Well, the live timing was all screwed up this morning! Top ten results from P1: Kimi MS Button Wurz Davidson de la Rosa Heidfeld Vettel Doornbos Jani Neither Renault completed a lap, thus no times. Massa showed 16th. Great run for his first time out on an F1 course for Vettel - he's running the third car for BMW. Times very close for top three positions this morning - MS was .462 behind Kimi and Button was .470 from Kimi. Lap time was 1:28.315. JPM hold track record at 1:24.770. Very hot in Istanbul and forecast is hotter over weekend. Top three this morning only had 4 and 5 laps each. Carol part of the Autosport write-up might explain some of the delay . . . . Davidson was the only major casualty of practice when his Honda engine blew 11 minutes before the end of the hour. Davidson stopped on the track before Turn Seven, where the marshals moved his smoking Honda. He was also running a one-off bespoke livery for Turkish sponsor Petrol Ofisi. The session also marked the debut of BMW Sauber's new third driver Sebastian Vettel. He set the eighth quickest time with a 1:29.964. The session was unusually busy for a Friday morning and a number of drivers ran wide at the tight Turn Nine, including Robert Doornbos of Red Bull, Jarno Trulli in his Toyota and Super Aguri's third driver Franck Montagny. Both Renault drivers Fernando Alonso and Giancarlo Fisichella carried out installation laps but failed to set a time. Italian Giorgio Mondini completed the most laps in his third driver role for Midland this weekend.
I'll tell you one thing....... Impressive stuff from Sebastian Vettel in the BMW Sauber in Prac2........very impressive stuff.
No kidding - he's on top right now with 2:45 remaining with Massa only .071 behind. I thing Sebastian definitely has a good future ahead. Carol
This is the one to watch: http://www.bmw-sauber-f1.com/en/index.html Had his first karting experience at age 3. Carol P2 top ten and respective times behind leader: VITTEL Massa - .073 Button - .415 Davidson - .507 Ralf - .523 MS - .728 Doornbos - .757 Kimi - .951 De la Rosa - 1.021 Rubens - 1.123 Alonso 12th with 16 laps Fisi 18th with 16 laps Looks like the mind games for P1 & P2 are working!!
That's if Alonso can get past his obsession with Doornbas. Why the championship points leader is so focused on a guy nowhere near the running is beyond me. I wonder if the stewards will look at his incident at the end of practice, where he basically ran Doornbas off at turn 11 after being passed? I'd think Schumacher would be his focus right now.
Good morning - got to work at 6:15 this am so only insight to happenings in practice is via live timing and/or Autosport. Hopefully the stewards will look at the incident and penalize accordingly. I think the "stakes" are becoming too high for him (Alonso)to handle?!?!? Carol
Thanks Carol for the post. I shouldn't have stayed out until 3 AM. But I will be ready for qualifying Saturday!
So you mean to say this is the second race Alonso did something wrong towards Doornbos? He should be banned for three races! Remember the times when Michael couldn't do anything right and was penalised heavily for petty things (like overtaking during the warm up lap)? O well, we shouldn't be out for revenge and let's hope Michael can beat Alonso on the track in a fair way. Best, Peter
Practice times are absolutely meaningless. It gives no indication of a car and driver's true race or qualifying pace. I bet Vettel is running very low fuel levels, and that is the only reason why he is showing so well. Anyone who has followed F1 for any amount of time knows not to read into how a newbie shows initially because it means nothing. Remember Jean Alesi and his debut? Jenson Button? Trulli? Fisichella? Webber? Rosberg? Do I need to go on?
You're welcome Ron - you'll have to take over the qualifying responsibility for tomorrow. We're headed to brunch at FoH - hoping to see something really neat again this year. Last year was a personal viewing of the Birdcage 75 by Guiseppe. (You should have just stayed up!! - it came on at 3am our time but as I mentioned the live timing had a hiccup this morning). - - - - . . .and to respond to other posts - yes Friday practice is meaningless but it does give the teams the ability to do specific testing for the specific track. No matter what the event is, any time you have any sort of timing there always the element of competition. Vettel may have been running on low fuel but he certainly did a bunch of laps and is much better than some already on the grid. Carol
Maybe its only me, but one of the other practice drivers I've been impressed with is Davidson. He is sharp through the turns and very precise. It would be interesting to see him run one race.
per Autosport World champion Fernando Alonso has played down his incident with Robert Doornbos in today's practice for the Turkish Grand Prix. The Red Bull Racing driver said Alonso was "playing chicken" with him, after the pair made contact in their second incident in two races. In Hungary three weeks ago Alonso got penalised for his antics. "We were on the straight together, I was fast on the straight because my car was quicker so we braked together and we locked the front tyres we lost control until we touched," said Alonso of today's incident. "But we were lucky that there was no damage to the car and we carried on. "I didn't expect to have any problems there," added the Renault driver. I overtook three or four cars today and five or six cars overtook me today when I was with the graining period, and with all of them I didn't have any problem," Alonso said. "But Doornbos has three or four incidents today. It is strange."
YES YES YES... bring on the conspiracy theorists... the whole world want to see Michael win! What else is new... Aliens killed JFK... Elvis is alive on a cruise ship in the pcific ocean... Ron Dennis wanted Michael to win again... You must be watching too much of fake wrestling and NASCRAP... The is real motorsport... not storyline fake wrestling.
yes yes yes bring on the conspiracy theories... F1 is a fake show designed to make Michael popular... The whole world wants to see Michael win... Open your eyes kid... F1 is the pinnacle of motorsports and it is clear you have not been watching F1 because there are passes.
YouTube video of the 'incident' earlier http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46cliw6GqRY I like that second turn to the right
Alonso is an ass! IMO, a stern warning is in order, and if he repeats this type of sophmoric behavior... THE BOOT !!
