Wet weather in Japan

Hmm. Wonder if it will turn into another Interlagos 2003? We haven't had any chaotic rain races this year...

 

That was a good race!

 

Awesome ... last year's qualifying was all over the place with the rain arriving at the tail end of the session - Schumi qualified 14th ....

It was reasonably good race ... would have been better if it was wet (instead of being merely damp) in the race

 

...and like Niki Lauda, MS will pull into the pits, declare it is 'life threatening' to continue under such conditions, and quit for good!!!!

Jus' kiddin"!!!!!! LOL!

 

arrrggg i hated the Brazil 03' race... if kimi would have been 1st he would have tied MS for the championship... what happens then?? MS would probably have won it all b/c he won the most races... or something like that...

03'
MS 93 points
Kimi 91 points
Montoya 82 points

 

It is interesting indeed. I'm watching the practice and it's clear which tires are working and which is the best chassis. Schumacher, fisichella, one two right now in the second session.

20 minutes remaining, but no one's running as it's way too wet.

 

2004 Friday Practice times
FP1
Friday first practice times from Suzuka
1 M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari 1m47.906s
2 FISICHELLA Sauber 1m48.362s
3 BARRICHELLO Ferrari 1m49.846s
4 BUTTON BAR 1m49.937s
5 HEIDFELD Jordan 1m51.438s
6 RAIKKONEN McLaren 1m51.530s
7 GLOCK Jordan 1m52.602s
8 MONTOYA Williams 1m53.517s
9 DOORNBOS Jordan 1m53.603s
10 ALONSO Renault 1m54.012s
11 LEINDERS Minardi 1m55.455s
12 R.SCHUMACHER Williams 1m55.632s
13 VILLENEUVE Renault 1m57.547s
14 TRULLI Toyota 1m58.351s
15 DAVIDSON BAR 2m00.712s
16 BRUNI Minardi 2m02.825s
17 BAUMGARTNER Minardi 2m03.955s
--> Bridgestones wets and intermediates had a clear advantage over Michelins - something like 3-4 sec a lap. Rain being a great leveler as well as capable of mixing up results resulted in Heidfeld in P5 and Fisi in P2...

FP2
1 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:45.388
2 Giancarlo Fisichella Sauber-Petronas 1:46.102
3 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 1:46.749
4 Rubens Barrichello Ferrari 1:46.874
5 David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes 1:48.033
6 Timo Glock Jordan-Ford 1:49.277
7 Nick Heidfeld Jordan-Ford 1:49.286
8 Takuma Sato BAR-Honda 1:49.370
9 Anthony Davidson BAR-Honda 1:49.598
10 Jacques Villeneuve Renault 1:49.672
11 Fernando Alonso Renault 1:49.712
12 Ralf Schumacher Williams-BMW 1:49.736
13 Juan Pablo Montoya Williams-BMW 1:50.060
14 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:50.386
15 Mark Webber Jaguar-Cosworth 1:50.666
16 Robert Doornbos Jordan-Ford 1:51.007
17 Christian Klien Jaguar-Cosworth 1:52.232
18 Bas Leinders Minardi-Cosworth 1:52.942
19 Gianmaria Bruni Minardi-Cosworth 1:53.194
20 Jenson Button BAR-Honda 1:53.482
21 Zsolt Baumgartner Minardi-Cosworth 1:54.703
22 Felipe Massa Sauber-Petronas
23 Olivier Panis Toyota
24 Bjorn Wirdheim Jaguar-Cosworth
25 Ryan Briscoe Toyota

 

Yes rain will add to the spectacle ... and sort the Men out from the Boys

Pete

 

that's gonna be a hard night then here in old europe

 

Pete,

remember I told you to keep an eye on Fisico? He is in the blue car next to the red one.

 

... eyes on! What number is his car again ...

Pete

 

It is the car that is AHEAD of the other red car. And the silver cars and the white/blue cars etc etc etc.

Seriously, what is very positive is the continuing upwards trend of the Sauber team. Part of it are the tires, no question, but part of it is the new wind tunnel coming into effect for modifications of this year's car. In previous seasons the Saubers started out fine and then just went backwards as the year progressed. This year it is the opposite. That gives me great hopes for next year's car which will be entirely designed and built in the new wind tunnel.

 

Argh, this is looking like a disaster of a weekend...

I don't mind a little rain, but a typhoon?!

Lets just hope the weather clears enough to make qualifying and the race doable, because cancelling the Grand Prix in Japan, and missing out on a race at Suzuka would be an awful shame.

 

Super Typhoon Ma-On should not adversely affect the running of Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix. Heavy rain at Suzuka tailed off mid- afternoon and the circuit has been left largely unscathed by the high winds. Mo-On is now heading towards Tokyo.

The news will come as a relief to fans, teams and the race organisers alike. "The storm has passed Suzuka and the race shouldn't be in danger," the Japanese Meteorological Agency report.

 

Nice to hear. I'm still hopeful for a little bit of rain. Just enough to throw a wild card into qualifying and the race.

 

The weather was horrendous yesterday and during a few hours of today.

All cleared up now though.

Which is a shame, as I was hoping to get down there but no chance now.

Let's see if the new format works...qualifying and racing on the same day.

 

But did anybody watch F1Decade last night? Kind of ironic that the race was run in monsoon-like conditions. It was red-flagged at one point, and I fell asleep shortly thereafter.

 

Yep it was pretty similar conditions ... IMO Schumi would have certainly won if Bennetton hadnt screwed up the fuel strategy ... good to see the upping of pace by Damon in the end when he succesfully kept Schumi at bay.

The last couple laps were lovely to watch ... glowing Williams brakes into the hairpin and all...

 

F1 Qualifying
1 Michael Schumacher Ferrari 1:33.542
2 Ralf Schumacher Williams-BMW 1:34.032
3 Mark Webber Jaguar-Cosworth 1:34.571
4 Takuma Sato BAR-Honda 1:34.897
5 Jenson Button BAR-Honda 1:35.157
6 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:35.213
7 Giancarlo Fisichella Sauber-Petronas 1:36.136
8 David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes 1:36.156
9 Jacques Villeneuve Renault 1:36.274
10 Olivier Panis Toyota 1:36.420
11 Fernando Alonso Renault 1:36.663
12 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes 1:36.820
13 Juan Pablo Montoya Williams-BMW 1:37.653
14 Christian Klien Jaguar-Cosworth 1:38.258
15 Rubens Barrichello Ferrari 1:38.637
16 Nick Heidfeld Jordan-Ford 1:41.953
17 Timo Glock Jordan-Ford 1:43.533
18 Gianmaria Bruni Minardi-Cosworth 1:48.069
19 Zsolt Baumgartner Minardi-Cosworth
20 Felipe Massa Sauber-Petronas

Sameer's Comments:
It was a damp track that was drying towards the end. In the pre-qualifying, Jarno Trulli was on pole and must have been on fumes then because he was nowhere near the pole during the actual qualifying sessions. Apart from Trulli, the top 4 in pre-qualifying landed up holding the top spots in final qualifying.

Qualifying was particularly interesting in the first half as some qualifed on intermediates and others on slicks. The circuit was dry in Turn One and the back straight up to the Casio chicane. It was wet in the S curves and exiting the hairpin and in the Casio chicane as well as the curve heading into the straight. Therefore it was a mixed bag that the drivers inherited. Montoya was second out in actual qualifying and chose slicks - he was awesome to watch - with the car stepping out at several places. Even so he qualified 10 seconds faster than Bruni who went before him. The next few runners were on intermediates but couldnt beat Monty.

Then Alonso went out on slicks and banged in lap nearly a second quicker. By then the circuit was visibly drying and the track started to improve a lot. The next few runners started all banging quicker laps and times started to tumble pretty quickly. Villeneuve impressed with a lap much faster than Alonso. Raikkonen was strangely unimpressive - his car was snaking quite a bit and looked a lot less stable than Coulthard who pulled in a 0.7sec quicker lap.

Barrichello did a Schumacher and muffed up at the Casio chicane. Till then he looked set for P2 behind Alonso (who was on pole at that time). He lost control and went off onto the grass and ended up in 15th spot - disappointing for sure. Actually he was snaking at that particular spot in the warm up lap and should have exercised more caution on his actual qually lap.

As for BAR, Jenson was smooth as silk (as ever) and did a great lap and was on provisional pole when Sato went out - Sato was true to self a little wild but ended up 0.3 faster than Jenson. The BAR team was celebrating mildly when Button got on prov pole but erupted when Sato beat him. Poor Jenson can do a convincing Rodney Dangerfield ("I get no respect") for sure

Ralf was very smooth thru the entire lap .. he braked a little late into the chicane but didnt lose much time there. In fact his slides were almost perfect in that the car slid into the perfect entry spot into the second part of the chicane. Difficult to explain but easy to understand if you see his lap. He was 3.6 secs quicker than Monty who faced a much wetter lap.

Michael was inch perfect throughout the lap - he headed Ralf by 0.3 seconds in sector 1 and then only by 0.007 in sector 2 - he nailed the chicane prefectly and pulled out 0.3 seconds ahead by the end. Retribution for the china in Spades.

Trulli's pre-qual performance of course flattered to deceive and he ended up in P6 - but that was 1.2 secs faster than Panis - so shows Toyota were right in putting him in the car in 2004 itself.

So this was Michael's 63rd Pole (2 short of the immortal Senna) and much awaited. I for one theough Senna's record will be beaten this year but it is not to be ... it will be next year for sure...

Two instinctive drivers and ones who are not that bothered with setup lost out heavily here - refering to Raikkonen and Montoya. Montoya was done in by his pre-qualifying and has been off the pace throughout. The way I see it in a normal race weekend Montoya starts off worse than Ralf and then steadily improves in session and out-qualifies Ralf eventually. This is because he must be using Ralf's setup data to improve his car. This time thanks to torrential rains none of the drivers could improve their setups in the practice sessions - thus Montoya was left with perhaps the same setup as Friday morning - he must have a lot of work to do in the race. As for Raikkonnen - he also benefits from Dc's experience in setups but may have suffered to a lesser extent the same problem. I am basing this on the comments made by the Speed Channel commentators

 

Race results
1 Michael Schumacher Ferrari Winner
2 Ralf Schumacher Williams-BMW +14.0 secs
3 Jenson Button BAR-Honda +19.6 secs
4 Takuma Sato BAR-Honda +31.7 secs
5 Fernando Alonso Renault +37.7 secs
6 Kimi Räikkönen McLaren-Mercedes +39.3 secs
7 Juan Pablo Montoya Williams-BMW +55.3 secs
8 Giancarlo Fisichella Sauber-Petronas +56.2 secs
9 Felipe Massa Sauber-Petronas +89.6 secs
10 Jacques Villeneuve Renault +1 Lap
11 Jarno Trulli Toyota +1 Lap
12 Christian Klien Jaguar-Cosworth +1 Lap
13 Nick Heidfeld Jordan-Ford +1 Lap
14 Olivier Panis Toyota +2 Lap
15 Timo Glock Jordan-Ford +2 Lap
16 Gianmaria Bruni Minardi-Cosworth +3 Lap
Ret Zsolt Baumgartner Minardi-Cosworth +12 Lap
Ret David Coulthard McLaren-Mercedes +15 Lap
Ret Rubens Barrichello Ferrari +15 Lap
Ret Mark Webber Jaguar-Cosworth +33 Laps

Sadly the rain led off for the race. It was bright sunshine throughout. The race was sort of boring in my mind as I expected a wet race with a lot of unpredictable things happening. Instead we had the top 4 qualifiers finish in the top four spots with only Jenson leapfrogging Sato.

Kimi's poor pace in qualifying is now clear that it was due to going for a 2 stop as compared to Coulthard who was on a three stopper. He had a quiet unremarkable race and finished in the points. The same could be said about Alonso who apart from overtaking JV was never seen again on TV.

Coulthard was once again caught up in an accident - this time with Rubens who was on a charge back from 15th on the grid. They collided together somewhere but this wasn't seen on camera.

This race had the worst TV coverage I have ever seen - frequent loss of television feed and an inept TV drirector who would switch cameras just as a pass was occuring to show the pits where the team guys were loafing about waiting for a car to pit in. This happened at least three times and we missed watching the pass live.

Another race where the two people I consider as mobile chicanes proved themselves as such - refering to Jarno Trulli and Jacques Villenueve. Villeneuve particularly was really off the pace and headed backwards. Trulli also headed backwards pretty quickly.

Mark Webber lost out a couple places at the start itself - thereafter he kept falling backwards - he eventually retired on lap 20. Not sure why.

 

And technically RB's fault as he is the passer. Remember DC bashers, they were fighting for a position, so DC is within his rights to block.

Agreed.

Agreed ... except I have to acknowledge the fact that Trulli made the Toyota look fast for the first time ever ... but not for long, like most of Trulli's races.

For some unknown reason he was getting burnt in the car ... and could not stand the heat and retired.

Tifosi12,

I tried to watch Fisi. In the end the car looks bloody fast (thanks to Ferrari power) in a straight line but not much else. It is hard to judge his performance because his teammate is so pathetic. Next year will be interesting.

Pete

 

They hit front wheels! RB must have been next to him...how's that "blocking" from DC? Seen the footage?
http://lvbf1sims.net/screenies/RB_DC.zip