Spanish GP raceday

[Tension_36th]

Fernando is lucky to get the 2nd place because pace wise he was thoroughly beaten by Mclaren and the redbulls.

Vettel's pits stops were not perfect that made him stuck behind the wake of shamilton for too long. Button wasted too much time behind shoelicker and that wasted away the tyres.

Shamilton didnt make a mistake this time, it seems something broke on the wishbones and gave way to the car going right off track. Vettel unlucky again with brake reliability loosing a position needlessly.

Shoelicker drove well to defend against button but the characteristics of the track helped alot. Not enough outright braking zone where outbraking is possible.

[alonso 4ever]

i rate the race as boring but the last few laps had all the action...

we have to thank schum as he was the reason to block button who for sure had a faster car than alonso

webber had a great race with no mistakes and he deserved to win.. congrats

alonso finishing 2nd is like a win... amazing result..

vettel, as usual unlucky but he was lucky to finish 3rd!!

the most unlucky person was ham!!

see u all in monaco :)

[Tension_36th]

Thats the benefit of being dominant, make an extra pitstop and still be 4th or be lucky to collect 3rd. Just didint work out for Vettel having a bad pitstop ending up behind shamilton. Or else he could extended on the gap like webber was doing as they setup started to work better from the middle to the end of the race rather than th start of the race.

Again a clear sign how the shape of the car is aiding them in their good pace in the qualifying and the race in general. Its a trade off, some tracks they are faster early on and slower towards the end of the race..

No active ride heights or whatever such bogus lies.

[Chrissie]

Anyone else think it was just a tad dangerous letting Vettel continue on when his brakes were "about to go" - I flinched at every hard braking point for the last 5-6 laps thnking he was just going to go straight on at some point and have a major accident - fair do's to him for getting it home though

And I must thank Hamilton - I haven't laughed that hard in weeks


Well done to Fernando - not a great race for him really but I felt he definitely made that Ferrari look better than it actually was this weekend - and it was great to see him on the podium for his race and to hear all the fans giving him a big cheer

[icegirljenni]

Is a boring race that i am even almost fell asleep. the interesting part will well little attempt of overtaking from JB and MS , towards end from NR. The rest are pretty much boring. piggy crash is really lol... best for the week? maybe... I have to said am very much piss off with shoe licker. holding up Button for entire race. and i knew the moment he rejoin behind shoe licker after the 1st oit, he is over. Th track are not so friendly for overtaking. I just dont know why he is there. I mean he did make progress in racing. But *arghhhh* i just dont want to comment. Nico ... poor Nico it was just not his week really, I hope this is not an indication of sabotage and bias that we have predicted before the season start. Cause right now the car is really jot suit his liking at all. Lets see what happen in few races.

Fernando second is a greatest for the crowd.

Webber an easy victory.

Vettel the lucky boy.

Shoe licker the annoying man.

piggy clover of the day ....

[TheProdigalSon]

Very nice drive from webber, Alonso was also driving that Ferrari past it's potential, it always looks faster in the hands of Fernando. A great result considering the redbulls speed and also macca's who were faster than Ferrari all weekend. I hope Ferrari find some special updates soon becuase redbull are just too fast for anyone. Monaco will be interesting to see if redbulls can still hold this big advantage.

[icegirljenni]

Button critical of Schumacher's pass

Quote:"I didn't really know where Michael was on the outside of me," said the reigning world champion. "He turned in and if I didn't back out of it we would have crashed.

"So he didn't really give me a lot of room there. There you go, you'd think with his experience he would know. It wasn't really the right move."

The championship leader added that Schumacher then defended his place well for the rest of the race, despite Button mounting several attacks.

"It's tough to overtake here, and Michael's not silly," he said. "He knows where to put his car, so on a track like this you're not going to overtake him.

"He was putting it on the inside, and I couldn't pass on the outside because he just pushed me wide every time. He didn't make a mistake, so it was very frustrating.

"Fifth place is okay, but it's frustrating because the car was quick here. That's a positive and a negative, because I didn't get to use the speed."

Like they are going to take any action.

[WiTcH]

I am happy to see that I wasn't the only who almost fell asleep. I woke up at the last ten laps when vettel (thanks sebastian for that) decided to spice things up with his breaks and tyres. It's really a pity, though. He is such a good driver! Has someone put spell on him or something? And things became even more interesting because of ham. The last (or almost last) lap's man! So, two places were gained easily from Fernando, although he was fast. He set many lap records.

[icegirljenni]

Alonso comment after the race :

Quote:Fernando Alonso: “I am happy with getting this second place in front of my fans: I am happy for them, but especially for the team, who have worked so hard this weekend without making mistakes. It’s true the result came in an unexpected way, but that’s racing. We knew we could expect a difficult Grand Prix, because on tracks like this we still don’t have enough aerodynamic downforce to fight for pole position and the win, even if the races are very long and that was confirmed yet again today. In circumstances like this we have to try and attack and exploit every opportunity. Our strong point seems to be tyre management as ours seemed to be in better condition than those of our rivals in the final stages of the race. We have to up our performance level, but we do have the potential to win the championship. The management system for the blown rear wing worked well but it is still at the experimental stage. Maybe in Turkey we will have an updated version. Now we go to Monaco, a special Grand Prix that everyone wants to win. Set-up and tyres will be different to what we had here and we will see where that puts us compared to the others. After a few difficult races, I got back on the podium and I am second, three points behind the leader of the classification: there is still a long way to go in the championship, but I repeat, this is a great result.”

Words from Chris Dyer:

Quote:Chris Dyer: “A fantastic result for Fernando, while Felipe also drove a good race, after getting a great start. The team worked very well: perfect pit stops, no technical problems on either car. We knew it would be a very tough race for us, given the difference in performance to the Red Bulls that we had seen in qualifying. In the race we did not make any mistakes and in the end, we managed to profit from the problems of other drivers, which in fact illustrates that reliability remains the crucial factor if you want to reach your goals. Now we most concentrate on the next round in Monaco, a Grand Prix that is very special in every way.”

[Jam_Van_Dam]

Button moaning as usual. He needs to release that he aint as good as he and others think that he is. Dry race and predictably he is slower than Hamilton, wouldnt have mattered if he were infront of Michael or not, he wouldnt have did anything.

Alonso may aswell be 1st in the championship because he only has 3 challengers for the title and Button aint 1 of them.

Good to see Webber get a dominate win, will do his confidence good after being out classed by Vettel for the first few races.

[maranellored]

Quote:Ferrari to investigate Felipe Massa's performance

Ferrari driver Massa has scored 49 points this season

By Andrew Benson
BBC Sport at the Circuit de Catalunya


Ferrari are to launch an investigation into Felipe Massa's performance following his continuing struggles alongside team-mate Fernando Alonso.

The Spanish Grand Prix was the fourth consecutive race at which Brazilian Massa has been well off Alonso's pace.

Team principal Stefano Domenicali said: "We have to make sure the car is one he feels confident driving. For the first time this weekend it was not the case.

"It is important to go back and see what we have done around Felipe's car."

Massa matched Alonso for pace at the first race of the season in Bahrain, which Spaniard Alonso won from his Brazilian team-mate.

But since then Massa has been several 10ths of a second behind the double world champion, who is rapidly emerging as Ferrari's de facto number one driver.

The 29-year-old Brazilian said he did not understand why he was struggling to keep pace.

"Fernando is a very good driver but something has happened to me," stated Massa.

"Something is not going like I want, so I can't do the lap time or drive the car like I want.

"This is something that we need to understand, and improve.

"It looks like something is not working out to give the grip. This is something that we need to understand, but I'm sure we will."

Until Spain, Ferrari's car was the second fastest in Formula 1 behind Red Bull, but the Italian team slipped behind McLaren on competitiveness in Barcelona.

Alonso and Domenicali both said the team were lacking aerodynamic downforce

And Domenicali admitted that while Massa had been complaining about the performance of his car, that had also been the case with Alonso.

"Felipe started to complain about the level of grip of the car from the beginning and that never happened (before)," Domenicali commented.

"To be honest, Fernando was also saying this."

Alonso is second in the championship, three points behind leader Jenson Button of McLaren, with Massa down in seventh, 21 points adrift.

Alonso lost points in the second race of the season in Australia because, after catching Massa following an early spin, he was unable to pass the Brazilian.

Alonso also spent the Malaysian GP stuck behind his team-mate despite being faster than him, and controversially passed him on the way into the pits in China to avoid the same thing happening for the third race in succession.

But Domenicali thought that it was too early to make Alonso the number one driver to ensure his title chances

Alonso added: "I'm happy with this position [in the championship], but as I said before, we need four or five podiums in a row.

"With one podium and then another three races with mistakes there is not enough to win the championship,

"But I think we understand, we know the problems, we know the mistakes we made at the beginning of the championship and we arrived in Barcelona with a very good approach, super Ferrari team.

"This weekend [we made] no mistakes at all: preparing for qualifying in practice in a good way, at the maximum of our potential in qualifying and a very solid race.

"Sometimes we know that we will be third, sometimes we know we will be fifth, sometimes we can maybe win the race, but we need to do our maximum and today or this weekend all the Ferrari team did the maximum so we are extremely happy with our job.

"There is a very aggressive plan of developing the car with some good gains and good improvements to come in the next races, so we are very optimistic on that.

"The championship is long. There will be some circuits where we will be closer to Red Bull and some circuits like this weekend where we know it's going to be more difficult.

"But overall, for the 19 races, I think we have a package, a car that can fight for the world championship which is the main goal."

BBCF1

Blimey...............Massa's being investigated by his own team??? I know he's not exactly setting the world on fire but to go public with this is shameful. Ferrari need to be respectful to Massa, regardless of his current performance. I know that Alonso's passion and determination is resolute but Filipe was stuck behind Button and Schumi all day - he performed ok I thought considering the slight damage to his front wing.

[Tension_36th]

Ferrari are talking porkies, They were behind Mclaren from the 2nd race once Mclaren realized they goofed up on the setups. It was other factors that were in/not in either team's control that played out resulting in races where Mclaren should have comfortably finished ahead of both Ferraris.

As for Massa its the same case Shoe, change in setup or development choice that is not suiting him. Maybe its a bit karma for what they did to Kimi to make Massa the number 1. He maybe getting screwed at his own crew's game. But since they are investigating this will be solved. Unsurprisingly for Kimi no such enthused investigations, they were only happy to taste what flavor massa's poop was.

[icegirljenni]

investigation for Massa? awww so sweet right? they paying so much attention on him that they even care to announce an "investigation" ? Unlike what happen to Kimi was totally different. Boy oh boy. but is gonna be funny to see what happen next Felippe baby are being investigate

[alonso 4ever]

ferrari have to do that coz massa's contract will expire by end of this season..

they r just trying to bring silly excuses not to renew it!!

but we all know who's the better driver in ferrari and deserve to be no 1 driver for them..

AND

Red Bull asked Vettel to pull out in Spain
Sebastian Vettel has revealed he was asked to pull out of the race before finishing the Spanish grand prix in third place.

The Red Bull driver suffered a braking problem with 15 laps of the Barcelona race still to run, and made a pitstop so the damage could be inspected.

Mechanics and engineers noticed damage to a brake disc before sending the 22-year-old German back onto the circuit.

“When I got back out the team told me that I should quit the race,” Vettel said in an interview with Germany’s Auto Motor und Sport.

“They said the risk because of the broken brake was too great.

“I asked them if that (retiring) was really necessary or whether I could just drive slowly and pick up some points.

“I got no answer,” Vettel continued. “So I drove. In the middle of the last corner I then got the message ‘keep going, but be careful’, but it was too late anyway. I was already past the pit entry.”

Vettel said he managed to finish the race by shifting the brake bias all the way to the rear.

“They were pretty worried on the pitwall and I was constantly reminded to drive more slowly,” he added.