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THE DAVID COULTHARD MUSEUM

Belgium

Whatever happened on Sunday afternoon was never going to lighten the mood of a motor sport world in mourning. 1995 World Rally Champion Colin McRae was killed on Saturday evening after crashing his helicopter within the grounds of his family home. The immensely popular Scot made a big impression on motor-sport with his name still frequently mentioned since his retirement from full time racing in 2004 until his untimely death. He perhaps more than any other racing driver means so much to people of my generation. Most people I know have at some point or another owned one of the Colin McRae Rally series and perhaps a few will be digging theirs out and having a play today as I write this to honour the great man in their own way. My thoughts go out to his family who have not only lost a husband, son, brother and father but also their six year old son. My thoughts are also with the families of Colin’s and his son’s friend who were also on board the flight.

Colin said these words after the death of friend and rival, Richard Burns. “He was a true character in the world of rallying and will be sadly missed” - sentiments that can also be used to describe the man himself.

Colin McRae 1968 - 2007

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Amidst the sadness, the Belgian Grand Prix went on ahead as normal. A master class from Ferrari in qualifying meant that they dominated the front row with the McLarens only managing to pick up the scraps with Fernando Alonso in third and Lewis Hamilton in fourth, a complete reversal of what happened in Monza only a week ago. At the start of the race all was not as it should be at Ferrari. On the grid Felipe Massa’s brakes were beginning to smoke quite badly but by this time the lights were illuminating and had no choice but to start and see what happened. Kimi Raikkonen got cleanly away from pole and Massa following him in second. As if McLaren boss Ron Dennis’ life was not stressful enough at the moment then the first corner tussle between his drivers can’t have done much to help. Hamilton tried to go round the outside his team-mate going into the first corner La Source. However, Alonso was determined not to let him have the place and closed the door leaving Hamilton no other option but to take avoiding action on the tarmac run-off. Surprisingly (and somewhat irritatingly) all the drivers managed to get through LA Source and the ultra fast Eau Rouge cleanly and without incident.

For the second race in a row Jarno Trulli was one of the biggest losers at the start of the race. His Toyota fell from a starting place of eighth down to eleventh. There were two big winners off the line. Heikki Kovaleinen managed to get his Renault into sixth place from down in ninth. However, the biggest winner was undoubtedly the Spyker of Adrian Sutil. The new B-Spec car on the soft tyres obviously worked well for the German who propelled himself up from 19th to 15th. A miserable weekend for the Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella came to an abrupt anti-climax at the end of lap one. After a dismal qualifying he also took an engine change putting him to the back of the grid. He elected to start from the pit lane, however some damage sustained on the lap left retirement the only option.. After an amazing start his Renault team-mate was struggling for pace in the opening laps of the race. It was clear at this point that he was on a one-stop strategy and drivers round him such as Mark Webber and Nick Heidfeld were on two-stoppers. The strategies of these other drivers would have been severly hampered if they had not been able to get past Kovaleinen. Both Webber and Heidfeld were able to make textbooks manoeuvres to get past the Finn and continue to catch up with the drivers also stopping twice.
Further down the midfield there were two other drivers who were storming through the field. After his engine penalty on Saturday Robert Kubica’s fifth in qualifying became 15th after a ten-place grid drop. Obviously his car was much faster than those around him and he dispatched Vitantonio Liuzzi, Jenson Button, David Coulthard and Ralf Schumacher with relative ease. Things were not quite so straightforward when he encounter Kovaleinen in front of him. The Renault was much closer on pace to the BMW and he was able to hold back the charging Pole for a number of laps. However, on lap 12 Kubica was close enough to the Finn to make his move. Very similar to the move that Hamilton pulled off against Raikkonen last week, he lunged up the inside of the Renault at the bus stop from quite a way back and tried to keep on terms with him through the corner and onto the start/finish straight. Kubica’s incredibly brave style rewarded him with eighth place. The other charger was Sutil in the Spyker. I have to admit that when I looked at the timing screen and it showed him as being 12th and right behind the Red Bull of David Coulthard I thought it was just a computer error. But true enough, looking up there it was, the on-board shot of him right up in behind DC’s gearbox. Unseen by television cameras the German had actually managed to pass Liuzzi, Button and Trulli and was now sitting 12th. True he was on the softer tyres and a two stop strategy whilst those around him were on the harder compound and had a heavier fuel load he was still doing impressively well to be actually passing these much more experienced drivers.

On lap 15 Nico Rosberg and Mark Webber pitted proving their pace in qualifying may not have been telling the full story. They were followed into the pits by Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso and then Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton a lap later. On the same lap it was Sutil’s turn to pit and the buck was passed on to Kubica to stare at Coulthard’s gearbox. The race then settled down for the remaining laps, however there was one battle worth watching further down the field. So far this year on the whole it has to be said that Super Aguri have really put Honda to shame and we got another example of that on the track. After numerous attempts to pass Jenson Button on lap 32 Takuma Sato finally nailed his former team-mate going into Les Combes to the delight of the Super Aguri pit-crew. There were numerous retirements in the concluding part of the race such as Button and Coulthard who both suffered similar hydraulics failures.
In the end it was an easy one-two for Ferrari with Kimi Raikkonen taking his third victory on Belgian soil. Crucially for the title Fernando Alonso remained in front of Hamilton to take the last podium place and reduced the gap down to only two points in the championship with only three races to go. A strong drive from Nick Heidfeld saw him climb back up into fifth, followed by his compatriot, Nico Rosberg in sixth, Mark Webber with a strong finish for Red Bull in seventh and a sixth points scoring result in a row for Heikki Kovaleinen who finished eighth. Even though it was realistically sealed thanks to the one-two victory the Constructor’s Crown is now mathematically in the hands of Ferrari. We are now at that stage of the season where it’s every man for himself, concluding with a two horse race for the championship with the plucky Finnish coming from behind. Three final fly-aways will decide what has been in my opinion one of the most exciting and controversial seasons of Formula One in modern history.