STORIE =]
Sunday, April 2
An incident-filled Australian Grand Prix today, a combination of circuit, tyre and set-up factors caused cars to have very low grip levels, thus resulting in a number of spins...
Montoya spun his McLaren at the end of his formation lap, but luckily for him, Fisichella stalled on the grid and Montoya was able to regain his grid position in the additional warm-up lap. Red lights go out, and cars are sprawled over the width of the circuit, fighting for positions to enter the slow 1st corner chicane. 1st corner accident as expected, Klien nudged Massa into a spin, who in turn tore off Rosberg's rear wings and radiators, both Massa and Rosberg retired due to irreparable damage.
2 corners later Trulli went alongside Coulthard, but the Scot simply shut the door on Jarno and forced the Italian to retire. Safety car was deployed to recover the 3 stricken cars on the circuit, and Alonso was given a second chance to pass pole-setter Button, and Fernando did not disappoint. On the restart Alonso used his superior traction out of the penultimate corner to grab the inside line at the 1st corner, taking the lead from Button.
7 laps on Klien broke his front suspension, probably due to the 1st lap contact with Massa, and had a high speed crash into the tyre walls, but luckily he escaped unscathed. We're soon into the 1st pit-stop window, race leader Mark Webber, on an extended 1st stint in his heavily-fueled Williams, grind to a halt, with a gearbox failure. Michael Schumacher pushed too hard and slid off on the last corner, hitting the barricades and laying debris all over the start-finish straight, forcing yet another safety car period.
Button was getting further and further off the pace, by now he has been overtaken by Alonso, Ralf Schumacher, Heidfeld and the 2 McLarens. The safety car periods were of no help to him as Jenson simply could not repeat his speed in qualifying, and a topsy-turvy restart again caused an accident, this time Liuzzi being torpedoed out of the race by Villeneuve, but the latter was able to continue racing.
Chequered Flag waves, and Alonso first one to cross the finish line, joining him on the podium are Raikkonen and Ralf Schumacher. Button's misery is to continue, with the chequred flag in sight, his Honda engine let go, and he had to watch in agony as cars overtook him juz metres away from the finish, Jenson ended up in 10th instead of 5th.
A race of attrition indeed, only 13 out of 22 cars finished the race... Lets hope the teams have better luck in Imola...
bombedby
MoNtOyA*
8:03 PM
