The crack Manthey team delivered Porsche a 10^th victory in the Nürburgring 24 Hours after a hard-fought race that featured a complete checklist of serious entries from the great German car giants.

Marc Lieb, Lucas Luhr, Timo Bernhard and Romain Dumas led the race in their lime green GT3 RSR (below) from 11.30pm on Saturday night until the 4pm finish on Sunday afternoon. But the victory, which gives Porsche valuable bragging rights over BMW, Audi and Mercedes for the rest of the year, was never a foregone conclusion in a race featuring 202 starters – of which 135 survived the round-the-clock classic on the fabulous 14-mile Nordschleife.

BMW, which won this race last year, finished just under four and a half minutes behind the Manthey Porsche – which equates to about half a lap. The Schnitzer team will rue a mistake by Portuguese Pedro Lamy who crashed into a slower car at the Karussell on Saturday evening. The accident was bad enough, but Lamy then compounded his error by driving the wrong way round the top of the famous hairpin in his attempt to recover.

The M3 GT (below) lost three minutes in the pits for repairs – and a further three minutes for a stop-go penalty incurred for Lamy’s error. “I was in a position from which it was very difficult to come out from,” he argued. “It was the only way.” The mistake made all the difference to the result for the car he shared with Augusto Farfus, Jörg Müller and Nordschleife specialist Uwe Alzen.

For the winning drivers in the Manthey Porsche, the result added to their formidable records on the greatest race track in the world. Luhr completed his Nürburgring 24 Hours hat-trick, while both Lieb and Dumas have now won here four times. But perhaps most significantly, Bernard now shares the record of five wins with Lamy and Marcel Tiemann.

Audi scored a 3-4-5 two weeks after its victory at Le Mans. The Team Phoenix-run R8 LMS of Marc Basseng, Marcel Fässler, Andrea Piccini and Frank Stippler (below) finished ahead of its sister car and the lead Team Abt Sportsline entry after a race in which the R8s proved fast in a straight line, but just short of the overall pace required to win.

The first of the rumbling Mercedes-Benz SLS AMGs, entered by Black Falcon, was sixth. But there was late heartbreak for the three-pointed star which should have kept Audi off the podium. With just 40 minutes left the Heico Motorsport entry, which had shadowed the Manthey Porsche and lead BMW through the night, was forced into the garage for repairs to its left-rear corner. The car returned to the track to claim a disconsolate seventh for Alex Margaritis, Lance Arnold, Christopher Brück and Christiaan Frankenhout.

The pole-winning Ferrari 458 Italia, which also proved to be the fastest car during long periods of the race, came home eighth carrying with it another story of what might have been. The Hankook Team Farnbacher-run car looked in a strong position to cause an upset and beat the mighty German hoards, only for a wishbone change to scupper its hopes. The team, previously a long-time Porsche entrant, was frustrated to discover the problem was caused by material fatigue. The Ferrari lost 45 minutes during its 8pm stop, dropping it to 68^th place. It ran without serious drama during a remarkable recovery by drivers Dominik Farnbacher, Allan Simonsen, Marco Seefried and Jaime Melo.

Aston Martin’s pair of brand new Zagatos (above) made it to the flag after eventful races. Collisions and a gearbox change ruined the chances of a class-winning result, but the team logged useful race mileage on the stubby-looking cars.

Final word must go to Hans-Joachim Stuck. At the age of 60, the legend has decided the time has finally come to hang up his helmet. That he chose to end his career racing with his sons in a Reiter Engineering Lamborghini Gallardo hardly seemed fitting for a man who became a national hero in Porsches, BMWs and Audis, but the supercar proved competitive at the ’Ring, allowing Stuck and his lads to make it to 4pm in 15^th place. There wasn’t a dry eye in the place.

Pictures courtesy of Aston Martin, Audi, BMW and Porsche AG

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A new era of sports car racing kicks off in Florida on Saturday. The Sebring 12 Hours marks the return of what should be classified as a World Championship of Makes – even if we’re not allowed to officially call it that.

The tough enduro is much more than just the first round of the American Le Mans Series this year. It also counts for something that calls itself the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup, a seven-round global series for sports cars which includes the Le Mans 24 Hours itself. Last year’s three-race pilot series was a toe-in-the-water exercise. Now it’s for real – and even though a title with an acronym as meaningless as ILMC will mean little to the world outside the paddock, the manufacturers are taking it very seriously.

That’s because they know this is the start of something that should be very big. The series is the brainchild of Le Mans organiser the ACO. The target now is for the FIA to embrace the series and give it the World Championship title it so fully deserves.

Audi Sport boss Dr Wolfgang Ullrich summed up the feelings of everyone in sports car racing this week when he said during a press conference: “The ILMC means nothing outside this room. We need a World Championship and we need it quickly. Not in five years, but in two or three.”

There were nods of agreement from the rest of the panel beside him, which included team bosses representing the interests of Peugeot, BMW, Chevrolet and Ferrari.

It is believed that FIA president Jean Todt – who of course led Peugeot’s Group C campaign in the final days of the old World Sports Car Championship 20 years ago – is open to the idea of bestowing a proper title on the series. Let’s hope he moves on it soon.

At the front of the ILMC, we’re looking forward to another chapter of Audi versus Peugeot, as the two giants renew their intense rivalry on the bumpy concrete runways of the Sebring airfield circuit. Typically, they’re being coy over their chances.

Peugeot comes to this race with its all-new 908 LMP1. Yes, I know, it’s got the same name as the old one that won Le Mans in 2009, and at first glance it looks identical. But trust me, it is a new car. Just wish they’d given it the new name it deserves. A confusing decision.

The 908 conforms to the new 2011 regulations that have been designed to slow Le Mans prototypes, and make them safer. Diesel engine sizes have been slashed from 5.5 to 3.7 litres, while the most significant chassis change is the addition of the ungainly F1-style ‘shark fins’ on the engine cowlings. As featured in Motor Sport last year, these have been added as an attempt to stop the old problem of prototypes flipping during accidents. They look awful, but if it marks the end of cars taking flight, then so be it.

“This is a working session for us,” reckons Peugeot Sport boss Olivier Quesnel, who adds a quite remarkable statement regarding the team’s Sebring aspirations: “We don’t intend to win and I don’t think it will happen.” Well, that’s ambitious…

Of course, Le Mans is the focus for the Pride of France. But Anthony Davidson topped night practice on Thursday, following the team’s time-topping performances in testing earlier in the week. The new car has every chance of scoring a debut victory, whatever the boss might say.

At Audi, the new R18 coupé won’t arrive here until the day after the race, as the team prepares to continue its testing programme on Monday. Instead, the German giant is wheeling out its old R15 ‘spyder’ for one last fling. The car has been dubbed the R15 Plus Plus, to reflect the changes that have been forced upon it to allow the team to race it against new 2011 cars. Internally the team is calling it the R15 Plus Minus, which is more accurate. A power-sapping smaller air restrictor has suffocated the turbodiesel that won Le Mans against the odds last year. “It’s as flat as a fart,” was Allan McNish’s colourful description of the difference it has made, but that did not stop the two cars setting the fastest times in the opening pair of practice sessions.

Where the difference will really tell in the race is how much harder it will be for the prototypes to lap GT cars around the high-downforce circuit. With a field of 56 cars, avoiding trouble in traffic could well decide the outcome of this race between the two giants. There’s little in it for pace. As Dr Ullrich said, “performance is not everything for this race”.

The Sebring 12 Hours is always hard fought, and so it promises to be once again. And its significance, as the kick-off point of a new era, only increases the intensity between the two rival camps. Whatever they might say in press conferences.

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Chip Ganassi’s Grand-Am team added to its already stunning record in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona last weekend when its pair of BMW-powered Riley Daytona Prototypes finished one-two. Defending Grand-Am champions Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas shared the winning car with Graham Rahal and Joey Hand, while Scott Dixon/Juan Pablo Montoya/Dario Franchitti/Jamie McMurray drove Ganassi’s second car. This was Ganassi’s fourth Rolex 24 win but only its first one-two. The team scored three straight wins in 2006-08 and finished runner-up in 2009-10.

Last weekend’s sweep further embellishes Ganassi’s reputation. His teams scored successive wins in last year’s Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400, and now the Rolex 24. Some people are calling it ‘The Chip Slam’. Grand-Am team leader Pruett, by the way, now has four Daytona 24 Hours wins to his name and has been on the podium in 14 of his 26 starts in the race.

Ganassi’s previous Rolex 24 wins came with Lexus (Toyota) engines, but Chip’s Grand-Am team switched last year to BMW power. Pruett and Rojas won the championship for BMW last season and have now scored the German manufacturer’s first Daytona victory since 1976, when Brian Redman/John Fitzpatrick/Peter Gregg won the 24 Hours in a factory BMW 3.5 CSL.

Neither of Ganassi’s cars enjoyed trouble-free runs last weekend. Montoya used his NASCAR fender-banging style to good effect on a number of occasions, but that also meant his crew had to twice change the car’s nose. Joey Hand made his debut with Ganassi’s team and did an excellent job in the winning car. Last year he drove for Bobby Rahal’s BMW GT team in the American Le Mans Series and has served a long apprenticeship in open wheel and sports cars. Hand lapped as quickly at Daytona as any of Ganassi’s drivers, and recovered well from a Sunday morning pit penalty after he was mistakenly waved out too early and hit one of his used tyres.

An indication of the thorough professionalism of Ganassi’s team was a decision during the race’s second hour to change the gear clusters in both cars. Warmer weather than anticipated and a change in wind direction meant both Ganassi cars were hitting their rev-limiters on the banking, so each car was brought in under successive yellows to remove the short gears and install a new stack of ratios.

Finishing third behind Ganassi’s cars were last year’s winners. The Action Express team ran two Riley-Porsches this year with João Barbosa/Terry Borcheller/Max Papis/Christian Fittipaldi finishing a strong third after the team’s other car was delayed by a few incidents. Martin Brundle/Mark Blundell/Mark Patterson/Zak Brown were an excellent fourth aboard United Autosports’ Riley-Ford run by Mike Shank Racing (see Damien Smith’s blog).

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Steve Soper never used to be the friendliest of racing drivers. The first time I met him was at the Sebring 12 Hours in 1999, when he was racing a BMW V12 LM sports prototype for wealthy amateur Thomas Bscher. As first encounters go, it wasn’t the best.

As a child of the 1980s, Soper had always been a bit of a hero to me. Here was a Brit who’d been schooled in the rough-and-tumble world of British saloon car racing, taking on – and beating – the cream of Europe in the exotic DTM. We’re used to it these days, thanks to the likes of Gary Paffett and Paul di Resta, but Soper’s exploits abroad back then marked him out as special. Whenever he returned to the BTCC, as trouble-shooting team-mate to Tim Harvey in 1992 and full-time with the crack Schnitzer squad the following year, he carried an air of authority and intimidating quality. Everyone knew Soper was an A-list draw, the man they all wanted to beat.

He continued to carry some of that power into sports cars, but at Sebring in ’99 things had not gone well. The story goes that team manager Dave Price got on the radio to warn him of a full-course yellow, that someone had gone off. “I know,” said Steve. “It’s me.” He’d smacked the BMW into the concrete wall at the final corner.

Now, as Autosport’s race reporter I had to go and ask him what had happened, cursing that I hadn’t introduced myself before the race. I approached him with plenty of trepidation, only too aware of his prickly reputation – plus it’s never a good time to talk to a driver when they’ve just stuffed it.

“Steve,-I’m-Damien-Smith-from-Autosport,-glad-to-see-you’re-OK,-can-you-tell-me-what-happened-please?” I blurted. He didn’t even look at me. “I crashed,” he replied flatly, then turned on his heel and stalked away. Oh dear. So much for bringing the reader that exclusive one-on-one insight.

I told him about our unfortunate encounter recently when we met at a BMW dinner where the marque launched its new UK ‘Classic’ arm. “I’m sorry about that,” he said with a wry smile. “I wasn’t always the easiest of racing drivers to deal with.”

He’s different now. Today, he sells cars for BMW as a respected dealer, and he has definitely mellowed. You can still sense the old intensity below the surface, but he is engaging, friendly and clearly very relaxed with his legacy as one of the great touring car legends. He said he’d be happy to help if we had any feature ideas for the magazine – so we took him up on it!

At a cold and windy Brands Hatch in November, BMW helped us gather three classic racers from three very different eras: the modern 320Si which races in the World Touring Car Championship, a Bigazzi M3 from the heart of Soper-era DTM and a fabulously botoxed CSL ‘Batmobile’ from the 1970s. We then teamed Steve with Britain’s modern-day BMW tin-top hero, triple World Champion Andy Priaulx – who came straight off a plane from Macau – to join him for our test and compare notes.

As you can read in Gordon Cruickshank’s excellent story in the March issue, Soper and Priaulx have a bit of shared history and get on well. They thoroughly enjoyed swapping mounts for the day – and trying something completely different in the form of the Batmobile. So two genuine stars of the touring car world who together span over 30 years of frontline action, three of the finest Munich ‘road rockets’ and Britain’s best-loved race track: it’s a heady mix.

Elsewhere in the March issue, Adam Cooper pays tribute to another touring car ace, Tom Walkinshaw – who of course went on to greater acclaim as the man who made Jaguar a force once again at Le Mans, and helped Michael Schumacher to his first F1 world title at Benetton. Tom died of cancer in December and Adam’s profile of this complex man frames his career in perfect perspective.

Ed Foster meets Dany Bahar and Claudio Berro, the men behind the revolution currently taking place at Lotus; Simon Taylor has lunch with two-time Le Mans winner and, er, BMX World Champion Alex Wurz; Rob Widdows interviews veteran team boss Mike Earle; and I get to meet the charismatic – and eccentric – Italian hero of the 1970s, Arturo Merzario. Reuniting motor racing’s very own ‘Marlboro Man’ with the car he raced for Frank Williams in 1974 and ’75 was a real treat, if a little nerve-wracking…

Finally, if you usually skip over my Matters of Moment editorial (and I don’t blame you if you do!) you might miss the chance to enter a special competition. So allow me to tell you about it here. We’re offering five tickets (plus a guest each) to our exclusive Motor Sport Hall of Fame event, to be held at the Roundhouse in London on February 15. The evening is sure to be one to remember, so click here to answer a simple question and give yourself a chance of being there on the night. Hopefully, I’ll see you there!

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Peugeot swept the American Le Mans Series season-closer at Road Atlanta, with Pedro Lamy/Franck Montagny/Stéphane Sarrazin winning Petit Le Mans by just over a minute from the similar 908 HDI of Marc Gené/Alex Wurz/Anthony Davidson. The Peugeots finished two laps clear of the lead Audi R15 driven by Rinaldo Capello/Tom Kristensen/Allan McNish, while Duncan Dayton’s Highcroft HPD ARX-01c was fourth to take the team’s second straight ALMS title with David Brabham/Simon Pagenaud/Marino Franchitti at the wheel. The Highcroft team has won three races this year and its trio of drivers completed the season without damaging a single piece of the car’s bodywork – a superb achievement.

The GT2 championship has been a feature of this year’s ALMS with teams from Porsche, Ferrari, Corvette and BMW fighting for the championship. In fact, Petit Le Mans was a classic as the factory Corvette team came through to score its first win of the year after the leading Risi Ferrari ran out of fuel on the last lap. Oliver Gavin/Jan Magnussen/Emmanuel Collard drove the winning Corvette, finishing 10th overall.

But the GT2 drivers’ championship was taken by Jörg Bergmeister and Patrick Long aboard the Flying Lizard Porsche 911 RSR, while Bobby Rahal’s BMW team took the GT2 team championship with Bill Auberlen/Tommy Milner/Dirk Werner finishing fourth in class and 13th overall.

Porsche’s new 911 GT3R hybrid made its second competition appearance at Petit Le Mans. Driven by Timo Bernhard/Romain Dumas/Mike Rockenfeller the car ran untroubled all the way to finish 18th overall. It races next at the Zuhai Intercontinental Cup in November with ALMS GT2 champions Bergmeister and Long at the wheel.

A bonus to this year’s Petit Le Mans was perfect weather with bright, sunny skies all weekend, a sharp contrast to last year when heavy rain cut the race short and left everyone dissatisfied. But this year the 1000km race ran unimpeded with a record field of 45 starters and a record crowd too of 124,000 spectators over three days – 11,000 more than the previous Petit Le Mans record.

Meanwhile Dario Franchitti qualified on pole and led most of the final IndyCar race of the season at Homestead to beat Will Power to the championship. A late stop for fuel dropped Franchitti to eighth and Ganassi team-mate Scott Dixon came through to win the race. Power had a disappointing race, falling down the field and then slithering into the wall and retirement as Franchitti drove faultlessly to take his second straight IndyCar championship.

Dario won the IndyCar title in 2007 with Andretti-Green Racing before giving NASCAR an abortive try in 2008. Returning to Indycars with Chip Ganassi’s team Franchitti has shown himself to be the class of the field, winning his second Indy 500 this year and relentlessly pursuing and beating Power and Team Penske to the crown. Dario is not only a great racing driver but also a big fan of  Motor Sport magazine, and someone who knows as much about the sport’s history as any driver. Everyone at Motor Sport congratulates Franchitti on an extremely well won championship.

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Delta Wing’s CEO Dan Partel says the unique single-seater is by no means dead. In fact, Partel is confident he will be able to strike a deal in the next month to build and test a Delta Wing prototype with a plan to race the car in 2013. In recent weeks Partel has had meetings with a number of European automobile manufacturers who have expressed interest in building 1.6 litre in-line four-cylinder ‘Global Racing Engines’ which are ideally suited to the Delta Wing.

“We are moving absolutely as fast as possible and I hope to have something concrete in three or four weeks time,” Partel told me this week. “If this comes together in the way we hope we will be looking for the very best talent in every category. We want people who are the best and the brightest. We want to get a prototype up and running in the next six months and then test and develop the car so it will be ready to race in 2013. And the beautiful thing about motor racing is there’s more than one sanctioning body out there.”

Partel is convinced the ‘Global Racing Engine’ concept will take off over the next few years with four or five manufacturers already looking at supplying different versions of the ‘GRE’ to different categories from touring and rally cars to single-seaters.

“Chevrolet, Ford, Mazda and BMW are up and running with their in-line fours,” Partel says. “The FIA regulations for the GRE will require the automobile manufacturers to sell or make available to the public the basic components of their engines within six months of entering competition. We believe we will be able to buy production engines that would require a dry sump lubrication kit and a few other bits and bobs for $15,000-$20,000. This whole thing has been well thought-out by the engine manufacturers working with the FIA and obviously they are going ahead with it.”

Partel says he’s sure the VW Group will also produce a ‘GRE’. “At the moment there are a lot of internal politics going on inside the VW Group so it’s difficult to say what’s going to happen, but I have no doubt that Volkswagen-Audi will be I-4 engine suppliers in the future.”

Meanwhile, IndyCar’s suddenly-embattled new CEO Randy Bernard has been told by most of his team owners that they cannot afford to buy and race the proposed new Dallara-Honda combination in 2012. Partel ridiculed last month’s ‘Iconic’ committee decision. “Now that the Chevy, Ford, Mazda and BMW in-line four engines are available,” Partel remarked, “I’m perplexed about how the ‘Iconic’ committee came to the conclusion that nobody wanted to supply an I-4 engine.”

Partel also offered a few words of advice to Bernard. “When you’re trying to develop or maintain a racing series you have to look at the key figure, which is return on investment for your teams. If your teams are financially healthy the whole series will be healthy. The return on investment has to be at least equal to the cost of operating a competitive team. That is the first target any series must set for itself. How do you create and build the proper media platform for your teams so that sponsors have confidence?

“To my thinking this has not been done by the IRL and I’m not sure they have the opportunity to do it because of budget constraints. In my opinion, the IRL are under spending, forcing Randy Bernard to do things that probably are not in the best interests of the series in an attempt to reduce the IRL’s deficit. That’s a tough assignment.”

Is it possible the Delta Wing will come to life while IndyCar’s 2012 Dallara-Honda formula will be delayed or stillborn? At this point it’s impossible to predict what the future holds for American open-wheel racing.

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So Fernando Alonso has insured his thumbs for the sum of 10 million euros. Now, it’s not unusual for athletes or film stars or models to insure a body part, or even two in some memorable cases…

This got me musing on the anatomy of a Grand Prix driver. The demise of the gearlever and the advent of power steering through what looks like a PlayStation device have placed far more importance – and thereby value – on fingers and thumbs. When I asked a young BMW engineer to show me around the steering wheel at a test day in Barcelona, he looked at me blankly. “Ah, the interface,” he said seriously, “ yes, a very technical and expensive piece.”

Paddle-shift and an array of colour-coded buttons require extreme dexterity in the heat of battle, not to mention operating the F-duct, the brake balance and the front wing. They are busy men, Formula 1 drivers, relying not only on lightning reflexes, sharp eyes and a strong neck, arms and legs, but also nimble fingers and thumbs. When Alonso clouted the barrier in Monte Carlo he will have kept those newly insured thumbs away from the impact.

A modern Grand Prix car is a brutal and fearsome missile. Not in the same way as an Auto Union or V16 BRM, I grant you, but the sheer force of the grunt, the grip and the brakes demand a certain standard of fitness. In the old days, of course, it would have been a driver’s palms that he might have insured, or his largely unprotected upper body. At Monaco they would finish with blistered hands, gloves worn through by the constant gear-changing. Now they must contend with huge g-forces in the corners and under braking. It’s no wonder they spend so much time in the gym, or cycling up mountains.

How much stamina is required depends, in turn, on driving style and the efficiency of the machine. There tend, even now, to be two main types of F1 driver. Broadly speaking, into one category might go Fangio, Moss, Clark, Stewart, Prost, D Hill and Button. In the other we might put Brabham, G Hill, Rindt, K Rosberg, Jones, Senna and Hamilton. I repeat, these are broad categories tagged with ‘laid-back, smooth and shrewd’ and ‘ ballsy, mercurial and out there’. Something like that. The two styles place different demands both on the driver and car. Neither Prost nor Button get on with oversteer, while Senna and Hamilton liked/like a car they could/can throw around a bit. I have been privileged to sit alongside Denny Hulme in a Can-Am car, Derek Bell in a Porsche 917 and Petter Solberg in a Subaru. Believe me, they are busy.

There will be many who disagree. But that is the beauty of debate, the post-race banter at the bar. What is not in doubt is that, inside the car, there is a lot more ‘shock and awe’ than you can properly appreciate from the grandstand, and it has always been this way. In times past you could see the driver at work. Now they are encased up to their necks in carbon fibre, appearing almost at rest in the cockpit. This is deceptive. You cannot feel the brakes, see the power or hear the snatching of breath. But watch the onboard camera at Monaco, Suzuka or Interlagos, and you’ll begin to get some idea of what’s involved in keeping the car on the asphalt.

This weekend we move to Montréal, a low-downforce circuit, but one which demands extreme concentration allied with stamina and dexterity. The walls are close and there is much heavy braking. Should Ferrari fail to find some extra speed in Canada, Signor Alonso may wish he’d asked Santander to insure his future as well as his thumbs.

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As the 2010 Grand Prix season beckons, most of my acquaintance are agreed that it’s been a very long time since we anticipated a year with such relish. Schumacher back… Alonso at Ferrari… Button with Hamilton at McLaren… four World Champions in the pack… the prospect of four highly competitive teams… All right, we have lost BMW and Toyota (after Honda), and one or two of the new teams look more than a little flaky, but overall the prospects are indeed enticing.

It’s interesting that, when forecasting the likely World Champion, most seem to be choosing between Schumacher, Hamilton, Alonso and Vettel – to be focusing, in other words, on one driver in each of the four top teams.

There’s no denying that, in the normal course of events, within a team one driver tends to assert his superiority over the group, to become the de facto number one, even if this is not officially acknowledged. And it’s a fact, too, that Michael, Lewis, Fernando and Sebastian have all shown themselves to be very keen on this thing of having the team revolve primarily around them. But I wonder if it’s going to be as clear-cut as some imagine.

Consider the ‘other’ driver in each team: Rosberg (Mercedes), Button (McLaren), Massa (Ferrari) and Webber (Red Bull). Of these only Nico has yet to win a Grand Prix, but then he has never – until now – had the car to enable him to do so. Shout me down if you will, but I have a suspicion that he will show a great deal better against Schuey than most appear to believe. Although Ross Brawn presided over a Ferrari team that for years clearly favoured Michael, he has publicly said that such will not be the situation at Mercedes.

Over at McLaren, Martin Whitmarsh has said the same about Hamilton and Button – and, again, I expect the performance gap between them to be far less than some suggest.

On to Ferrari. While I believe Alonso to be the best driver in the world, don’t forget that Massa – fully recovered – largely dominated Kimi Räikkönen, and came within a Toyota dry tyre of winning the 2008 World Championship. Felipe is cowed by no one these days, and quite right, too.

Finally, there is Red Bull: Bernie Ecclestone has predicted that Vettel will win the championship this year, and that’s not the silliest thing he has ever said, for Sebastian is prodigiously talented, with ambition to match.

I do, however, think it would be a great mistake to underestimate Webber. Because he’s in his thirties, and has been around a while, Mark is sometimes overlooked, but remember that last year he won twice – and that included a sound defeat of Vettel in Germany. Webber is Trulli-quick over one lap, and in a race no one fights harder. Twelve months ago he began the season with virtually no testing behind him, legacy of the badly broken leg sustained the previous autumn, but he never moaned about the discomfort, put up with his team-mate’s occasional tantrums, and simply put his head down and got on with it. I’m sure he will do the same in 2010.

Four top teams, then – but there are more than four drivers in the mix, and that’s what makes the forthcoming season so mouth-watering. And I’d add a final thought: if Renault comes up with competitive package, expect Robert Kubica – as talented as there is – to be in the thick of it.

If pushed, my money would be on Alonso for the title – but I’m not sure I’d bet very much…

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This year’s Rolex 24 hours at Daytona produced a similar result to last year with a Brumos Porsche winning from one of Chip Ganassi’s two cars, but without 2009’s drama when Juan Pablo Montoya battled fiercely with David Donohue. The closing hours of this year’s race were disappointingly flat as the lead car driven by Terry Borcheller/Joao Barbosa/Mike Rockenfeller/Ryan Dalziel maintained a comfortable half-lap cushion over its only remaining challenger, Ganassi’s Riley-BMW driven by Scott Pruett/Memo Rojas/Justin Wilson/Max Papis. Wilson had to pit unexpectedly during the final hour when he felt a violent bang from beneath the car, enabling the Brumos Porsche to win by 52 seconds.

It was a classic long-distance victory in that the winning car was the only Daytona Prototype to run the race essentially trouble-free, although the drivers did have to struggle with a sticking throttle and clutch failure. Faultless driving and pitwork were key to their success.

“I didn’t expect that we would be there at the end,” said Rockenfeller. “We were struggling with the handling most of the weekend but the team did a really good job to fix the car. We were pretty much changing everything on the set-up before the race. We didn’t know what to expect, but the car as perfect.”

Added Dalziel: “All four of us went into this race with a major unknown. We were pretty lost in practice but I knew if we could be reliable we’d be there at the end, and after the first couple of hours it was obvious we were fast. We never went off track or had any mechanical problems and I think this is a huge achievement for a new team.”

The winning Riley-Porsche was built and prepared at the Brumos team’s race shop in North Carolina under Mike Colluci’s direction, but the car was entered under the Action Express Racing moniker. The tough economic times compelled Brumos to lay off a number of employees at its dealerships last year, resulting in a decision to run just one rather than two Grand-Am cars in 2010. In turn the race team took the opportunity to build a different car powered by a Cayenne-based V8 built in California by the Lozano Brothers.

Built around a Riley chassis similar to last year’s winner and powered by a conventional Porsche engine, the new combination was turned out in off-white with a German flag down the middle. Colucci and Brumos also brought in veteran NASCAR crew chief and technical man Gary Nelson to help run the car.

Finishing third, four laps down, was the NPN Racing Riley-BMW driven by Scott Tucker/Ryan Hunter-Reay/Lucas Luhr/Richard Westbrook. Fourth, another 16 laps down, was Tracy Krohn’s Lola-Ford driven by Krohn/Nic Jonson/Ricardo Zonta/Colin Braun.

Among those out of luck were Ganassi’s second Riley-BMW driven by Montoya/Dario Franchitti/Scott Dixon/Jamie McMurray (above), which led more than 140 laps before blowing an engine. The Riley-Porsche of last year’s winner, Brumos Racing, blew its flat-six motor after 20 hours while defending Grand-Am champions Alex Gurney/Jon Fogarty and Daytona team-mates Jimmie Johnson (below)/Jimmy Vasser ran into a variety of problems, finally succumbing to a broken oil pump. Also out of luck were Wayne Taylor’s SunTrust Dallara-Ford and Mike Shank’s pair of Riley-Fords. This trio swept the top three places in qualifying but ran into various troubles in the race and finished fifth, sixth and seventh.

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Renault – in more ways than one – has had a poor time of it in Formula 1 over the last couple of years. True, Fernando Alonso returned to the team, after a single season with McLaren, but even the world’s best driver can do little with a fundamentally uncompetitive car, and although Alonso invariably gave 100 per cent (for that is his way), he won only two races in two seasons – and one of those was the controversial affair at Singapore in 2008. His victory in the next race, at Fuji, was from the top drawer, but there were to be no more, and in ’09 Fernando really struggled, his Renault frankly nowhere near the pace.

As he left for Ferrari, so Robert Kubica – on the market following BMW’s withdrawal – took his place, but through the late months of last year rumours abounded that Renault, too, might follow the lead of Honda, Toyota and BMW, and disappear from F1. Theoretically, therefore, Kubica might have been on the street once more – and, frankly, I was surprised that during that period any team signed any driver before being certain of Robert’s situation.

For my money, he is one of the top four drivers in F1, and some go further than that. His close pal Alonso has said he considers him the best, while even Lewis Hamilton has – privately – admitted that Kubica is the driver he most fears.

When Renault announced that, while the team would be continuing under the same name, a considerable chunk of it had been sold, Kubica declared that he now considered himself free to walk, should he choose to do so. After being reassured that it would remain a serious F1 operation, he said he would remain – but his original contract was for one season only, and there has been speculation that he could well join Alonso at Ferrari in 2011.

It could be that Kubica will have a frustrating time of it – again – this year, but still it astonishes me that when pundits consider the prospects for the coming season, frequently they omit to mention him. In all probability, this is because they do not expect very much from Renault, but if the car is even half-decent expect to see Robert in there, pitching. He might not look the part as much as some, but potentially this is a great Grand Prix driver.

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Having never attended a British Touring Car Championships event, two of Motor Sport magazine’s very own motoring protégés headed to Thruxton to enjoy a day of fast cars and tight bends as Airwaves BMW Team showed Victoria Newell and Jennifer Carruth behind the scenes at the second round of the BTCC.

It’s a fairly daunting experience standing next to a touring car driver as he tightens his helmet, starts the deafeningly loud engine of his 2-litre, 200bhp, BMW 320si E90 Touring Car – just before the light turns green – but it’s a feeling of excitement that will never be forgotten.

Known to be the fastest circuit in the UK, Thruxton can pose a few problems for drivers and their teams, but throughout the day the Airwaves team carried on with a minty fresh air of optimism and excitement.

“It’s a particularly tricky circuit for BMW”, Airwaves’ younger driver Jonny Adam (above) informs us. “We generally don’t expect to do too well on it, unlike Brands Hatch where the car can really perform to the best of its ability.”

With this in mind, Airwaves’ local hero Rob Collard (below) still made up an outstanding 12 positions in his second race finishing a respectable fifth, and then fifth again in the third race, taking home two points for the team leaving him fourth in the driver standings with 42 points.

“If you’d asked me after qualifying yesterday (Saturday) if I would take two fifth place finishes here then I’d have taken that,” said Collard at the end of the day. “I started really well all day and the car was very good in races two and three. There were four or five really top drivers out there all battling for position in race three and I really enjoyed it, it was very good racing for us and the fans.”

And it certainly was a terrific day for the fans as the second round of the BTCC delivered the motor racing excitement known only too well for touring cars. Several collisions kept the fans on their feet and the appearance of the safety car added to the dynamics of each race.

Upon getting up close and personal with the team it was amazing to witness the professional approach with which Airwaves BMW team went about its preparation before each race. The pit was a hub of activity as the mechanics worked frantically on each car while touring car fans moseyed around with intrigue and fascination.

“Keep up, keep up” called out the Airwaves pit official as he hurriedly led us on to the starting grid while the cars took up their positions. The last minute checks were performed on each of the cars and the sound of raging engines filled our ears.

“When I say ‘go’ you’ll have to make a run for it to get off the grid.” With this instruction we were both pretty keen not let this man out of our sight, otherwise we’d be getting a lot closer to the circuit than we’d bargained for.

Suffice to say we made it in one piece and were alive to watch the race with the rest of the Airwaves team in the paddock.

But it was Fabrizio Giovanardi, Colin Turkington and Mat Jackson who took first place in the three races of the day. Meanwhile VX Racing’s Matt Neal still tops the leader board with 64 points, six points ahead of Turkington. VX Racing had a fantastic result in round four as they brought home a 1-2-3 – their first in five years.

On May 17 the BTCC battle for points continues at Donington Park.

By Jennifer Carruth and Victoria Newell

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

Motor Sport Magazine - The original motor racing magazine

No doubt many of you have gone on driving experience days before and, as I’m sure you’ll agree, some are more successful than others.

Parting with £100 is one thing, but when you end up with only three laps of the track and a sandwich for lunch that even urban foxes would have problems keeping down, you do feel a little cheated.

Nowadays, thankfully, you’d be hard pressed to find somewhere where the cars aren’t up to standard. That’s because a level of competition has ensured that even the most budget of locations has a certain pride when it comes to which car they put paying guests in. Apart from, that is, a certain place I went to a few months ago which shall remain nameless. The ’80s touring car racers looked as though three angry chimps had been left to do their worst inside – what was left was an eclectic mix of wires which didn’t work and upholstery that smelt of oil and, alarmingly, cinders and burnt Nomex suit.

But, in the words of a certain Rob Widdows, I digress. The other day I was at Brands Hatch for the launch of its 2009 racing season where the media and drivers gathered to sample various cars and bikes at the track.

MotorSport Vision – the company owned by Jonathan Palmer which runs the Formula Palmer Audi series as well as various driving days at Brands Hatch, Oulton Park and Bedford Autodrome – announced that it has teamed up with BMW to offer new M3 track days.

The new M3 is a staggering piece of kit with over 400bhp and, as Palmer pointed out, “When I started driving anything with 200bhp, like the original M3, was powerful. But the performance of these cars really is superb and it can only be used a to limited extent on public roads – that’s the advantage of running on the circuit.”

Never a truer word was spoken, and what’s more you can either go for 15 laps in the M3 and then jump into a single-seater, or just stick to the BMW and hammer round for 30 laps.

Having done one of Motorsport Vision’s driving days at Bedford Autodrome I can assure you that they are the most professionally run events I have been to, so I expected nothing less from the new M3 experience. In the event the car was beautifully smooth and, although the instructor decided that he wasn’t going to switch the traction control off, the M3 certainly had enough power to make you go a little ‘wide-eyed’ through Paddock.

Having said this, it was events at the end of the day that have stuck in my mind. Because it was the season launch Brands was playing host to all shapes and sizes of vehicle, from Formula Palmer Audis to historic Lolas and McLarens, and from the new Formula 2 car (more on this in the magazine soon) to racing trucks.

The racing trucks are truly unbelievable. They weigh more than an elephant and pack a quite ridiculous 1000bhp. The brakes are water-cooled – otherwise they’d last approximately three metres – and they leave the pits with liquids pouring all over the place and smoke billowing from their tyres.

I was lucky enough to have a passenger ride in one and the feeling of coming out of Clearways in a six-wheel drift is one that I will never forget. They aren’t slow either … despite being limited to 100mph we hit the limiter at the start of the pitwall.

If you get offered a ride in one of these, please, please say yes. It’s the closest you’ll get to being part of a herd of stampeding elephants.

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BMW Magazine is a smart, beautifully designed and intelligent publication that comes through your letterbox if you own one of the cars from Munich.

I do not own a BMW but I have been reading the latest edition of the magazine. A friend of mine, soon to take early retirement from a blue chip British company, may forsake Waitrose for Tesco but he’s hanging on to his BMW.

The reason I mention this is because there is a most enlightening article about the new KERS contraption that will be seen on some of the Grand Prix cars when they appear in Melbourne in March. We know that BMW is well advanced in this respect, having already developed a brake energy recovery system for its M3 models. Conversely we know that the new Ferrari F60, launched today at Mugello, is using a Magneti-Marelli system that is rumoured to be far from fully ready to race. There won’t be much rest at Maranello during the next couple of months as Ferrari, like many other teams, strives to get on top of the new technology.

At BMW’s Research & Innovation Centre in Munich, meanwhile, there is cautious optimism despite this being relatively unfamiliar territory for the engineers, none of whom have a great deal of previous experience with KERS. Mario Theissen, who leads the BMW-Sauber team, has made it clear that the new system will only be run on the F1.09 when it has “fully matured”.

I may well be wrong but I sense there will be wranglings and gnashing of teeth in Melbourne. The FIA is said to be keeping a close eye on its latest wheeze to make F1 racing greener and more relevant to the high-performance cars of the future. Brake energy recovery may not be the re-invention of the wheel but it is certainly a headache for motor racing teams who require reliability with outright speed.

Encouragingly, the driver will have to use his brainpower, as he must decide when to use the extra energy stored up by the recovery system. Boy, how this would fall into the hands of men like Prost and Lauda. But who will make the best of it as we go into the new season? Nobody has the answer to that but an outside bet on Alonso in the Renault, or Kubica in the BMW, might be worth considering.

If you own a BMW you will have read about this intriguing new development. If you don’t, then it’s still well worth keeping abreast of how this technology works and how it may help, or hinder, the teams as they approach the first race. We may fleetingly return to the good old days with a fair few mechanical retirements. Remember all those cars parked at the side of the track? Certainly the cars are going to look a little fatter and wider to make room for all the gubbins that goes with recovering energy.

The days of Cosworths and Hewlands seem an awfully long time ago, don’t they? Nice memories on a wet, windy January day. But we have to keep up and, as the Dinky Toys advert used to say, there’s “always something new” to play with.

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The start of another year may find you feeling a little ramfeezled. I borrow this wonderful word from the great Scottish poet Robert Burns who was no stranger to the hangover after a night on the whiskies of his birthplace.

But it may not be Christmas and New Year revelling that finds you in this condition. Getting back to work is never easy, especially when the world around us appears to be in such turmoil. And the little world of motor racing has not escaped what may turn out to be some kind of watershed in our times.

Grand Prix teams – and freelance writers – do not have a fortnight’s holiday for Christmas even when the season starts a little later, as it does this year. There are new cars to be built, new sponsors to be charmed and existing ones to be reassured. Not easy this year. In both cases.

Talking to Ian Phillips (above) at Force India, you get it straight from the hip. “There will always be new sponsors,” he says, “but right now they are going to have to be mighty brave.” He should know, having survived four decades with, among others, Jordan, Midland, Spyker and now Force India. These are not comfortable times for a bank, or a car manufacturer, to justify a major partnership to its shareholders.

Costs are coming down, however, and not before time. Sir Jackie Stewart is right when he says that Formula 1 should have been preparing itself for leaner times way before the current economic woes became headlines. He is also right when he suggests that the FIA should, following the reign of Max Mosley, have a president from outside the motor racing business. It would, he argues, be a healthier and more efficient alternative to the tightly held and claustrophobic kingdom to which we have become accustomed.

What really matters to people like us are the cars. And, of course, the racing. So what can we expect from the 2009 season? Predictions, especially about the future, are always to be taken with a pinch of salt but there are some indicators.

Firstly, KERS might be a mighty flop, a white elephant rather than an engineering miracle. This rather depends on who you are talking to, as is ever the case. BMW has spent a great deal of time and money on developing its own system, sacrificing some development of the 2008 car to do so. But there are many in Munich who fear that KERS may be either postponed or, at worst, put back on the shelf. Unlikely, but there are vague murmurs that the mighty Scuderia is not as far advanced as it might be and may even consider asking the FIA for some kind of postponement. Again unlikely, but millions of euros have been spent, especially in Munich, and it is not preposterous to suggest that whoever has the best system in Melbourne may just run away with the first few races. For many teams, dealing with new aerodynamics, slick tyres and less testing is more than enough, without the extra anxieties of an energy recovery system.

Christian Horner, the boss at Red Bull, says that a few teams will have KERS on the cars in Melbourne but, in his view, the advantage of extra power may not prove to be worth the extra weight and complexity of the various systems. As with any other new component on a racing car, these new KERS systems – which are not mandatory – will only be run in race trim if the evidence is there on the stopwatch.

Meanwhile Happy New Year everyone! Try watching Pink Panther films instead of the news bulletins. You will feel a whole lot less ramfeezled.

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The Formula 1 circus has come to Monaco and so far, apart from a few gentle brushes with the walls, the whole grid has managed to complete the opening two practice sessions.

The forecast is for rain and what better race to have it at than Monaco, when none of the drivers have raced without traction control in the wet yet. If the promised rain does arrive, the race – I fear – will be won by the most level headed and cautious driver on the day.

Hamilton seems to love the circuit through the Principality and spent much of the day at the top of the sheets. Raikkonen did respond with a flurry of quick laps at the end of the first session and nudged the Brit from 1st place; however, Hamilton was even quicker in the next session and was only briefly knocked off the top of the sheets by Rosberg, who seems to be in great form in the Williams.

Piquet still seems to be struggling with the Renault – Alonso was 1.5 seconds quicker in P1 and then a second quicker in P2. Last year Briatore was very publicly vocal about Kovalainen taking time to get up to speed yet remains silent on Piquet’s pace. I doubt he is as relaxed as he looks but I suspect it is only a matter of time before the pressure of needing to perform further hampers the young Brazilian.

The McLarens do have the measure of the Ferraris for the time being, but as speculated the Scuderia is certainly not as far back as last year. As for the race – well, thanks to the overtaking possibilities in Monaco, much of the result depends on how the drivers do in qualifying. I would have thought, bar a problem or a mistake, Hamilton will take pole, with either one of the Ferraris or Kovalainen lining up alongside him.

However, with the likes of Rosberg showing the pace he is at the moment and the BMWs going well, I will no doubt be completely wrong. (When Hamilton does get pole I’ll delete this last sentence).
Practice 1

Practice 2

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First, a note of thanks. Last week I was talking about mechanics – you know, the guys who get all the messing around and none of the credit. I was hoping that a few of these chaps would get in touch and, guess what, they have.

So my ‘Mechanics Tales’ series is at least safe for a few months more. Damien (my Editor) is pleased, or relieved, one of the two.

1971 European F2 Championship. Cranleigh, Surrey, UK. 4th November, Rondel Racing F2 Team including L – R: Clive Walton, Ron Dennis, Neil Trundle and Preston Anderson.

I was encouraged to hear from Neil Trundle, a man who has been there, done it, got the t-shirts, the videos and the trophies. Neil established the Project 4 team with Ron Dennis, the outfit that built the ProCars for BMW, wowed the paddocks with its presentation and persuaded the mighty Marlboro to support its bid for the old McLaren team. The rest, as they say, is history.

Dutch Grand Prix, Zandvoort, Holland. 29th – 31st August 1980. Alain Prost (McLaren M30-Ford Cosworth), 6th position.

Neil still works with Ron, at the McLaren Technology Centre in Woking, where he’s in charge of the gearbox department. This is all to cut a very long story short but Mr Trundle has agreed to tell me a few mechanics tales so you will no doubt enjoy reading those in the months to come.

This week I’m going to see Neil Davis, who worked for Ken Tyrrell for many years and looked after the cars of Jackie Stewart. It was he who featured in our picture of the paddock tunnel at the (proper) Nürburgring last week. Meanwhile, in next month’s magazine, it will be the turn of David “Dorky” Lowe who is a protégé of both Neil Davis and Roy Topp at Tyrrell and who was terribly injured at Imola in 1996 when Jos Verstappen left the pits while Dorky was still re-fuelling the Arrows. But we’ll be looking at a happier phase of his life in the pitlane with Paul Stewart Racing when he looked after David Coulthard in Formula 3.

San Marino Grand Prix, Imola, Italy. 3rd – 5th May 1996. Jos Verstappen (Footwork FA17 Hart).

I won’t be in Monte Carlo this coming weekend but I will be glued to the television. This is absolutely one of my favourite Grands Prix, along with Spa-Francorchamps, Montreal and Monza. Well, and Suzuka, but that’s not every year now. Why do I love Monte Carlo? Because of the speed and the skill. You can feel the speed, get close to the cars for once, and you can only wonder the skill involved in threading a Grand Prix car around the streets. And the noise. Ah, that noise, as the cars scream around the Principality, the shriek of those engines ricocheting off the buildings. First thing in the morning it is just thrilling, makes the hairs on the back of your neck bristle.
Many years ago I watched a practice session in Monaco with Jenks. We stood behind the barrier at the old Tabac and at the swimming pool section. We could, if we’d been mad enough, have reached out and touched the cars. “You’ve got to realise,” he said, peering up at me through his spectacles, “that this place really shows you who is that bit special, who’s really got it. But even the cars at the back are quick, even the slowest drivers are going fast.”

I remember that every time I see these guys dancing and sliding around the streets, the best of them within millimetres of the barriers. Fantastic place.

Monaco Grand Prix, Monte Carlo, Monaco. 25th – 27th May 2007. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren MP4-22 Mercedes.

There may not be much overtaking but overtaking isn’t everything in motor racing. I’d rather watch no overtaking in Monaco than in Hungary or Malaysia, for example. I’d rather watch Hamilton or Raikkonen in Monaco than the whole field at Barcelona. And, it is possible to overtake in Monte Carlo. Not easy, but possible.

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So how much faster do we think the Ferraris could have gone yesterday in the Spanish Grand Prix?

Kimi Räikkönen, in the post-race press conference, hinted that the Italian squad had plenty up their sleeve when he said that, “we didn’t need to push. If we wanted to push, we could go much faster, for sure, but there’s no point in risking anything or using the engine more than you needed to.”

But, before we all get too over-excited or down in the dumps, it may not be that clear cut. To start with, drivers will always say that they could have gone faster to add that extra punch to those that didn’t beat them. And, perhaps more importantly, the Finnish driver then, when asked about the race, went on to say, “for sure, I needed to push all the time, so it wasn’t the easiest.”

So what do we think? I certainly don’t think the Ferraris are that much quicker than the BMWs and McLarens, but they were averaging much better lap times throughout the Grand Prix.

Barcelona is on par with Monaco when it comes to overtaking so there really was no need to build up a 20 second gap. I must admit, if there weren’t so many safety car interventions they may well have done. But for a driver who says so little and chooses his words carefully, what does Kimi mean when he said he could have gone faster, but he was pushing the whole time?

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Many people have recently been doing the time-honoured British press ritual of slamming one of our sporting heroes when he puts a foot wrong. Lewis Hamilton had an absolute shocker in Bahrain; there is no arguing that, but does he really deserve the press he’s been getting?.

The fact that he had a bad race doesn’t mean that he is on the brink of a mental collapse. Yes, Kovalainen is going about his business and perhaps Hamilton didn’t think he would be quite so consistent, quite so quickly. Yes, the McLaren is suddenly not such a force to be reckoned with. But are we not forgetting that these drivers have spent the whole of their lives dealing with such situations?

As Massa showed in Bahrain, however much pressure is put onto their shoulders; most Formula 1 drivers have the mental and physical ability to block out all the nonsense and get on and do what they do best – driving fast.

Hamilton was never going to walk the 2008 Championship. That much was clear near the end of last year when the Ferraris got quicker and quicker. And indeed when the BMWs revealed their true pace in Australia. So why are we all so worried that Hamilton is 5 points behind at the moment? Taken out of context, for a man in his second Formula 1 season, that’s not bad.

I can’t talk too much as I did also ask a few weeks ago whether Massa was up to the job. Of course, he went on to win the next race. But that has at least made me think – these guys spend their whole life training for this type of pressure. OK, Hamilton has a tendency to make bad situations worse when things start to go wrong but I definitely wouldn’t count him out yet.

I wouldn’t have thought that anyone at McLaren would be happy being shown up by both Ferrari and BMW and they’ll be doing everything in their power to gain an extra edge. As will Hamilton. Is Hamilton up to the task? I certainly think so. The season is just beginning.

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Well, Massa needed a win, or at the very least a strong performance with all four wheels staying firmly on the Tarmac, and he delivered. From when the red lights went out he dominated a fairly uneventful race for the two Ferrari cars and finished over three seconds ahead of his Finnish team-mate.

He has a good record in Bahrain, having won there last year ahead of Hamilton and Raikkonen, but the fact that he managed to drive such a dominant race after so much criticism was a testament to his mental and driving ability. I am not saying he is cured of his moments – but if he can drive like this for the rest of the reason, they will be forgotten by many.

As for the McLarens, Hamilton had yet another disastrous race. He was extremely slow off the line, his car looking as though he tried to draw away in 3rd, and dropped back to 10th place. He then slammed into the back of Alonso and consequently had to pit for a new nose cone. With the rest of his race hampered by a heavy fuel load and traffic he came home a disappointing 13th.

His team-mate, however, drove an undramatic race to finish 5th. It is obvious that the BMWs are quicker than the McLarens now (or at least in Bahrain) and hopefully for the Woking-based squad they will have found more speed from somewhere, come the European season. If not, they will be the ‘BMWs of 2008′ – the team that is relying on others not to finish in order to score good points and finish on the podium. Something that none of them would accept.
But well done Kovalainen, he may not have the raw pace of Hamilton but his lows are much higher than Hamilton’s when things go wrong. Something that, come Australia, may well count towards beating his team-mate in the Championship standings.

The BMWs both looked strong with Kubica finishing 3rd, and Heidfeld only three and a half seconds behind him. They have had a remarkable start to the season – lets hope they can continue competing for the podium. They certainly have one of the strongest driver line-ups on the grid.

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Massa looked very much the strongest driver all weekend until Robert Kubica took the first pole of his career in Q3. Whether he was carrying a much lighter fuel load or not, we won’t know until tomorrow. If this is the case or not – he drove a remarkably good lap.

At the front of the grid, it was business as usual. The Ferraris still seem to have the measure of the McLarens and, as predicted, Hamilton managed to qualify ahead of Raikkonen, (I have to point this out as all my other predictions are so far off I have promised myself never to bet on Formula 1).

Again, the ‘Don’ of one lap pace – Trulli – finished well in 7th and for the first time this season Button made it into the third session. Having been bold enough to say that the Toyotas just don’t have the race pace to finish in the points earlier this season, I stand corrected. Having been the only team that started with a clean sheet of paper for their 2008 car they seem to be consistently capable of scoring points. Add to that the fact that they are one of only two teams to test in Bahrain – expect more of the same tomorrow.

It was good to see Button finish the day 9th on the grid. The Honda is improving and I suggest it will continue to do so. Brawn has made it clear that he has the ability to make on-the-spot decisions which before had to go through days of committees. With the capacity to move forward unhindered by delays (in the right direction) they really should be scoring points sooner rather than later.

However, if there was one driver with ‘less luck’ than Webber – you’d probably have to say Button was up there with the ‘best’ of them. Lets just hope that’s not the case on race day.

Predictions for tomorrow? Well, if Massa stays on the track and his Ferrari engine doesn’t decide to pack-up then I am sure he will finish on the podium. Whether he can keep Raikkonen behind him or whether Kubica has the pace to challenge the Scuderia over a long distance I am not sure, but the Pole is certainly in the right position to fight for his best finish yet. I don’t think the McLarens have the speed to trouble the two teams on the front row so I doubt whether they’ll be on the podium. Who knows… knowing my predictions, the podium will consist of McLarens and Red Bulls.

Qualifying

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For the first time I decided to watch the two practice sessions on the ITV site with their ‘live feed’. This was, without a doubt, my worst Formula 1 viewing session ever. The fact that there isn’t any commentary is brilliant. An hour and a half of unrelenting, unmolested noise is wonderful.

However, as soon as it lulls you into a V8-induced slumber the sound is taken over by what can only be described as ET on speed. The picture then decides to pack up its bags and go home, leaving you in a suspended state, watching… well… nothing. Everyone in the office thought that I had finally lost the plot and was lost in a photo of the F1 ITV logo.

At first I thought it was something our end but with the latest Macs, this is utter rubbish. I understand that a ‘live stream’ is never going to be perfect but this was an utter waste of time. Raikkonen lost it at one point, and someone else did but I can’t for the life of me tell you who. They were using Bridgestones though. That was what the screen decided to freeze on anyway.

There is something quite eerie about the Bahrain circuit. There are no landmarks to speak of on track and the tarmac is so wide it looks like the cars have all been bought by Corgi. A fascinating place as Rob Widdows will tell you in the next issue of the magazine.

As for the racing, the Ferraris look like the ones to beat with Massa finishing the second practice nearly a second quicker than his team-mate Raikkonen. However, the Ferrari garage isn’t all sunshine and smiles as Raikkonen lost it in both practice sessions, needing to return to the pits in the first to get sand removed from his car. The dusty nature of the circuit does seem to be causing problems as many drivers were struggling for grip in the opening laps of the first session. If Massa can keep his pace throughout the weekend and stay on track it will certainly silence a few of his critics.

Hamilton ran well but lost it at turn 7 late in the second practice sending him sideways into the barrier. His car is badly damaged but we have heard that he is fine. As he said on Top Gear, he does occasionally enjoy a “good shunt”.

The Williams are back on form after Malaysia and the McLarens are biting at the heals of the Ferraris. What will happen in qualifying? Well, as long as everything goes according to plan, I suggest Massa will get pole, with Raikkonen making up the front row. Hamilton may well be able to beat Raikkonen to it but looking at the speed of the Scuderia’s cars he will have to carry much less fuel. Time will tell.

The rest? Well, the Toyotas don’t seem to be as fast here as they were in Malaysia. And five teams have finished with times that put their drivers next to each other on the time sheets. You may well ask; how much difference does the driver make? Quite a bit I think and that’s why I am sure that Kimi is going to push Massa all the way, even if his time sheet does look as good as the Brazilian’s so far.

Practice 1

Practice 2

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The second round of the World Championship saw Ferrari take a dominant victory, with Raikkonen crossing the line some 20 seconds ahead of BMW’s Kubica.

Massa, who took pole yesterday, was leap-frogged by his Finnish team-mate during the first round of pit stops and later spun off. It isn’t clear as to why he lost the back end but I suspect there was a slight driver error, something that Massa isn’t new to.

As for the McLarens, well, both of the cars were penalised 5 grid places yesterday for holding up Nick Heidfeld, and in my opinion rightly so. As I mentioned in the Qualifying report, the speeds which they were doing their fuel saving in lap at were lethal considering the BMW was closing at 170mph. So having started from 8^th and 9^th, Hamilton got a great start and come the end of lap one was up to 5^th. Kovalainen did well, but didn’t manage to get higher than 7^th in the opening stages.

It was during Hamilton’s first pit stop that his hopes of a podium were dashed as there was so much brake dust on his front right that the pit crew couldn’t get the wheel off. The stop took some 20 seconds meaning that a final position of 5^th was about all he could hope for.

The real surprise for the day was that Trulli managed to keep his qualifying pace and ended the race in 4^th position. After two dreadful seasons it seems that Toyota have finally made a more competitive car. Indeed they were one of the only teams to start with a blank piece of paper for their 2008 car, most teams being content to revise their 2007 cars considering the rule changes coming in to place next year.

Coulthard, having been openly critical of Massa’s move in the Australian Grand Prix which took him out of the race, has since changed the mirrors on his Red Bull – perhaps not the best advert for being innocent?

Although Ferrari can leave the weekend with a well-deserved win it will be playing on their minds that, after losing three cars to engine failures last weekend (Raikkonen, Massa and a Toro Rosso which uses a Ferrari engine), Adrian Sutil’s engine (another Ferrari customer) failed on Friday. It is rare for even one engine to fail during a weekend’s racing, let alone an average of 2 every Grand Prix.

The Australian Grand Prix it wasn’t; there were certainly less accidents for a start, but Sepang’s final results were a remarkably fair reflection on all the drivers’ and cars’ pace. The BMWs were the second quickest cars out there, behind the Ferraris. While the McLarens, even though they started down in 8^th and 9^th, really didn’t have the pace to have fought for a win.

Well done Kimi for another typically relaxed win.

Constructors Championship

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The Formula 1 World Championship certainly got off to an action-packed start – 9 cars taken out of contention by accidents, 5 breakdowns, a disqualification and only 7 finishers.

Hamilton avoided the carnage that unravelled behind him and romped home to take the top spot on the podium. The British driver could hardly relax as his lead was constantly cut by safety car interventions, however, he kept his cool and never put a foot wrong.

As always he congratulated the team on how well the car was running and dropped a small line about the difference to last year’s McLaren, “the car was phenomenal, a complete dream to drive compared to last year.” Whether this was a loaded comment or not – it certainly made it clear that Hamilton backs himself without the ‘help’ of Alonso’s experience in car setup and development.

The real action though, took place behind the leading McLaren. The Ferraris had a dreadful day with both cars spinning and then eventually retiring with engine failures. Massa was quick to say that Ferraris shouldn’t have such problems but if I am not mistaken it was exactly this that gave Alonso a second title in 2006, when Schumacher’s car drifted to a halt.

The Scuderia will no doubt be quick to sort the problem but it must be playing on their minds having come away from a Grand Prix weekend with only 1 point. Nowadays it is rare for even a single car to break down, unless of course you were driving a Red Bull last year, so for both to come to grinding halt… well it will be about as easy to stomach as their arch rival cruising to an easy victory, especially with their record at Albert Park.

Kovalainen was one of the unlucky, fortunate drivers of the day. Fortunate because he managed to avoid the various impacts happening around him but unlucky because a third safety car period meant that his pit stop left him well down the order. Ron Dennis was clearly pleased when the Finn overtook Alonso near the end but sadly Kovalainen accidentally hit the pit lane speed limiter button while removing a tear-off from his visor, letting Alonso cruise past with 1 lap remaining. The fact that he got the fastest lap of the race will be small consolation. Still, his debut for McLaren was certainly more successful than his opening race for Renault.

Alonso showed just what a class act he is while carving through the field and pulling off great manoeuver after great manoeuver. Although the Renault was clearly off the pace, he managed to bring the car home 4th. Piquet’s debut was similar to Kovalainen’s first few races last season – the Brazilian spent much of the race running at the back and was eventually taken out of contention when his car was involved in an accident.

Honda had a similarly bad day as Button was involved in an accident at turn one on the opening lap and Barrichello, having finished in 6th was later disqualified for leaving the pit lane on a red light, giving Raikkonen the point.

Rosberg got his first podium with a solid third position and rightly so; he drove a good race and proved that this will be the first of many now that the car is competitive enough to occasionally trouble the McLarens, Ferraris, and BMWs. Heidfeld took second place and it was a shame that Kubica, after such a good qualifying, was involved in an accident which ended his race just over ten laps from the end.

I can’t believe that every Formula 1 race this season will be as chaotic as Albert Park – but it just may be that banning traction control was the sport’s best move in recent history. To see the likes of Raikkonen pushing it hard enough to spin while attempting to overtake someone was a reminder of just how difficult these cars are to keep on the straight and narrow when on the limit. The Finn shrugged off his erratic driving in typical fashion by merely saying that he “was a bit too optimistic.”

It was the unlikely face of Nakajima that summed the day up though, after bringing the second Williams home in 6th place, he concluded that “to get to the end today was great.” How right he was, and long may unpredictable Formula 1 continue.

Manufacturer standings

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