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THE DAVID COULTHARD MUSEUM

European GP

On Saturday evening I don’t think anybody, even the drivers and teams, expected the downpour and the drama that followed on Sunday afternoon. The qualifying session that took place on Saturday set the tone for the race that followed. The British drivers struggled in general with Jensosn Button crashing out in the first session along with Davdi Coulthard who thanks to a Red Bull timing error had no time to set a second faster lap in the qualifying. Anthony Davidson only managed to out-qualify his team-mate in the second session in fifteenth place. Then disaster struck Lewis Hamilton as he approached the Shell chicane his tyre appeared to collapse and the Brit was simply a passeneger as he careered towards the edge of the tyre barrier. At first the situation appeared to be worrying as it tooka while for Hamilton to emerge and when he did he had to be stretchered away. After spending some time at the medical centre he was given the all clear to race albeit starting from tenth place. This left the remaining three front runners to battle amongst themselves. After only one fast lap each it was the Ferrari of Raikkonen who came out on top followed by McLaren of Fernando Alonso and his team-mate, Felipe Massa.

There was a prediction on Sunday morning that within a few minutes into the race. This rain didn’t take long to fall as spots appeared on a number of the cameras on the frmation lap. The Spyker team made the last minute decision to bring in homeboy debutant Mrakus Winkelhock to change onto the intermediate tyres before the race even begun. As the drama over the first few laps unfolded this appeared to be a very canny decision. As the leaders went away at the front the BMW drivers behind them got into a big muddle as Nick Hiedfeld and Robert Kubica banged wheels a number of times ending in a spin for the German. Sadly for the charging Hamilton who by turn two managed to get upto sixth had Hiedfeld spin right into his path puncturing the Brit’s tyre.This was then followed by offs from both Coulthard Nico Rosberg later in the lap. It appeared at the end o this lap that the inters were the tyre the drivers needed to be on. However even for a great driver such as Kimi Raikkonen it was a struggle to actually get into the pits as he slid off on the standing water and had to go round for a whole lap on dry tyres. All these pit-stops meant that Winkelhock was able to leap-frog the entire grid and even pass Raikkonen for the lead. As he was able to build up a sizeable lead it became apparent that the river forming at turn 1 was even too wet for wet tyres. Jenson Button slid straight off the at the first corner followed by Hamilton, Sutil flying off in the Spyker followed by the Toro Rossos of Speed and Liuzzi who very nearly hit the recovery vehicles. The track was deemed too dangerous and the race was red-flagged and stopped.

Hamilton was clever though whilst every other driver stopped the car and got out he remained in the car with the engine running. The marshals who deemed him to be in a dangerous position gave him a push start and he was able to take the restart a lap down. Amongst all the chaos Winkelhock had amanged to obtain a 33 second lead at the front which was sadly obliterated by the Red Flag. He was followed by Massa and Alonso with the two Red Bulls behind them. The race was restarted with a rolling start with the first three laps being under the Saftey Car. Race control gave permission to Hamilton to un-lap himself (to the confusion to a number of drivers) which he duly did. However, the McLaren team decided at the end of that lap to put him on dry tyres on a damp track! I must say even though the damp conditions did cause absolute mayhem it was enjoyable. I haven’t see a start like that in years. Rather all cars sticking to a racing line it was four a stern into some corners with all cars jockeying for position. This was evident at the restart as coulthard dived uo the inside of Webber to take third and many more midefield battles further down the field.
It was clear on the very first lap that the Hamilton decision did not pay off as he went bumbling off at the Dunlpo kurve. That at that moment dry tyres were nto the right tyre to be on. However, within three laps it was clear that as Hamilton set fastest lap after fastest lap so all the cars started to plie into the pits to change to dry tyres. On that lap Massa, Alonso and Webber pitted first with David Coulthard have to complete another lap, but for the first time since this same race two years ago he completed a lap in the lead. However, this cost the Scot as would lose time and fall back to seventh behind the Williams of Alex Wurz and the Renault of Heikki Kovaleinen. As the race finally started to settle down Massa was beginning to pull away in the lead from Alonso. Further down the field Ralf’s nightmare season continued at home as he closed the door on a a charging Hiedfeld who tried to overtake him up the inside On lap 15 the dream was well and truly over for Markus winkelhock as his Spyker eould let go with hydrauloics problems. Ralf bumbled out of the race, trying to push the marshall who was helping him in the process. He clearly felt that his fellow German was to blame for the incident however the television replays suggested otherwise to me as it appeared Hiedfeld quite easily made it up the inside and Relf quite unfairly closed the door. Ralf was followed by Kimi Raikkonen who’s Nurburgring jinx struck again and he would retire with hydraulics issues

The second half of the race started to look like it was going to be quite an anticlimax to an excellent afternoon until about 15 laps from the finish. As te track was now fully dry there was a warning rain was just around the corner. Renault took the risk at pitting Heikki Kovaleinen and changing him onto intermediates based on just the wanring . Even Kovaleinen’s engineer felt that the early move onto inters was a big risk that sadly for the Finn did not pay off. He struggled ofr three laps before the rain started to pour and dropped from fifth down to eighth and only one point by the end of the race. Once the rain really got going over the Nurburgring Coulthard and Kubica were the first to pit closely followed by the leaders. In the wet conditions the wet Bridgestone tyres worked a lot better on the McLaren than the Ferrari. Alonso very quickly closed the gap onto Massa in front of him and was starting to out-prance the prancing horse. The McLaren was a lot quicker than the Ferrari in the opening sector which enabled Alonso to get the run he needed on Massa into turn six. He took another one of his trademark risky moves banging wheels with Massa’s car but jus managing to edge out the Brazilian.
The race settled down once again for the final few laps with Alonso easily bringing home the car home in front of Massa. However it was unclear weather the final podium position was going to go to Mark Webber who had held the position ever since the retirement of Kimi Raikkonen or Alexander Wurz who had been hounding down the Australian in the closing stages. On exiting the chicane for the final time Webber seemed to lose speed and the Williams driver was all over his gearbox in the final hairpin. Luckily for Red Bull Webbo and Coulthard managed to hold onto fifth from a determined Hiedfeld yielding Red Bull’s highest points haul in one race since the team’s creation in 2005. After their tangle at the roginial start the two BMWs recovered well to score sixth and seventh with Kovaeinen eighth.

Now with only seven races to go the championship has hotted up no end with every result being crucial for each of the top four drivers. Raikkonen now goes into the next few races with nothing relly to lose. He lies in fourth place and after yet another DNF at the Nurburgring and sits 18 points behind championship leader, Hamilton. He would need victories at the following three or four races to remain in the champioship fight so he unlike the others can afford to take more risks and will be a lot more entertaining to watch in the races. For Massa consistency is going to be the key in the remaining European races. He is about ten points off the leading duo and so some solid pdium finishes/wins taking two ro four points off the lead in each race will bring him right into the championship race by the fly away climax races. Alonso’s drives will be entirely based on beating Hamilton. Say if Massa and Raikkonen were leading into a 1-2 finish with Fernando third ahead of Hamilton in fourth then I think knowing Alonso he would settle for third and take two points away from Hamilton. And well what about Hamilton? He needs to go into every race an do the best he can. He still at the end of the day is in his rookie season and has nothing to prove to anybody. Seven race, four drivers, on championship….this season has now got interesting