EUROPEAN GRAND PRIX
After the high drama and entertainment of Jarno TrulliÕs win last week at Monaco, normal service resumed at the Nurburgring on Sunday as Michael Schumacher and the red Ferrari juggernaut demolished their opposition with a resounding 1-2 finish. Indeed, the race was as good as over by the time Schumacher pitted for his first refuelling stop on lap 8. Getting the jump on the field after a scrappy start, Michael had built up a 14 second lead in just six laps while the pack was trapped behind Kimi Raikkonen's fairly slow McLaren. On exiting the pits Schumacher came out just behind Jarno TrulliÕs Renault in seventh place who was at the back of the train of cars behind Raikkonen, which meant that he was only a few seconds off the lead with everyone in front of him yet to make their pit stops. By lap 15 all those stops had been made and Schumacher was a good twenty odd seconds in front of his nearest rival and was never again headed in the race. SchumacherÕs strategy of a very light fuel load paid off giving him pole position on the grid and the ability to disappear while the others battled with each other.
EXPAT EXPLOITS
The final weekend of May was not a great one for Australian drivers trying to make it on the world scene. There were some brighter moments but all in all it was a week of hard luck and hard landings.
The hardest luck came in the World Supersports motorcycle race at Oschersleben, Germany when Ten Kate Honda team-mates Karl Muggeridge and Brock Parkes finished a resounding 1-2 after a terrific race long duel only for them both, and the other top six Honda riders, to be disqualified after a discrepancy was found in the homologation of the rear wheel spindle. This gave the win to SuzukiÕs Stephane Chambon and meant that Dutchman Jurgen van den Goorbergh extends his championship lead instead of losing it to Muggeridge. In the same race Aussie Yamaha rider Kevin Curtain had one of the hard landings when he fell while battling strongly in the second group. Had he stayed up he may well have been declared the winner but...
A1 GRAND PRIX
{mosimage} Germany’s latest wunderkind, Nico Hulkenberg, continued his domination of the A1 GP series at Eastern Creek last weekend with two more victories over stable mate, New Zealand’s Jonny Reid. So total was his domination he was hardly headed all weekend. Fastest in the final practice session, two of the four qualifying sessions, Pole position, victory and fastest laps in both the Sprint Race and the Feature Race. He did, however make a slight mess of the start of the Feature race and let Reid into the lead through the first corner. Reid’s lead lasted only as long as the pit stops. Hulkenberg pitted a lap before the Kiwi, put in a blindingly fast out lap and when Reid rejoined he was a second behind the German and that, as they say, was that. Reid tried hard and occasionally pulled some time back on the leader but never really troubled him.
Welcome to Multimedia Motor Sport
After 18 long years at Telstra, working as everything from a punching bag to a project manager, and rapidly approaching 40 years of age, when the possibility of a nice redundancy package was mentioned for about a third of my sections staff, my hand shot into the air of it’s own accord. The idea of turning my passion into a profession was too much to resist. Will it succeed? Who knows, but as I can write and take fairly good photos, I’ve just got to give it a go.