A good day was had by the Spanish on Sunday. The fans where treated to a free breakfast at Barcelona so they could watch Danni Pedrosa win the Chinese MotoGP race, then their hero Fernando Alonso topped off an already good day by winning the F1 round at his home track.
The race had very few exciting points to it, but that did not worry the crowd watching Alonso beat Michael Schumacher. The Renault team proved they were the cream at Barcelona, and the much touted top speed of the Ferraris did not even come into the picture.
Alonso led the race from start to finish in a faultless display of dominance. Michael had to make do with the second step of the podium, with Alonso's teammate Fisichella coming in third.
The highlights of the GP are rare but significant; Kimi Raekonen showed the ability of the new Mercedes/Ilmore engine to get off the line, making up a handful of places in a very brave move from the start. His teammate Juan Pablo Montoya beached his car and had to end his race, he blamed a failure in his traction control for the spin that caused the beaching. This is possible as it was his first race with the new engine as well, and Kimi's start proves that work has definitely gone on in the TC department. Kimi ended the race in 5th.
The Toyota's had a 'racing incident', as Ralph decided to take a lunge up the inside of Trulli destroying the front aero package and his race prospects in the process. We are not sure if any damage was caused to the Trulli car, but he never seemed to be on the pace all day. Ralph had to retire later since he had electronics issues that caused him to retire.
The Cosworth powered Williams cars proved very hum drum, they showed very little pace throughout the whole weekend.
The Honda boys had mixed results; Button had problems on Saturday in qualifying that is yet to be explained. However, Barichelo put in a decent performance finishing 7th behind Jenson in 6th. Jenson was asked to turn his engine down to save it for Monaco (due to the two race engine rules).
Red bull / Toro Rosso did not show any form this weekend, the fact that the Ferrari engine in the car should give them similar levels of top end to the Ferrari's adds further wait to the rumors of the Ferrari 'moving wing' as the red bull cars got nowhere near them in the speed traps. David Couthards 200th grand prix will be one to forget with a bad weekend throughout.
Article comments
1 - JR
That Danni Pedrosa victory looked rather ominous. Is he really that fast? Anybody hoping to capitalize on Rossi retiring has to be worried now.
2 - Ashleigh
I think Dani may just be that quick! He proved in 250 and 125 that the rider not the bike made the difference beating people on the same hardware.
He seems to have stepped up to the 'big class' very well, people's worries about his ability to manhandle the MotoGP bike around for the whole race do not seem justified.
Let's hope Yamaha get Rossi's bikes working well and it will be a good fight!