Drivers
* Driver did not finish but was classified, having completed more than 90% of race distance. From Wikipedia |
Despite a loose drain cover held up Friday’s second practice session for the Turkish Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton split the top times with Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen in the second practice session after Kimi had exceled in the first.
Raikkonen led the morning session with a time of 1 minute, 27.988 seconds on the 3.316-mile Istanbul Park circuit, ahead of his teammate Felipe Massa, while Hamilton was fastest in the afternoon, clocking 1:28.469 with Kimi and Toyota’s Ralf Schumacher in third.
Kimi was half a second faster in the first session, however its believed his team were experimenting with a light fuel load, as the Istanbul track is open to bothe one and two stop approaches.
Here are the session two practice times:
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As this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix approaches, the focus turns from Hamiltons love life, back to the F1 circuit.
Newspapers have been quiet lately apart from news that Hamilton was seen on Holiday with Sarah Ojjeh, eighteen year old daughter of one of the Mclaren team founders and oil magnate, and inevitably the scorn of his ex girlfriend Jodia Ma.
Now Hamilton will be focusing on qualifying at Istanbul Park on Friday and Saturday.
Istanbul Park is one of the only two tracks on the calendar to run anticlockwise and both Alonso and Hamilton have done quite well there:
Alonso has finished second in Turkey for the two years the event has been run.
“It is always great to have a break and recharge the batteries, but it is fantastic to be getting back out on track,” said the 26-year-old Spaniard.
Hamilton finished second in Istanbul a year ago en route to winning the GP2 title - but that was after a few spins off the track!
“I have great memories of the Istanbul Park,” remarked Hamilton.
“Last year was a defining race in the GP2 championship for me. It felt like a win and it would be great to get on the top step this year.”
Hamilton added: “During the short summer break I have been keeping up with my training to ensure I am fully prepared for this race.”
Realised by Dunkn and posted by magic7e7 this is a nice tribute charting Hamiltons rise to glory with a very “Metal” soundtrack!
So it turns out the mystery girl Lewis was seen with on his yachting holiday was Sara Ojjeh, daughter to one of the founders of Mclaren, multi-millionaire Mansour Ojjeh.
The yacht they are using is her fathers 235 foot “Kogo” named after his wife.
No doubt this will have broken his former long term girlfriend Jodia Ma’s heart.
Otherwise news has been slow in the three week F1 break, and we are all waiting for the results of the hearing in Paris. Ron Dennis is fighting to keep Ferrari at bay, and the FIA whom he believes have a personal grudge against him.
The whole espionage affair seems to be an attempt to keep the Mclaren Team in turmoil. It is strange that not the FIA or the WMSC has remembered or cared that it was a Ferarri employee, Nigel Stepney who handed over the information in the first place. Why also is Luigi Macaluso a man involved with the Ferrari team allowed to get involved in the ruling at the appeal?
Let’s hope break will do Hamilton some good. He has coped under fantastic pressure. No driver in history has ever fought such opposition alongside such controversy in their first year.
It has came out now apparently that Hamilton’s colourful exchange had a lot less colour, and true to his perceived “fresh, polite, and well mannered” character, he did not swear at Ron Dennis during qualifying at Budapest.
After being held up by Alonso in the Pits, apparently the conversation according to a source known to the Telegraph, went like this:
Hamilton: “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
Dennis: “Don’t ever speak to me like that again.”
Hamilton: “Go swivel.”
“We were firm with each other,” Dennis admitted, “but going into the details serves no function.”
However Mclaren have made a statement after reviewing the radio exchanges and can confirm there definitely was no swearing involved and said:
“The team and Lewis are extremely disappointed that the use of the ‘F’ word appears to have been invented and repeated to the media.”
Its believed the comments were misheard and exaggerated by eavesdroppers in the Pit Lane, and of course then sensationalised by the press.
Hamilton is keen to emphasise any reports that he used the F-word be corrected or forgotten as he believes his image in the national press took quite a battering afterwards. After all he is a role model to many youngsters in the UK and probably the rest of the world.
Hamilton said: “As an individual in my first year in Formula One, I have done my utmost to conduct myself in a professional and open manner.
“Of course I have made mistakes, not least during the last weekend. Those are open to public scrutiny.
“I have my own regrets and have dealt with matters arising. However, it is disappointing that inflammatory and untrue material is given to the media and published, which may damage reputations. This inflammatory material is then commentated on by many others as if it is factual. Whilst I wouldn’t normally communicate through press statements, I felt it important to set this matter straight.”
Hamilton is on his sailing holiday at the moment and he even plans to meet up with Alonso on his holiday, he maintains that he and Alonso still have a professional working relationship, and although things did heat up in Budapest, it was not the “war” that the Media proclaimed it to be.
As the F1 season moves into a three week break before the Turkish Grand Prix, the aftermath of last weekends controversy is getting raked up and analysed by the press. Two camps have sprung up with very polarised views about who to demonise and who to canonise.
The Sun obviously loves Hamilton with the article “Hamilton Walks on Water” and they have decided to focus on Hamilton’s romantic entanglements on a well deserved yachting holiday with his pals.
It does appear there was more to the “mistake” that Hamilton made too. Although it was originally decided Alonso should be the first McLaren out of the pit lane in the final qualifying session as he is officially the lead driver for the team, Hamilton’s engine was quickest to reach optimum temperature. He left the garage first then refused to step aside as he was concerned about losing position to Raikonnen in the process.
Kevin Garside from the Telegraph writes:
“Lewis Hamilton left Budapest with 10 points in the bag and blood on the floor. Beneath the choirboy exterior lurks the executioner’s instinct. Rookie my foot. If anybody needs a hand holding over the closing stages of a season turning increasingly bitter it is Fernando Alonso, who felt the full force of Hamilton’s ambition at the Hungarian Grand Prix.”
“Alonso subsequently took his own retribution and paid the price. Rightly or wrongly, Hamilton forced through his own agenda and was not holding back after his third career win.”
I imagine it must be awful to be usurped by a young whippersnapper, especially when Alonso was expecting to enjoy a good few years at the top still to come. It’s natural that drivers at the top of their game are highly competitive, but it’s a shame when the competitiveness becomes unsportsmanlike. Alonso has already been seen to use underhand tactics to win races, such as the time he barged Ferrari’s Felipe Massa off the track at the French Grand Prix.
Over at the Alonso camp, after Nigel Mansell’s defence of Alonso yesterday, Eddie Irvine has came out blasting Hamilton’s “Arrogance”, referring to the colourful exchange between Hamilton and his boss Ron Dennis during qualifying.
Eurosport reports - Five years retired Irvine believes Hamilton is getting too big for his boots:
“The disrespect Lewis Hamilton showed to Ron Dennis was quite unbelievable in my opinion,”
Irvine told Virgin Media.
“Lewis is playing a particularly polished and clever game when it comes to appearing cleaner-than-clean to the media but his arrogance is starting to come out now.”
“Success is starting to go to his head and, whilst I challenge any man on the planet in his position not let it do so, the way both he and Alonso are behaving is beyond childish and the way he behaved in Hungary is beyond belief.”
Meanwhile Alonso’s manager has played down the idea that Alonso will actually quit Mclaren stating:
“We are in McLaren to win races and the third title.”That’s our goal. And in these moments there aren’t that many options: just McLaren and Ferrari.”
In the same way, unless something dramatic occurs at September’s spy row appeal in Paris, its unlikely Hamilton will leave Mclaren either.
So I guess they’ll just have to make up.
While Alonso has been told by Ron Dennis that he can leave the team at the end of the year. Lewis Hamilton also has been asked by Ferrarri to sign over to them next year for just under £20million.
While Lewis has wanted to drive for Mclaren for most of his life, the controversy surrounding the Mclaren team at the moment may be a good enough reason to have him thinking twice. Of course if Hamilton keeps up his winning streak in this years F1. I don’t think £20million will be anything but the first of many offers.
Nigel Mansel has been in the papers commenting that he thinks the war of words in the press will only put the sport in a bad light and could ruin Hamiltons career just as it begins. He also believes the money men behind F1 are favouring Hamilton and hence there have been some odd judgments:
He said: “I’m not sure how long Alonso was in the pits but I’m lost for words how you can just demote someone five or six places on the grid.
“I have never seen anything like this in the history of the sport – it’s such a great shame. I do have some sympathy for Alonso, no question.
“If they wanted to fine him or do something else all well and good, but what are they doing demoting him and ruining his race?”
However Mansell is a fan and he supports Hamilton wholeheartedly. He voiced his concerns only with the sport’s governing body.
He said: “They have got to be very careful.
“I’m a huge fan of Lewis but people in the street are saying to me ‘why is everyone favouring him’?
“Let’s not forget what also happened at Nurburgring when they let him stay in the car, lifted him up in the car and put him back on the track before letting him un-lap himself.
“I’m definitely backing Lewis 100 per cent by saying that all this has nothing to do with him.
“He is a great driver who has won all his races and got all his points by fair means. But people are asking: ‘are the powers that be trying to fix it for him’? I think it’s terribly sad.”
How much money is riding on the Hamilton wave of success? Its really sad if “the powers that be” can actually have this amount of influence.
What’s more likely is that while the press are as usual behaving as badly as they want to, the FIA are not likely to be swayed by public opinion and I imagine they are more likely to be annoyed with Mclaren on the whole and care a great deal less about Mclarens in fighting.
After the bookies doubts and even more controversy in a very intense weekend for Lewis Hamilton, he still managed to snatch victory from the jaws of doom and come through the flames to win his third victory this year at the Hungarian GP.
Although his main rival Alsonso was left neutered by the FIA, the loss of his pole position was appropriate, and
Hamilton led from start to chequered flag with Kimi Räikkönen his only real challenge, losing to Hamilton by 0.7 seconds.What was possibly less appropriate was Mclarens team being informed that it would not be able to collect Constructors’ Championship points for the race. The controversy came when Alonso deliberately blocked him in the final moments of qualifying, in order to make sure that he would get pole position.
Alonso is beginning to look like the spoilt child of F1, he has been seen waving his arm at every driver on the track even at his own team. It was underhand and decidedly unsporting, but the FIA was closely watching and after a 9 hour conference on the matter Alonso was moved to start sixth on the grid. The wilder decision to exclude the Mclaren team from collecting points however, may have been due to a very colourful exchange between Ron Dennis and Hamilton that had followed.
Hamilton has also admitted that he had initially made a mistake on Saturday, when he disobeyed team orders and did not let Alonso go ahead of him in the early laps of the final qualifying stages.
Hamilton however is still openly and aggressively critical of Alonso stopping him getting pole, remarking:
“I wouldn’t have thought Fernando would do something like that but I have reasons to believe otherwise.”
The stewards at the FIA deemed Alonso’s actions as “prejudicial to the interests of the competition and to the interests of motor sport generally”.
So as Sunday came, the clouds had already set over the Mclaren team and Lewis may have felt the world was on his shoulders.
“I think going into the race it felt like a big cloud over my mind and it was difficult to stay focused because obviously you had this feeling in the team. The team weren’t getting any points, so you didn’t know whether the team hated you or just hated the situation or who they blamed,” Lewis commented.
He also revealed that in the build-up to the race, he had gone to speak to everyone in the team, with the exception of Alonso, to talk to them and explain what had gone on. Earlier, he had sat down with his own race engineer, Phil Prew, with the McLaren chief executive, Martin Whitmarsh, and with Alonso and his race engineer to try to thrash out the issues.
As the race began, Hamilton jumped into an immediate lead as the the dirty side of the track had its usual effect with most of those on the left getting the jump on those on the right. Everything then settled down to the usual queue of cars that one gets at the Hungaroring. Alonso’s sixth-place penalty also worked against Nick Heidfeld, who had qualified third and was then shifted to second place on the grid – which was the dusty side of the road so Raikkonen got the jump on the BMW driver.
To begin with Hamilton sprinted clear, opening a gap of 4.6s over Raikkonen by lap 13, and then the Finn lost 1.6s in one lap when he had two offs.The middle of the race gave Raikkonen his best chance of success as he closed right up on Lewis. Kimi’s car was in top form and he had a lighter fuel load, but Hamilton knew it would be in his favour if he held on when Kimi had to run with more fuel when he would be running light. Hamilton kept his head, and separated by a second or so the two worked their way in and out of traffic. The pressure was intense.
The final laps were gripping as they duelled but there was never much hope that Raikkonen would get ahead, unless Lewis made a mistake.”I would have tried if we’d had the chance,” he said, “but there was no point to be stupid.”They finished together, but the 10 points went to Hamilton.
After the controversy of the Hungaroring, Dennis admits he has work to do to improve the team atmosphere ahead of the Turkish Grand Prix, adding: “We’re a close-knit family with some difficult times behind us and some difficult times ahead of us.
“We will stay together and stay true to our values. Between now and the next grand prix we will definitely try and put some calmness in the team, and arrive in Turkey in a more tranquil environment than we experienced this weekend.”
