The Fosters British Grand Prix got off to a bad start for the Brits with the qualifying nightmare from Jenson Button and the Honda team on Saturday. Things went downhill from there for Button.
However the Grand Prix itself was quite interesting from a number of fronts.
Fernando Alonso and his Renault car crushed the opposition yesterday in a powerful display of dominance. I cannot see anyone being able to better this year.
What outlines this is the statistics from the race. If you watched the Renault on board during its run through the fast opening corners (Cops, Maggots, Becketts and Chapel) the car is very planted, and the drivers barely lift during the whole complex. The high speed stability in the Renault seems faultless, there was no sign of any oversteer or understeer in Fernando’s car.
However onboard with the Ferrari and McLaren cars shows a completely different story. The cars look affected by the direction changes, and the Ferraris especially looked to pitch on the central axis of the car substantially more than the Renault, this could be due to the tire manufacturers being different however.
Then adversely, the Ferrari and McLarens were up to 15kph faster through some of the speed traps on the lap, showing they definitely had the strongest engine package at least in pace, if not in reliability.
If the other teams can work out what is making the Renaults so stable and solid on the chassis/aero front then they may be able to challenge for the race wins. Until then I cannot see the Fernando/Renault package being bettered on any regular basis.
Race recap
The race started with a decent run up the grid for some of the mid/rear pack drivers.
The BMW Sauber cars made up ground on the start. However Jaques Villenueve tangled with Juan Pablo Montoya, causing damage to the McLaren drivers' sidepod and flooring, ending a front running show for JPM.
Scott Speed then clipped the rear of Ralph Schumacher’s car causing him to careen into Mark Webber — ending the race for all three drivers.
Article comments
1 - DJRadiohead
I got to catch some of the race on Sunday. Alonso was dominant. The more noteworthy item is that Sir Crashalot (Sato) didn't cause a nine-car pile up.
2 - Ashleigh
Quite true, however at least hisHonda lump worked for the whole race ;)