Posts Tagged ‘Honda’
Sometimes it seems like there’s nothing new under the sun – and the travails of a young driver with a blazing talent for racing are certainly not unfamiliar to Ross Brawn.
Everything points to the French Grand Prix being Ferrari’s race this weekend. Kimi Raikkonen must make an impression on the drivers’ championship soon if he intends to keep his world title, and the blazing form shown by team-mate Felipe Massa is giving him a proper run for his money.
Every year in F1 it’s a toss-up exactly how early speculation about the drivers’ market will get going. And this year, with several factors making things much more lively and unpredictable than in 2007, it’s happening very early indeed.
Renault’s ailing Nelson A Piquet has shown what a dose of confidence could do for his performance after clocking the fastest time of the recent Barcelona testing stint and ending a dominant Ferrari run.
Ferrari dominated the timesheets on the second day of Barcelona testing with veteran McLaren pilot Pedro de la Rosa only able to get within four-tenths of a second of his team’s main rival.
Ferrari tester Luca Badoer topped the timesheet on the first day of Barcelona testing – but didn’t have things entirely his own way. On an opening day that featured unpredictable weather, starting sunny then gradually clouding over until a thunderstorm forced the eight teams testing to abandon the track an hour earlier than expected, BMW’s Robert Kubica and Red Bull’s David Coulthard pushed him a close second and third.
Anthony Davidson was back behind the wheel of a Formula One car – albeit in a one-day testing role – just weeks after the demise of his Super Aguri team cost him his race drive.
Lewis Hamilton put down a marker for Canada qualifying by topping the timesheets overall in Friday practice at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve.
Formula One is heading off to Canada and there’s only one game in town – can Lewis Hamilton maintain his newly-minted lead in the drivers’ championship? The 23-year-old Briton is just three points ahead of arch-rival and reigning champion Kimi Raikkonen following his spectacular victory on the rain-soaked streets of Monaco. And the Finn’s Ferrari team-mate Felipe Massa is just one behind him.
Before Monaco qualifying McLaren publicly told its drivers that it expected them to “add to the illustrious history of the team at the Monaco Grand Prix.” And now Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen are smarting after failing to find an answer to Ferrari in qualifying. The red cars beat them to the front row by mere hundredths of a second and they command the race. How will the McLarens respond?