All entries for Friday 08 July 2005

F411 Championship: Round 10 – French Grand Prix

Well that was a bit dull to be honest. Alonso winning so much has gotten to the point where on the news they're calling it "predictable" and the word "procession" is being bandied about again. Perhaps that's a little harsh, especially on the back of three successive enthralling (proper) races, ie. Monaco, Nurburgring and Montreal. But then it's probably just backlash from Indianapolis.

Drivers

10pts Mark Webber: He drove most of the race with his cockpit at 80 degrees… Celsius! All to try and get a better qualifying slot at Silverstone in a car which appears to be genuinely getting slower and not just standing still while everyone else goes faster. What an absolute legend.

8pts Takuma Sato: In a race where everyone else seemed fairly content to play follow the leader Taku, as usual, bucked the trend and went a bit crazy. If it weren’t for him I think I’d probably have fallen asleep.

6pts Narain Karthikeyan: Nice and sideways. He should give rallying a go.

5pts Chritijan Albers: Likewise.

4pts Tiago Monteiro: I suddenly have a highly irrational fondness for the guy. I have no idea where it’s come from but it started to appear _before Indianapolis so isn’t related to him getting on the podium. He gets points for the shocked expression he had on his face when Martin Brundle interviewed him on the grid. He probably rang up his mum after the race to say “I got interviewed today!”

3pts Jacues Villeneuve: He's sort of getting there. Though BMW buying Sauber may be bad news for him. They'll surely be able to pay him off.

2pts Juan Pablo Montoya: A better display, though some work needs to be done in qualifying. At least it wasn't his fault he retired.

1pt Ralf Schumacher: I have no idea how he ended up in the points in the race. The same goes for here.

-1pt Patrick Friesacher: For not getting Brundle’s joke on the grid. He seemed in a world of his own. Similarly to Monteiro I’m not entirely sure he knew what was going on. It was probably the first time he’d had a microphone stuck in front of him so might have been confused. Good job he didn’t think Brundle was offering him food and he’d tried to take a bite out of it.

-2pts Giancarlo Fisichella: It's not going well. I'm no expert on being a racing driver, but I'm pretty sure being lapped by your team mate isn't good.

-3pts Rubens Barrichello: A damp squib of a performance. That's why Schuey's numero uno.

Constructors

10pts Sauber: A strong race, possibly unfortunate not to have got more out of it. And Peter Sauber has managed to sell up before his team went down the pan. I hope Eddie Jordan, Alain Prostand Tom Walkinshaw were paying attention.

8pts BAR: They were never going to repeat 1999 and score zero points again, but it was looking pretty bad for them. Yet, they're still last in the constructors race. At least Button's going to get a decent qualifying slot for Silverstone.

6pts Renault: An astonishing performance considering that, according to James Allen, the benchmark is the McLaren. It probably is, but anyone would think the MP4-20 (Note to self: Check numbering before publishing, if already published remember to proof-read blog entries before publishing in the future) was designed by Jesus Christ (or at least Colin Chapman) the way Allen goes on about it.

5pts Mclaren: For designing sliced bread on wheels (how cool would that be?)

4pts Minardi: Er, I'm sure they did something good.

3pts Toyota: For getting points by stealth. They're sneaky this team.

2pts Jordan: I have no idea why I decided to give them points. Perhaps that Kolles bloke hacked onto my blog and edited it in.

1pt Ferrari: Thought it was more of a plus day than a minus day for the team in red.

-1pt Red Bull: Were they slow? Um… Well, Klien retiring so early wasn't good.

-10pts Williams: I know Ferrari won last year after making four stops, but Williams seemed to grab the wrong end of the stick. Williams aren’t famed for great pit strategy but making pit stops over and over was never going to win them the race. The only way Williams on current form will win a race this year is if the rest of the big teams get zapped in a War of the Worlds styley. Even then they might have difficulty beating the Jordans. I'm a bit worried that they're going to end up like Brabham and Lotus soon, fingers crossed they sort out decent engines for next year. Not Judds, pur-lease!

Special Cases

10pts Damon Hill: I didn’t see it, but he took the best time on Top Gear’s “Star in a reasonably priced car”. Well, you’d certainly hope he’d be capable of doing so, but he’s a general superstar so gets points for it.

: 08 Jul 2005 18:36 |  Tags: F1 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem