27.6.06

Canada was an interesting race of attrition as it was fought out in extreme heat, with "marbles" strewn around the track meaning that there was only one line for much of the race. A number of drivers hit the walls, even Schuey grazed one at half distance, but Alonso put his only mistake of last season behind him to take a perfect win from pole, meaning that he's delivered a perfect work performance over the last 12 months. Not many people can say that, though Bernie marked him down on his "soft skills", so he probably won't get his NVQ in racecar driving.

Raikkonen generally drove well, but made the same mistake twice at the hairpin, going off-line and onto the marbles and fish-tailing out of the corner. The second time was on the penultimate lap and Schuey pounced to steal second place, a Safety Car period having bunched up the field. It's hard to blame Raikkonen too much as one felt that he was driving above the performance of his car and did not have the supreme confidence in his McLaren that Alonso had in his Renault.

Canada is a one or two stop race, Massa was on the former strategy, but Schuey had a weird sort of a 1½ stop strategy, going for nine laps longer than Alonso. This suggests that Ferrari knew Michael could not challenge for pole even if he'd been on the same load as Alonso and they hoped the extra fuel would help him pass some of those in front. Unfortunately, this strategy was largely negated by his getting trapped behind Trulli for many laps, however Michael was helped by Fisi getting a drive-through penalty for jumping the start and he eventually managed to pass Trulli on lap 24.

Trulli brings us on to the question of the driver market. He has been re-signed by Toyota though his fast qualifying / slow racing technique is only of real value if your team's other driver qualifies in front - which Ralf did not. Ralf himself had a bizzare race, trundling round in and occasionally spinning a Toyota with no rear-end grip, his antics causing Jacques Villeneuve to hit the wall. Goodness knows what he was trying to prove, perhaps he thought that dogged perseverance in the face of insurmountable odds will help him to keep his drive next year!

Brother Michael's decision whether to retire or not is said to be the key to the whole driver market, though Martin Brundle is convinced Raikkonen is already signed to Ferrari - and he should know. Let us hope so as apart from Schuey he seems to be the only one capable of challenging Alonso, who's deal with the Grey Side was done and dusted before the season even started.

The overpaid and under performing Montoya looks unlikely to retain his McLaren seat next year and may only stay in F1 at all if he takes a massive pay cut. The Editor seems to think that he's a possible at Ferrari, which is intriguing, I can't see him as any other than an occasionally quick but frequently destructive force and certainly no team leader. Moves such as when he barged past Schuey on the first lap in Canada make him appealing as a racer, though he collided with Rosberg shortly after, pitted for a new nose and then put it into the wall on Lap 57 - yet another unforced error of the sort which he makes frequently and which the true greats do not.

Nico Rosberg had an interesting weekend. He was lambasted by his team mate Webber and Barrichello [who? - Ed.] for ruining their qualifying laps by blocking. He qualified an excellent sixth, jumped Schuey (no less) on the first lap but his collision with Montoya put him out. This was a 50/50 incident, but when Montoya pulled the same move on Schuey the latter was canny enough to realise that discretion was the better part of valour, took to the grass and survived to come home second.

Rosberg has shown that he has pace from the word go, he's now learning ruthlessness. There are a few more lessons to learn, like MS's backing the pack up on the formation lap to put more temperature into his tyres and also into the engines of those in front, but it's only a matter of time. A couple of seasons to knock the rough edges off and Nico'll be ready for Ferrari though how they'd cope with his father, who exhibits Karting Dad Syndrome at times, is hard to imagine. I admire Keke enough to believe that he'd get it right eventually, unlike "Our Nige" in Formula BMW with his lads.

As for the others, Fisi jumped the start, got a drive-through penalty and then went into afternoon cruise mode. He's been re-signed by Renault which must be a banker as he's no team leader. Talking of cruisers, Crazy Dave, who has been known to display the tendency, had a good race. He was last on the grid after an engine change, made his way through the field until he was ninth behind Button. He jumped his hapless fellow Brit to take the final point two laps from the end. Whether Coulthud was galvanised to do so by a wake-up call from his engineer is not clear. Honda's bad performance has resulted in Geoff Willis becoming the second Technical Director to be displaced in a Japanese-owned team this season, choosing to resign after being moved sideways in favour of Shuhei Nakamoto in a management re-shuffle. It'll be interesting to see how the Japanese copes with the very Western culture of F1.

Listening in to the teams' radio certainly adds an extra dimension, such as Scott Speed threatening his mechanics on the grid with dire retribution if he later found that his Cossie had been allowed to get hotter than team-mate Liuzzi's. This may have been irony, which I didn't think Americans did. I don't think racing mechanics do it, so they probably just think he's a Richard Edward.

I'm glad that ITV are following this column's recommendations and are introducing more technical content. I enjoyed Martin Brundle's piece on oversteer and understeer, though he did look a bit wide-eyed at times when zooming round a soaking Slirosne in a Dead Bull! Anyway, keep up the good work Martin!

On now to Indianapolis, the venue for Ferrari's great win last year. Let's hope for a repeat performance this year. It looks like both championships are lost, but the Scuderia have vowed to fight to the finish.

Forza Ferrari!

PS
I've just noticed that the top five in this race were the same as in the last!