Ferrari on top of practice one today, Lewis had cluth problem. The Finn was the first major contender to emerge from the pits after a very quiet start to the session on the dusty track. He immediately went fastest and eventually improved to a 1:28.019 lap that put him eight tenths clear of the field. Raikkonen then gained another tenth on his final run and achieved a 1:27.988. While his teammate Felipe Massa steadily closed in before ending the session 0.403 seconds behind Raikkonen, the McLarens had no answer. Fernando Alonso was as low as seventh for much of the morning, and although he ultimately took third, he was 1.2 seconds slower than Raikkonen. Championship leader Lewis Hamilton ended up in fourth place, but only completed 10 laps before his McLaren developed a slipping clutch and had to spend the rest of the session in the garage. The car will be repaired for the second session, however. Heikki Kovalainen was the best of the rest for Renault, moving up to fifth in the closing minutes. Williams' Nico Rosberg completed the top six with another late run. Both Toyota drivers spun during the session - Jarno Trulli rotating in the final complex early on, and Ralf Schumacher going off at both Turn 1 and Turn 4 on different runs. In between the incidents, he managed the seventh fastest time, with Trulli behind Giancarlo Fisichella and Nick Heidfeld in 10th. David Coulthard spun at Turn 1 on his last lap, then had to stop his Red Bull after a dramatic flash fire developed under the car after he had rejoined. It was quickly attended to by the marshals. 1. Raikkonen 1:27.988 22 2. Massa 1:28.391 + 0.403 20 3. Alonso 1:29.222 + 1.234 20 4. Hamilton 1:29.261 + 1.273 10 5. Kovalainen 1:29.346 + 1.358 19 6. Rosberg 1:29.403 + 1.415 23 7. R.Schumacher 1:29.414 + 1.426 24 8. Fisichella 1:29.541 + 1.553 19 9. Heidfeld 1:29.641 + 1.653 20 10. Trulli 1:29.685 + 1.697 26 11. Kubica 1:29.710 + 1.722 23 12. Davidson 1:30.384 + 2.396 17 13. Coulthard 1:30.398 + 2.410 23 14. Button 1:30.483 + 2.495 17 15. Barrichello 1:30.580 + 2.592 25 16. Liuzzi 1:30.612 + 2.624 21 17. Sato 1:30.624 + 2.636 15 18. Wurz 1:30.876 + 2.888 12 19. Webber 1:30.917 + 2.929 22 20. Vettel 1:31.383 + 3.395 22 21. Sutil 1:31.445 + 3.457 31 22. Yamamoto 1:32.270 + 4.282 35
Second practice stopped at 14.22 local due to loose drain cover at turn 10. Lewis in first followed by Kimi, Massa, Alonso etc ..... Carol
Carol, are you still a Wurz fan? My nephew adores him and I keep telling him, that Wurz is absolutely useless. But then again he thinks the world of Massa as well. We have interesting debates. BTW: Just read, that Williams is going to give Wurz another chance, they won't change drivers for 08.
I can say that I'm a Wurz fan. He's not the greatest talent out there but compared to what else is out there, he's definitely in the top half I would say. Not fast in qualifying but in the races he has quite good pace, probably a better test driver than a full race driver, but at least he's man enough to admit when he makes mistakes, much respect for that.
I like him as a person, because he speaks his mind. But I think he lacks pace and gets overwhelmed in traffic resulting in accidents.
I agree he's not as fast as some, but he has managed some good results in races. Plus, he's been around F1 for awhile, hard to do if you're not highly rated by others in the paddock.
Some good results? Help me out here, name a few please. He's been around in F1 because he was willing to be a test driver forEVER. Kinda like saying Luca Badoer has been in F1 for a long time.
7th in Monaco, 3rd in Canada, 4th at the Nurburgring. 13 points compared to Rosberg's 7. Btw, any update on Practice 2?
Wurz has raced and tested for three top teams (Benetton, McLaren and Williams), Badoer was a test driver for a long time, but SF never felt comfortable elevating him to a race seat... There are a lot of test drivers that never race and few with as long a tenure as Wurz. Frank and his partner are known for being talent spotters... -Peter (no great fan of Wurz, but he's no Luca)
You might say that Fernando was sandbagging--maybe heavy on fuel, because was pretty smooth on the drive, but Lewis was all over the road. He had oversteer, he had understeer. I saw two separate front wing adjustments and I saw one guy looking at the side plate of the rear wing when the car was parked. It wasn't the tires, because he was fishtailing with new tires on the second lap out (meaning they were warm).
But listening to the guys on SPEED talk about drive lineups for next year. Does anyone think there is a chance of a Nicco Ross / Fredie 'Amos' Alonzo (stagg) switch. Nicco to McLaren? Remember his dad, KeKe is Mika Hakkinen's manager and Mika is still quite close to Rubber Dick, er, um Dennis.
Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps 1 2 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:28.469 28 2 6 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:28.762 0.293 21 3 11 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:28.773 0.304 23 4 12 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:28.874 0.405 28 5 5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:28.884 0.415 25 6 1 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes 1:28.947 0.478 24 7 16 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:28.995 0.526 27 8 4 Heikki Kovalainen Renault 1:29.025 0.556 28 9 17 Alexander Wurz Williams-Toyota 1:29.093 0.624 27 10 10 Robert Kubica BMW 1:29.368 0.899 31 11 14 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:29.435 0.966 12 12 3 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:29.456 0.987 28 13 9 Nick Heidfeld BMW 1:29.792 1.323 30 14 7 Jenson Button Honda 1:29.945 1.476 26 15 8 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:30.055 1.586 31 16 22 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:30.104 1.635 27 17 15 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:30.315 1.846 25 18 23 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 1:30.530 2.061 24 19 18 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Ferrari 1:30.702 2.233 24 20 19 Sebastian Vettel STR-Ferrari 1:30.801 2.332 16 21 20 Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari 1:31.153 2.684 32 22 21 Sakon Yamamoto Spyker-Ferrari 1:31.175 2.706 32
Speed (as usual) is unnecessarily stirring the pot. Williams confirmed its 08 drivers remaining the same (unfortunately Wurz stays). Same with Toyota, Ferrari and BMW. The real question is more whether the Alonso to Renault transfer will happen or not. Most likely it will and Piquet Jr. will be his team mate. That means Kovalainen and Fisico are out of seats! Hurray! The other interesting question is, who will get the 2nd McLaren seat.
There's talk of Nico Rosberg going to McLaren. http://www.speedtv.com/articles/auto/formulaone/39692/ I'd love to see that!
It seems that Ralf has finally found out what the long pedal on the left does, or maybe he is feeling the heat of unemployment coming his way.
i like Wurz, he is a good driver, even though i am i one eyed Ferrari supporter! he was a good driver for benneton who could ever forget the 1 Red 1 Blue shoes combo as he thought it was good luck he did race some great race for them!
