most of the race moaning because he had a sore throat or saying "erm" and seemed completely unable to differentiate between live footage and replays, despite the recent addition of a big flashing "REPLAY" icon to all non-live footage, he still came across remarkably well. Largely because everyone knew that if it wasn't for Damon stepping in, Blunders would have to have done the job.
Tylergate
The weekend's actual race really took a backseat in favour of the next installment of the pit lane soap opera that is unfolding this season. After Germany, we had McLaren and Ferrari (egged on by Flavio Briatore, like a spotty kid in a playground standing to one side and goading the two bullies into having a scrap) locking horns in court over whether or not McLaren stole Ferrari's lunch menu list and colour palette for their exciting red cars, and it was all a bit rubbish. "Meh, meh, documents, cheating, moan, take the fifth, Ron Dennis is evil, yadda, yadda, courtroom, statement, verdict, appeal, moan, moan, etc, etc". It bored Friki. To tears. And back.
But at Hungary, the whole animosity came, not from team bosses involved in a high-stakes ego-wank cock-slapping waste of time, but from the two McLaren drivers well and truly having a very public lover's tiff. In the red corner, from Oviedo in Oxfordshire, sporting an evil beard and fresh from riling Chinistas and Kimistas by driving better than their poster boys, it's Fernando Alonso! And in the blue corner, from the dirty fantasies of Steve Rider, sporting a cheeky smile and screaming "COME ON!" from the top step of the podium like a vocab-challenged lager-soaked football fan, it's Lewis Hamilton!
Seconds out, Round 1. This happened in the final bit of qualifying, where the cars are all on their dutiful "fuel burn" runs to reduce the amount of fuel in the car. According to McLaren, Lewis was due to let Alonso past early on in the session, but he chose not to do that. This riled Ron and Fernando, and meant that the cars were "out of sequence" for the tyre-changes before the final quali runs. Whatever that means.
This led to Round 2. Alonso pitted first, with time tight as to whether he could get back around and start his fast lap before the end of qualifying. Ostensibly to "gain good track position", Alonso was held in his pit box for around 20 seconds, with Tyler quietly (or not so) waiting behind to receive his own tyres. The upshot of all this meant that Tyler missed out on setting a fast lap and would have been forced to start from "only" second place. But thankfully for him, the mad stewards intervened, penalised Alonso a random 5 grid places, and announced that McLaren would score no constructors points, a matter still currently in dispute.
So who won? Well, Hamilton, clearly, scoring a bit of a TKO on his team mate with a little help from the aforementioned mad stewards. What will the outcome be? Well Alonso is hardly endearing himself to anyone by apparently refusing to even speak to Hamilton and hinting he may leave McLaren at the end of the year. But then Hamilton, despite the best efforts of the British media, is hardly behaving particularly gentlemanly either. He seems to have moved from modest poster boy to raging primadonna in around a three week period. He moped through the press conferences, peppered his thirty minute pre-race ITV interview with subtle hints as to how evil McLaren are and even (apparently) told Ron Dennis to "f**k off". Petulance is not becoming of a British sportsman. You'd never get Paul Collingwood rattling on like that. Next race he'll probably refuse to drive in free practice because McLaren didn't make sure he had a specifically painted dressing room with a bowl of red M&Ms on the table. He's turning into a grotesquely distorted caricature of Jennifer Lopez.
Overall then, McLaren lead both championships by a comfortable margin, but are combusting rather dramatically. If the court cases won't mess them up, this new wave of bickering between drivers may well do. If Ferrari can get their act together, we could well be in for a few changes at the top of the leaderboards over the coming weeks.
So then, whoever said that Hungary was boring? Well, everyone. Still.
Friki's Unanswered Questions
- How much is Hamilton's initial refusal to move over being glossed over by the press? Friki had to spend an hour searching random non-British websites to corroborate the stories of the anti-Tyler bandwagon. Madness.
- If Alonso is to leave McLaren, will Ickle get shouldered out at BMW? Friki hopes not.
Unofficial Friki F1 Race Points in association with Celtic Crosses
1 The Stewards 5 Celtic Crosses (Entertaining.)
2 Ralf Schumacher 4 Celtic Crosses (Woo! He wasn't shit!)
3 Ickle 3 Celtic Crosses (Higher than BMWth!)
4 Nico Rosberg 2 Celtic Crosses (Pooooooints!)
5 Boobens 1 Celtic Cross (Friki feels sorry for him.)
6 Admiral Yamamoto 1/2 a Celtic Cross (Entertainingly dreadful.)
Unofficial Friki F1 Championship Standings in association with Celtic Crosses
=1 David Coulthard 13 Celtic Crosses
=1 Ickle 13 Celtic Crosses
3 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 Nico Rosberg 6 1/2 Celtic Crosses
=12 Robert Kubica 6 Celtic Crosses
=12 Felipe Massa 6 Celtic Crosses
=14 Jenson Button 5 Celtic Crosses
=14 Heikki Kovalainen 5 Celtic Crosses
=14 Kimi Raikkonen 5 Celtic Crosses
=14 Scooch 5 Celtic Crosses
=14 Jamie Murray 5 Celtic Crosses
=14 The Stewards 5 Celtic Crosses
=20 McLaren 4 Celtic Crosses
=20 Jelena Jankovic 4 Celtic Crosses
=20 Ralf Schumacher 4 Celtic Crosses
=23 Markus Winkelhock 3 Celtic Crosses
=23 Boobens 3 Celtic Crosses
25 Safety Car man 2 Celtic Crosses
=26 Adrian Newey 1 Celtic Cross
=26 Scott Speed 1 Celtic Cross
=26 STR 1 Celtic Cross
=29 Brighton 1/2 a Celtic Cross
=29 Canada 1/2 a Celtic Cross
=29 Ferrari 1/2 a Celtic Cross
=29 The Goo 1/2 a Celtic Cross
=29 Tom Varndell 1/2 a Celtic Cross
=29 Admiral Yamamoto 1/2 a Celtic Cross
=35 GNER -5 Celtic Crosses
=35 Rain -5 Celtic Crosses
Review
DC's massive points lead in the Unofficial Friki F1 Championship in association with Celtic Crosses lasted all of one race, as Ickle jumps back to a tie for the lead. Meanwhile, Ralf finally gets his hands on some celtic crosses. Well done him.
The BRAND NEW Official Topical Friki Post-Grand Prix Comic Bit!
