2006 European GP

This is the final part 7 of the European Grand Prix mini history series - years 2006 - 2007.

The 2006 season was all about the title fight between Fernando Alonso and Michael Schumacher and the European GP was not too different. This was by no means a classic and in line with the usual practice the race win was decided in the pitlane. Fernando Alonso claimed the pole position ahead of Ferrari duo Michael Schumacher and Felipe Massa. Alonso had better start and kept the lead. Behind them a little Liuzzi (Toro Rosso), Ralf (Toyota) and Coulthard (Red Bull) get together resulted in Safety Car. After the restart Alonso and Schumacher pulled away and from then on it was all between these two. Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren) lead the race too for a while during the pit stop times but that was about it. After the first round of pit stops Alonso still had the lead. Then Alonso made his second stop on lap 38, Schumacher stayed out until lap 41. Those few flat out laps made all the difference and Schumacher rejoined the race in the lead. He went on to win what was to be his last F1 race at Nurburgring. Alonso finished second, Massa third, Raikkonen 4th.

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Alonso and Sato, 2004 European GP

This is part 6 of the European Grand Prix mini history series - years 2004 - 2005.

Season 2004 saw some changes in the order. Williams begun their decline, McLaren suffered from reliability issues (especially in the early stages of the season). Their places were taken by BAR Honda and Renault. And Ferraris were running away with the championship from the very beginning. European GP was the race number 7 of the season. Michael Schumacher won the first 5 and was ready to get back to winning ways after crashing out of Monaco race. Schumacher claimed the pole position after running light in qualifying, quick Takuma Sato lined up next to him in P2. Jarno Trulli (Renault, the winner in Monaco) and Kimi Raikkonen (McLaren) occupied the second row. At the start Schumacher pulled away with the help of Kimi Raikkonen who jumped ahead of Sato (BAR Honda) and Trulli and held them back. Also at the start, Williams team mates Montoya and Ralf Schumacher touched their wheels and Ralf was out.

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2003 European GP Podium

This is part 5 of the European Grand Prix mini history series - years 2001 - 2003.

The 2001 European GP is best remembered for Schumi vs Schumi at the race start. The big brother Michael grabbed the pole from his little brother Ralf , Juan Pablo Montoya was on P3. At the race start Michael felt aseep a tiny bit and to defend his lead Michael Schumacher pushed his brother way too close to the wall. Ralf had only 2 options - either to hit the wall or lift his foot off the throttle. He chose the throttle action and as a result Michael Schumacher kept his lead, Ralf stayed in second.  Ferrari’s Bridgestones worked better early on and Michael pulled away. Soon however the advantage turned to Michelins. Ralf was pushing his brother hard and Montoya was closing on both of them.

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This is part 3 of the European Grand Prix mini history series - years 1996 and 1997.

In 1996 European Grand Prix returned to Nurburgring for the second year in a row. Yet again it turned out to be a significant race - the future champion won his first race here.

Williams were the team to beat those days and so it came as no suprise that Damon Hill and the new arrival from American racing Jacques Villeneuve booked themselves the front row on the grid. Behind them lined up Schumacher (Ferrari), Alesi (Benetton), Barrichello (Jordan) and Coulthard (McLaren). Confident Hill however made mess of his start and Villeneuve took the lead. Coulthard came out of nowhere in struggling McLaren and found himself 2nd challenging for the lead. Barrichello moved up to third ahead of Schumacher, Hill and Hakkinen.

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After reading all that has been written about Fernando Alosno since his not that good German Grand Prix performance, a question popped up in my mind. Which way will his career go from now ?

Same as two former champions Alonso left his title winning team to try his luck somewhere else. After winning his first title in 2005 he signed for McLaren from 2007 season. He did manage to win his 2nd title in his final (?) season with Renault, but not much went right for him since. When he arrived in McLaren he found his rookie team mate to be the next big thing in F1. He had a car able to challenge for race wins and for the title, but the expected number one status was nowhere. Not able to bite the bullet he did not manage to keep his mouth shut and found himself out of the team not long after the end of 2007 season. (Seems like Heikki has learned the lesson ). With nowhere else to go he returned to Renault, now no longer a front running team. Despite all the PR talk he clearly struggles with the uncompetitve car and his performances seem to start to reflect his unease. There is not really anywhere else to go for him next year. Unless he forgets about Ferrari and signs longer term deal with another team he is stuck with Renault for a while … How will these few fruitless years affect his future career ?

Will he do Schumi or will he do Jacques ?

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Hm, so Michael Schumacher decided to retire to save Felipe Massa’s job … I am not sure if this is true or not but that is what is in the news today:

“I stopped because I didn’t want my friend Felipe Massa to be unemployed. I would have had no problem going up against Kimi Raikkonen.”

Several F1 sites report that Schumi said this in interview with Swiss paper Blick. I tried to see if some webtranslator would do the trick and help me to locate the original article but I failed. It may be in Blick but I haven’t found it yet.

But if this really is true, should we now detest little Felipe or be grateful to him ?

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It looks like after many years there are no pay drivers on Formula 1 grid. Their last sanctuary disapeared when Vijay Mallya took over Spyker F1. The last proper pay driver - Christijan Albers - left the grid even earlier. Not (as he should) because of his mediocre performances, but because his sponsor stopped sending money.

Christijan Albers - Spyker

So now there isn’t a driver on the Formula 1 grid who has to pay to drive instead of getting paid for driving. At least for now gone are the days of fat purses buying F1 drives in teams like Prost, Minardi, Jordan (later Midland and Spyker)… At the same time however almost gone are also the days when other teams or drivers management could place their young and upcoming drivers to weaker back-of-the-grid teams for few seasons. This is what Honda could do with Super Aguri but never really did, this is what Toyota have done with Kazuki Nakajima and Williams, this is what Flavio Briatore have done with Minardi. Many different drivers started (and some also ended up) their F1 careers in with the backmarkers:

Fernando Alonso - Minardi

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Felipe Massa’s Turkish GP win last weekend was his third in a row on the Istanbul track. I wrote in my previous post that this the first time this has happened since Michael Schumacher… Well I was not exactly right …

Michael Schumacher’s most recent hattrick of wins on the same track was his United States Grand Prix string of wins from 2003 to 2006. These were actually 4 race wins in a row. The hattrick came after the “great” win in 2005 …

There is however one more, even more recent hattrick - Kimi Raikkonen’s 3 Belgian Grand Prix wins in a row. Raikkonen won in Belgium in 2004, 2005 and in 2007. There was no Belgian Grand Prix in 2006.

Photo: Daimler Media

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Shaun left this comment yesterday under one of the Barcelona test posts:

Why is Schumacher testing for Ferrari instead of Raikkonen or Massa ? sorry if this is an obvious question.

Well, good question and I do not think it is obvious. Ferrari has Raikkonen and Massa plus test drivers proper Gene and Badoer. But they still use Michael Schumacher and used him again in Barcelona this week. Schumacher did one day of testing. This was half of what Massa did, but about a day more than Kimi (thanks to rain on Thursday). Why is he still testing ? And why do they keep two other test drivers on payroll when they do not use them (almost) at all?

He still probably gives the team valuable input but is his input more valuable than input from one of the race drivers would be ? How does Kimi like the fact that he gets less running ? Perhaps he likes it and is actually thankful to Schumi for stepping in . But as far as I remember Kimi was never too excited about having Schumacher around.

Perhaps it is only publicity stunt as no matter what people may think about Michael Schumacher, he is a phenomenon that still attracts lots of attention.

Or perhaps it is just something that Jean Todt cooked up before leaving the team and Domenicali has to live with it now …

Well, who knows. The fact remains, Schumi is still around and he is definitely not slow.

There is another blog post on Michael Schumacher today here …

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Day 3 in Barcelona was about new BullRosso car that was supposed to run for last 2 days of test. Unfortunately Mr. Bourdais smashed it beyond repair and we probably will not see STR03 again for the rest of the Barcelona test.

Fernando Alonso must have felt like at the end of 2006 season, his Renault finishing just ahead of Michael Schumacher’s Ferrari.

Not sure what exactly are McLaren and Toyota testing, they did not show much pace yet in Barcelona. Well, important will be the pace they show next week on the same track…

Most important development yesterday was however related to the team that does not test in Barcelona at all - Super Aguri …

Barcelona test April 2008 - Day 3 times:

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