F1 Insider - Brazilian Grand Prix
Discussion
It is the final race of the 2008 Formula One season and still there is a lot to be decided. Here’s the latest from the drivers, teams and media at the Interlagos circuit;
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Driver’s Championship - All Lewis Hamilton must do to clinch the championship is finish 5th or higher. He says he has his sights set on repeating his Singapore GP performance where he came out fastest on Friday. Pundits were quick to point out that it did him no good on Sunday! As one team principal told me after hearing Lewis’ comment, “It may be more difficult doing well at Interlagos with 100,000+ loud Brazilians rooting against you.” Another viewpoint expressed by one of Lewis’ senior mechanics was “Look Lewis is ever the competitor and will actually thrive on being the underdog in Brazil”,
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Constructor’s Championship – Ferrari expect a 1-2 finish as they had last year here as this will enable them to capture the Constructor’s championship and potentially steal the driver’s title. Remember Massa won here two years ago for Ferrari and then allowed Raikkonen to pass him which enabled Kimi to lead the Ferrari 1-2 and more importantly claim his first ever F1 World Championship title. One Ferrari insider told me, “Kimi may want to repay the favour by taking Hamilton out just after the start at the very tight first corner allowing Felipe to win the driver’s championship while the team will keep our lead in the Constructor’s championship.”
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Another Brazilian out to impress his home fans this weekend will be Honda’s Rubens Barrichello. Whether Rubens stays with the team or not next year is down to a power struggle within the team. Honda F1 Insider’s tell me Ross Brawn would like Rubens to stay saying he thinks F1’s most experienced driver will thrive under the radical new rule changes. Nick Fry wants Barrichello to go as he has been unable to raise any significant sponsorship money and so he needs to trim costs wherever possible. Fry knows he can do this by getting rid of Barrichello and bringing in a young unproven driver with loads of money. I was further told by this team insider that Brawn clearly is not happy with this scenario,
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One driver very happy to be back at the Brazilian circuit is RenaultF1’s Fernando Alonso. Recently he told a group of S. American journalists, “It was at Interlagos that I won my two world titles with Renault (in 2005 and 2006) and so it always feels great to come back here. This year we have already achieved our objective to end the season fourth in the constructors' championship with the third quickest car (note: a big dig at BMW) so we can therefore approach this race with less pressure and be more relaxed, which may help us take advantage of the situation. After Singapore and Fuji, the team now believes that anything is possible.”
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Further down the field you can also expect a major fight for eighth in the driver’s championship between Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, both of whom are locked on 30 points. Insiders at Torro Rosso tell me Vettel wants to win this battle very bad. At Toyota the word is “…don’t be surprised if Jarno and Sebastian are beaten out by Timo…” Considering Glock is on 22 world championship points it would take a win or second place and the others failing to score in order to make this happen. Not likely in my book,
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Flavio, Flavio, Flavio what are you doing with your soccer team now? Flavio is spending more and more of his time on soccer. He has been in the newspapers in recent days following a falling out with Queens Park Rangers (QPR) manager Iain Dowie. The same Dowie who Briatore crowed about when he brought in the very experienced manager to help him resurrect QPR. Apparently Dowie took offence when Briatore took it on himself to name the line-up for the team to play Reading. Dowie refused to accept Briatore’s interference and was sacked. QPR has won just one of their last six league matches.
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Finally, whether you like him or loathe him this will be the final Formula One Grand Prix for David Coulthard. While he is expected to become a race commentator for BBC next year, many people have been reflecting upon his career leading up to this weekend. Here’s some fun facts about his career you may use in an F1 trivia contest; David Coulthard has taken part in 245 Grands Prix with 13 wins, 62 podiums, 18 fastest laps, 12 pole positions and his best championship finish was 2nd in 2001. He has also scored the most points in F1 (535 before Brazil) amongst drivers never to win a world championship. Now here comes the interesting trivial points; amazingly during this span his has only driven for three teams (Williams, McLaren and Red Bull) and has only had 7 team mates during this span.
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Driver’s Championship - All Lewis Hamilton must do to clinch the championship is finish 5th or higher. He says he has his sights set on repeating his Singapore GP performance where he came out fastest on Friday. Pundits were quick to point out that it did him no good on Sunday! As one team principal told me after hearing Lewis’ comment, “It may be more difficult doing well at Interlagos with 100,000+ loud Brazilians rooting against you.” Another viewpoint expressed by one of Lewis’ senior mechanics was “Look Lewis is ever the competitor and will actually thrive on being the underdog in Brazil”,
---
Constructor’s Championship – Ferrari expect a 1-2 finish as they had last year here as this will enable them to capture the Constructor’s championship and potentially steal the driver’s title. Remember Massa won here two years ago for Ferrari and then allowed Raikkonen to pass him which enabled Kimi to lead the Ferrari 1-2 and more importantly claim his first ever F1 World Championship title. One Ferrari insider told me, “Kimi may want to repay the favour by taking Hamilton out just after the start at the very tight first corner allowing Felipe to win the driver’s championship while the team will keep our lead in the Constructor’s championship.”
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Another Brazilian out to impress his home fans this weekend will be Honda’s Rubens Barrichello. Whether Rubens stays with the team or not next year is down to a power struggle within the team. Honda F1 Insider’s tell me Ross Brawn would like Rubens to stay saying he thinks F1’s most experienced driver will thrive under the radical new rule changes. Nick Fry wants Barrichello to go as he has been unable to raise any significant sponsorship money and so he needs to trim costs wherever possible. Fry knows he can do this by getting rid of Barrichello and bringing in a young unproven driver with loads of money. I was further told by this team insider that Brawn clearly is not happy with this scenario,
---
One driver very happy to be back at the Brazilian circuit is RenaultF1’s Fernando Alonso. Recently he told a group of S. American journalists, “It was at Interlagos that I won my two world titles with Renault (in 2005 and 2006) and so it always feels great to come back here. This year we have already achieved our objective to end the season fourth in the constructors' championship with the third quickest car (note: a big dig at BMW) so we can therefore approach this race with less pressure and be more relaxed, which may help us take advantage of the situation. After Singapore and Fuji, the team now believes that anything is possible.”
---
Further down the field you can also expect a major fight for eighth in the driver’s championship between Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, both of whom are locked on 30 points. Insiders at Torro Rosso tell me Vettel wants to win this battle very bad. At Toyota the word is “…don’t be surprised if Jarno and Sebastian are beaten out by Timo…” Considering Glock is on 22 world championship points it would take a win or second place and the others failing to score in order to make this happen. Not likely in my book,
---
Flavio, Flavio, Flavio what are you doing with your soccer team now? Flavio is spending more and more of his time on soccer. He has been in the newspapers in recent days following a falling out with Queens Park Rangers (QPR) manager Iain Dowie. The same Dowie who Briatore crowed about when he brought in the very experienced manager to help him resurrect QPR. Apparently Dowie took offence when Briatore took it on himself to name the line-up for the team to play Reading. Dowie refused to accept Briatore’s interference and was sacked. QPR has won just one of their last six league matches.
---
Finally, whether you like him or loathe him this will be the final Formula One Grand Prix for David Coulthard. While he is expected to become a race commentator for BBC next year, many people have been reflecting upon his career leading up to this weekend. Here’s some fun facts about his career you may use in an F1 trivia contest; David Coulthard has taken part in 245 Grands Prix with 13 wins, 62 podiums, 18 fastest laps, 12 pole positions and his best championship finish was 2nd in 2001. He has also scored the most points in F1 (535 before Brazil) amongst drivers never to win a world championship. Now here comes the interesting trivial points; amazingly during this span his has only driven for three teams (Williams, McLaren and Red Bull) and has only had 7 team mates during this span.
ady_GTi said:
One Ferrari insider told me, “Kimi may want to repay the favour by taking Hamilton out just after the start at the very tight first corner allowing Felipe to win the driver’s championship while the team will keep our lead in the Constructor’s championship.”
That won't happen, as McLaren would just retaliate by radioing Heiki to take out Massa.Edited by DIW35 on Wednesday 29th October 22:46
ady_GTi said:
One Ferrari insider told me, “Kimi may want to repay the favour by taking Hamilton out just after the start at the very tight first corner
Er, for what does Kimi need to repay Hamilton for? Kimi ran LH off the track at spa, which for some strange reason, and entirely new to me, earned the victim a 25 second penalty. But LH has never taken Kimi or anyone else out in his time in F1 yet. Well, not on track as such, not deliberately.
heebeegeetee said:
ady_GTi said:
One Ferrari insider told me, “Kimi may want to repay the favour by taking Hamilton out just after the start at the very tight first corner
Er, for what does Kimi need to repay Hamilton for? Kimi ran LH off the track at spa, which for some strange reason, and entirely new to me, earned the victim a 25 second penalty. But LH has never taken Kimi or anyone else out in his time in F1 yet. Well, not on track as such, not deliberately.
I can't see that happening.
DIW35 said:
ady_GTi said:
One Ferrari insider told me, “Kimi may want to repay the favour by taking Hamilton out just after the start at the very tight first corner allowing Felipe to win the driver’s championship while the team will keep our lead in the Constructor’s championship.”
That won't happen, as McLaren would just retaliate by radioing Heiki to take out Massa.Edited by DIW35 on Wednesday 29th October 22:46
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