Monday, April 16, 2007

Race Report

Of the two races I watched over the weekend, the Bahrain Grand Prix had to be by far the better of the two as Louis “Jaguar” Hamilton continues to be the story of Formula 1 to date.

Hamilton accomplished something that hasn’t been done ever before by claiming his third consecutive podium in his first 3 races. While only two drivers before have ever managed 3 podiums in their first 4 starts: Jacques Villeneuve and Luigi Fagioli.

And even more impressive is the fact that Hamilton is tied for the championship lead along with Kimi Raikkonen and Fernandoe Alonso.

Yet I too, like Steve Matchett would have loved to see the look upon Ron Dennis’s face after “Quick Nick’s” (Heidfeld) brilliant overtaking maneuver of Fernando Alonso for 4th place! So what do you think now Ron about those “lightweight” BMW Sauber’s…

It was nice to hear Bob Varsha give a “shout-out” to Dan Gurney who just turned 76 years “young,” as it was 40yrs ago that he won the Belgian Grand Prix in the only American made chassis.

And fellow commentator David Hobbs said don’t forget Phil Hill who’ll be turning 80 shortly. Yet I got a good laugh over Peter Winsor saying that Sir Frank Williams is turning 65 today but DON’T tell anybody…

And it was really nice to see Felipe Massa so ecstatic after his victory… I mean he looked really pumped as he’s gotten the monkey off his back for the moment, basically controlling the race from start to finish…

Bahrain GP Report

Meanwhile in Long Beach, Champ Car muddled along in a fairly boring processional fashion. If you can call flying down Oceanside boulevard at 185mph muddling along… Yet the start seemed extremely hap-hazard, but they did manage to avoid a 5 car pile-up into turn one…

The “Hamburgular” (Sebastian Bourdais) simply ran away and hid from everybody, building up a lead of over 23 seconds before getting nabbed by the yellow flags. And these weren’t none of those mysterious RASSCAR debris caution flags… As first Mario Dominguez and then Alex Figge both slammed hard into the walls.

The story of the race was Oriol Servia leap frogging from 14th to finish 2nd behind Bourdais while filling in for Tracy. I really liked Servia’s quote on Saturday about “Crash’s” steering wheel being so big that it felt like driving a bus. Will Power and Justin Wilson both passed Alex Tagliani on the final lap…

Long Beach Report