While McLaren weren’t that far behind Ferrari in terms of pace, they were nowhere near them at the flag – the consequence of multiple penalties over the course of the race weekend. Hamilton’s teammate, Heike Kovalainen, also received a five-place grid penalty for blocking the Red Bull of Mark Webber during qualifying. Following the tough stance taking by the stewards against McLaren, questions have been raised as to whether a real bias exists within the FIA against McLaren, and in favor of the Italian team – especially since Kimi Raikkonen was allowed to race a disintegrating Ferrari all the way to the flag. The absence of both McLaren’s at the head of the field was very good news for Jarno Trulli and Toyota. Jarno put in a great drive and soaked up tremendous pressure from Heike Kovalainen, who had climbed up the field to find himself right behind the Toyota driver during the last few laps of the race. The two drivers barely avoided taking each other out one lap from the end, with Jarno managing to hold his nerve and fend off the challenging Finn. His determined drive gave Toyota an emotional podium position as the team paid tribute to the late Ove Andersson – the architect of Toyota’s World Rally and Formula 1 racing programs. At the Canadian Grand Prix, Robert Kubica took advantage of Hamilton and Raikkonen’s misfortune to record his first win, and the first win for BMW Sauber. While he demonstrated great skill last season as well, the depth of his ability and maturity have certainly been the surprise of the 2008 season thus far. This was a victory that Kubica clearly deserved after putting in a number of very impressive performances over the course of the year. And more remarkably, he won at a venue where he suffered one of the worst crashes in recent Formula 1 history – causing him to be air lifted from the circuit last year. It was a great weekend for BMW Sauber, who not only achieved their goal of winning a race, but achieved it in style by taking a one-two as Nick Heidfeld brought the other BMW home in second place. Heidfeld, who’s been with the team since their inception, has struggled so far this year. He’ll be distraught for not scoring the team’s first win. Adding insult to injury, as both BMWs were on different strategies, he was forced to allow his teammate to pass him on track after Kubica came out of his second stop behind the German. As ever, the next Grand Prix at Silverstone is slated to be a great race. At his home race, it’ll be interesting to see how Hamilton responds to the pressure he’s facing – Silverstone is where the pressure bean to tell last year as well. It’ll also be interesting to see how Massa responds to being championship leader – a position he’s found himself in for the first time in his career. And of course, Raikkonen will hope to stay out of trouble with the aim of taking another win to bolster his title defense. He’s clearly had the pace over the past few races, as demonstrated by the fact that he’s had the fastest lap of the race in every race since Spain – making it five in a row. It’s a crucial time of the season, and you get the sense that whoever comes out on top at this stage will prevail at the end of the year. Audi appear to be completely unstoppable at the legendary Le Mans 24-hour race. Despite Peugeot’s best efforts over the past two years, the Audi R10 TDI retained its crown for the third consecutive year and gave Audi its eighth victory in nine years (not including the Audi engined, VW Group owned, Bentley that won the race in 2003). Although Stephane Sarrazin put the #8 Peugeot on pole, it was the #7 Peugeot of Jacques Villeneuve, Marc Gene and Nicolas Minassian that dueled with the #2 Audi of Alan Mannish, Dindo Capello and, now eight-time Le Mans winner, Tom Kristiansen all the way to the chequered flag. Eventually, it was the Audi that took overall honors yet again. Audi was able to neutralize Peugeot’s pace advantage thanks to rain in the very early hours of Sunday morning. Eventually, the experienced Audi team proved too strong. Despite a last hour charge by Peugeot, Audi simply looked to be the better team and maintained their lead to the end.
Posted on: Sat, 31 May 2014 18:49:09 +0000
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