IRL- BRISCOE WINS AT ST PETERSBURG

  Marlboro Team Penske’s “Team Australia” proved a winning combination in the opening round of the IRL at St. Petersburg. Ryan Briscoe drove superbly to win while Will Power also had a strong run into sixth place on his debut for the team. 

  Briscoe ran with the leaders through much of the 100-lap race but he didn't gain the lead until the 86th circuit when he dove under Justin Wilson to gain the coveted top spot. "We have led laps other times here but haven't been able to put it together," Briscoe said in victory lane. "What a feeling and a big relief to win the race, and it is great to open the season with a win. Team Penske made awesome pit stops and it was great racing with these guys at the end. Roger Penske calls my strategy, and it was just absolutely perfect today.  

Briscoe passed Justin Wilson for the lead on the 87th lap of the 100-lap race, then held off Ryan Hunter-Reay on two dramatic restarts in the final seven laps to claim what, in effect, is his second consecutive victory and second in a row on a street course. He won last year's season finale, a non-points race in his home country at Surfers Paradise, Australia.

"This is a lot like Milwaukee last year," Briscoe said, referring to the trouble he had at that track before posting Roger Penske's 300th career victory last summer. "We've led laps here and had been in position to win, but we'd never gotten the job done. I saw an opportunity and went for the win."

Will Power finished sixth in his debut driving the No. 3 Team Penske Dallara/Honda in place of Helio Castroneves. Power started sixth and finished sixth after enduring some trials on pit lane early and contact on track late in the race.

"I think we were on par to have a pretty good strategy today, but just as we pulled in for our first pit stop we had some bad luck with that yellow," said Power. "Plus, I sort of made it hard on our guys by pulling into the wrong pit, but I hung in there and made sure I stayed out of trouble and kept progressing throughout the day. I think considering everything that happened out there, bringing the Team Penske car home in sixth is great."

After Briscoe's final drive to the front, he never relinquished the lead, getting his third official IndyCar Series win and fourth overall (counting the Australia exhibition) since the Milwaukee breakout victory last year. Hunter-Reay finished just .4619 of a second behind in second place while Wilson was third.

 "The main objective was to get the car to the finish line, so I wasn't going to do anything desperate at the end," Briscoe said. "I knew there were important points to be scored." The victory also marked Team Penske's 30th win in IndyCar Series competition.

"It is a great feeling to get the win," Briscoe added.

 Briscoe will take the points lead into another street race, the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, on April 19. "It's great to start the season the same way we ended last year," said Tim Cindric, President of Penske Racing. " Ryan ran a great race and we had great pit stops. It was good to see Will fight his way back to sixth. We look forward to coming back to Long Beach in a couple of weeks for the first time since Helio won there in 2001."   

F3 - RICCIARDO ON FRONT ROW AT OULTON PARK

West Australian Red Bull Junior driver, Daniel Ricciardo, has claimed a front row grid position for both races in the opening round of the British Formula 3 championship at OultonPark. Having dominated practice on Friday Daniel was second in both qualifying sessions in his first British F3 outing. 

  British Formula 3 title favourite Daniel Ricciardo got his first race weekend of the season off to the perfect start by setting the fastest time during official testing today. The Australian Carlin Dallara-Volkswagen driver lapped the Oulton Park International circuit a full half a second quicker than Nick Tandy's JTR Mygale-Mercedes during three 50 minute sessions. 

Reflecting on his most dominant testing performance in British F3 to date, Formula Renault Eurocup graduate Ricciardo said: "The car feels really good in both wet and dry conditions and we have been very quick in the all the sessions, so that should allow me to sleep a little better tonight. It's only practice of course, but if I can drive like I did today for the rest of the weekend then we should be in pretty good shape."

British Formula 3 veteran Max Chilton claimed a surprise pole position from Australian team-mate Daniel Ricciardo - five tenths inside reigning champion Jaime Alguersuari's 2008 pole time and 1.5s under the lap record.

 Pre-season title favourite Ricciardo led the timesheet for much of the session, which was punctuated by a red flag 10 minutes in when Victor Correa went off at the Brittans chicaine, tore off the front wing and damaged the left front suspension on his Litespeed SLC Mugen-Honda.

When the session resumed, Ricciardo, Chilton and Fortec driver Riki Christodoulou all took turns at the head of the times – shaving thousandths of a second off each other's times, all in the 1m28.1s bracket.

 With five minutes left, Ricciardo banged in a 1m28.105s lap and thought he'd done enough to take the top spot, until Chilton milked his moment of inspiration.

"There wasn't much more to come from the car," admitted Ricciardo. "It was good before the red flag, but afterwards I think the tyres went out of their operating window and the track got away from us a bit. I had some high-speed understeer and wasn't great at picking the gaps in traffic, but we're still on the front row and hopefully we can go better in the next session."

 Austrian racer Walter Grubmuller claimed pole position for race two while Australian Carlin driver Daniel Ricciardo found only 0.002s of a second compared with session one, but his 1m28.103s lap was good enough for another front row start. 

A1GP - Liuzzi Claims Italy’s First Pole Position in Portugal

Algarve, Portugal – Round Six of the 2008/09 A1GP World Cup of Motorsport continued this afternoon with Vitantonio Liuzzi claiming Italy’s first ever A1GP pole position for tomorrow’s Vodafone A1GP Algarve, Portugal Sprint race. Robert Doornbos took his first pole position for A1 Team Netherlands in Feature race qualifying.

With the title battle heating up the pressure is mounting on the top title contenders, but only a few minutes into the first qualifying segment the red flag was out as China’s Ho-Pin Tung spun and got stuck out on track. As the clock continued to tick down the green flags were waved but, with only a couple of minutes remaining, seven teams did not have time to record a lap. These included the two championship rivals, Switzerland and Ireland. The second qualifying segment began but Switzerland were in even more trouble as the engine died and left Jani stranded out on track, unable to set a time and bringing out a second red flag. As the teams lined up at the end of the pit lane, there was drama for Brazil’s Felipe Guimarães who struggled to get his car going, so hampering a number of teams exiting the pits as he got his car going again.

Despite both segments of Sprint race qualifying being interrupted by red flags, Liuzzi timed his run to perfection. Making full use of the one PowerBoost lap available to him he claimed pole position for A1 Team Italy on his A1GP debut with a time of 1-minute 30.875-seconds. The Netherlands kept its practice form together in qualifying with Robert Doornbos second on the grid for the Sprint, while A1 Team Ireland’s Adam Carroll kept his championship hopes alive by making up for a problematic day yesterday to start third.

In Feature race qualifying the field had its first full 10-minute run without any interruptions and Doornbos was straight on the pace to post the provisional pole position time.  The Swiss mechanics worked frantically to get Jani back out on track for the final qualifying segment of the day, with the championship leader, the Netherlands, Ireland and Portugal, having PowerBoost available for their final runs of the day.

Doornbos went one grid position better in Feature qualifying to claim his first pole position of the series with a 1-minute 30.415-second lap, and is determined to take a win on his final outing for the team this season.

Irelandwill line up alongside him on the front row after another good performance from Adam Carroll, while South Africa’s Adrian Zaugg scored the team’s best qualifying result of the season to start fourth.

Not one to falter under pressure, Jani put in a great lap to take third for the Feature race. After a disastrous Sprint race qualifying, the Swiss driver could be in a vulnerable position as both the Netherlands and Ireland look extremely strong heading into tomorrow’s races when the excitement in Portugal looks set to continue.

Italy’s Vitantonio Liuzzi said: “We got a bit warm after the red flag because the time was passing by in the first qualifying session. After we saw the green flag, we were just trying to get the right spot and it worked out really well I think.”

“It was an exciting day,” said the Netherlands’ Robert Doornbos. “In the Sprint qualifying we were aiming for the P1 spot. We were P1 and I thought that was quite easy because I didn’t use PowerBoost, but then we heard that Antonio (Liuzzi) was on PowerBoost. I thought he would pass me but still second was a good result. Then we went all out for the Feature race, because that is a race the Netherlands hasn’t won yet this season so is the target for this weekend. I wanted to be sure that I would get a lap in so I kept asking my engineer if there was traffic. He said no but then Lebanon came out into turn one, and we touched wheels. I passed him on the outside, and I was four tenths off in the first sector so I was shouting on the radio, but my engineer did a good job in calming me down and I tried to finish the lap. The car has been really good and I still managed to put in a good time and it was the longest ten seconds of my life waiting in the pit lane for Adam (Carroll) to finish but luckily we held onto pole.” 

Ireland’s Adam Carroll said: “We decided not to finish the lap (in Q1) as there was just so much traffic in front so we just decided to save the tyres. It’s not always nice when you don’t get a lap in but that’s the way it goes, you just forget about it and move onto the next one.

“I don’t actually know what goes on during qualifying. I don’t really watch it as I’m concentrating on what I’m doing, but we will have to beat everybody to win this championship. It’s going to be a tough race tomorrow and it should be good for everybody to watch.”

Portugal’s Filipe Albuquerque who will start fifth and seventh for his home event tomorrow commented: “We were pretty strong yesterday and this morning but basically on the new tyres we were not fast enough. In Feature qualifying I was on the limit and made a small mistake and then the tyres were dirty for the rest of the lap.”

Sprint Race Qualifying Result

Feature Race Qualifying Result

F1-BRAWN 1-2 IN AUSTRALIA

  Brawn Grand Prix produced the miracle result in had threatened with a resounding 1-2 win for Jenson Button and Rubens Barrichello. Button was never headed but Rubens had a bumpier journey to the podium. After almost stalling at the start he was then involved in the first corner drama which took out Heikki Kovalainen (who hit Barrichello up the rear) and ruined Mark Webber’s race (Rubens rammed him). He later lost more of his front wing when he nerfed Kimi Raikkonen but his nose cone was replaced at the first pit-stop. More interesting was the substantial amount of damage to the Brawn’s rear diffuser after the McLaren had attacked it. Despite the damage Rubens was still able to come through the field and grab a comfortable second place so obviously even if the team is forced to alter its diffuser design the car will still be quick. 

  The post-race squabble over third took a while to sort out. Jarno Trulli enjoyed the podium presentation for Toyota but they were then given a 25 second penalty that dropped him to 13th place after the race officials decided that he had passed Hamilton under the last safety car period. Toyota then appealed this decision which was heard on Thursday and it was found that although Trulli had left the circuit and rejoined behind Hamilton at the beginning of the safety car period, Hamilton had deliberately slowed to allow Trulli back past as he believed the rules required. Worse was to come as McLaren, and Hamilton then lied to the officials regarding the radio conversation between Hamilton and the team at the time where they discussed letting Trulli back through. It was decided that Trulli could not be penalized as he had not been intent on overtaking, he just passed when Hamilton intentionally slowed. McLaren, and Hamilton, were then disqualified from the results for lying to the race officials. It may get worse, as the FIA are looking at further penalties for McLaren and Hamilton bringing the sport into disrepute.

   Mind you, as the appeal over the legality of the rear diffuser on the Brawn, Williams and Toyota cars will not be heard until after the Malaysian Grand Prix it may be that they are also disqualified from the results if the appeal is successful. That would then see Fernando Alonso, who finished sixth on the road but fifth in the final results promoted to winner followed by the Toro Rossos of Buemi and Bourdais, Sutil (Force India), Heidfeld (BMW Sauber), Fisichella (Force India), Webber and Vettel (Red Bull) as the point scorers. As Murray Walker once said, “If. If. If. F1 is If spelt backwards.” 

  And of course none of this dust-up over third place would have happened if Vettel had not tried a suicidal defence of second place at turn three after Kubica in the BMW had got a great run on him out of turn one. Kubica was already ahead going into the turn but Vettel left his breaking way too late down the inside and the resulting damage ended up putting both drivers into the wall and out of the race. Vettel tried a Villeneuve-esque effort to drive his three wheeled car to the finish as due to his efforts there was now a safety car so in theory no-one could pass him if he kept going. It didn’t work of course and the young German has now gotten himself a slap on the wrist and a 10 place grid penalty in Malaysia for not stopping immediately after the accident and causing a danger to other drivers.

   It was good to see that in general the new rules designed to aid overtaking worked. On a circuit that has a reputation for VERY little passing there was plenty of overtaking going on. The drivers who had their KERS system up and running had a great time, Hamilton especially passing many as he charged up through the field from his awful grid position. 

  All in all, an excellent start to the new season and the new rules. If this keeps up, we could be in for a vintage year.

 Sam Snape 

02/04/2009

F1 – ALL BRAWN AND PLENTY OF BRAINS

  For the first time since 1970, when Ken Tyrrell’s eponymous team

   The two Brawn cars were the two quickest in all three qualifying sessions with Rubens topping the first two and holding provisional pole until Button pipped him on his final run. Considering their earlier performance the Williams were a bit disappointing as only Rosberg (5th) made the top ten while Toyota had both drivers times disallowed due to excessive flexing in their rear wings.    Red Bull were the only other team to get both drivers into the top ten shoot-out with Vettel claiming an excellent third fastest and Mark Webber finished in 10th after an under-par final lap.

"I'm not rapped with my last lap. My previous flying laps had gone well, so I would have liked a better result, but that's where we are so we'll try to make something from the race. The bumps were quite bad in Turn nine on the final run. The team's done a good job and we've worked well through our programme over the winter. It's a shame I didn't get the best time in qualifying, but we'll see how we go from there tomorrow." said Mark.

  As with yesterdays practice all the top four teams from last year struggled and only BMW-Sauber made any progress at all. Both Kubica (4th) and Nick Heidfeld (9th) will start in the top half of the field but only because both Toyotas have been relegated to the back of the grid due to their illegal wings. Both Ferrari drivers sit at the wrong end of the top ten starting 6th (Massa) and 7th (Raikkonen) while the McLarens had an absolute shocker with only Kovalainen taking part in the second qualifying session and finishing last in that. Hamilton would have taken part however a gearbox failure put him out and after his grid place penalty for changing said gearbox he will start in 18th place.

  Renault were not much better and it was only a totally balls out lap from Alonso that gave him 12th fastest time. He will start from 10th on the grid while poor old Piquet will line up back in 14th. A crap car almost killed off his F1 career before it really got started at the beginning of last year and it looks as if another crap car may complete the job this year. It’s difficult to assess a young drivers talent when he is provided with rubbish cars by a good team and he is up against an experienced dual world champion team-mate.

 QUALIFYING TIMES  Pos  Driver      Team                  Q1        Q2        Q3      1.  Button      Brawn-Mercedes        1:25.211  1:24.855  1:26.202  2.  Barrichello Brawn-Mercedes        1:25.006  1:24.783  1:26.505  3.  Vettel      Red Bull-Renault      1:25.938  1:25.121  1:26.830  4.  Kubica      BMW-Sauber            1:25.922  1:25.152  1:26.914  5.  Rosberg     Williams-Toyota       1:25.846  1:25.123  1:26.973  6.  Glock       Toyota                1:25.499  1:25.281  1:26.975  7.  Massa       Ferrari               1:25.844  1:25.319  1:27.033  8.  Trulli      Toyota                1:26.194  1:25.265  1:27.127  9.  Raikkonen   Ferrari               1:25.899  1:25.380  1:27.163 10.  Webber      Red Bull-Renault      1:25.427  1:25.241  1:27.246 11.  Heidfeld    BMW-Sauber            1:25.827  1:25.504           12.  Alonso      Renault               1:26.026  1:25.605           13.  Nakajima    Williams-Toyota       1:26.074  1:25.607           14.  Kovalainen  McLaren-Mercedes      1:26.184  1:25.726           15.  Hamilton    McLaren-Mercedes      1:26.454  no time             16.  Buemi       Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:26.503                     17.  Piquet      Renault               1:26.598                     18.  Fisichella  Force India-Mercedes  1:26.677                     19.  Sutil       Force India-Mercedes  1:26.742                      20.  Bourdais    Toro Rosso-Ferrari    1:26.964