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Monday, October 02, 2006

Shanghai Grand Prix 2006 - one for the history books.

without a doubt one of the most thrilling races of the current season - one that has turned out to be reminiscent of the most famous duels in F1 history.

from the previous european races ending in Italy, the Ferraris were riding on a high but the renaults knew they had the speed to keep pace. but three weeks is a long time and the geographical transition to oriental china was bound to make an impact on any momentum.

practice had gone as per normal, with the jubilant ferraris showcasing their dominant pace by topping the time charts. however teams were in for a shocker as rain pelted down on saturday morning and although it stopped in time for qualifying, the damage had been done and fans all over the world were about to tune in for a wet qualifying session.

the last time we had a rain race was in hungary where drama proved plentiful and constant throughout the weekend and this time the rain really perked my eyes up. furthermore news of massa's engine change meant ten grid positions down the field even before qualifying started.

session one was disastrous for the ferraris, but the renaults set a brilliant pace to top the charts, with the scuderias just squeezing in 13th and 14th fastest to make it to session 2. however lack of grip from the bridgestone tyres proved costly for the inexperienced massa who could not escape elimination in session two. thankfully 7 time world champion schumacher used his legendary driving skills in wet weather to great effect again and squeezed in 9th fastest time ensured participation in session 3.

however of course he was unable to match the pace of the renaults and subsequently the hondas and mclarens who were all in michelin wets, so 6th place is not that bad. in fact it was the best bridgestone runner by miles. however a renault lockout caused major panic within the ferrari garage as this would definitely hand renault a golden key towards the drivers' and constructors titles.

five red lights went off and the race begun. the start was just as per qualifying - sprays of water all over the track as 22 cars battled for position. amongst all these the biggest victim was the talented rookie robert kubica who lost countless track positions to drop to p17. in the meantime kimi showed remarkable skill by overtaking the two hondas into p3.

while all the action went on in the pack, world champion alonso was pulling away from it - at a remarkable 1 - 2 seconds per lap, also helped by the fact that teammate fisichella was doing a brillliant defending job holding up a whole gang of cars behind him - by the 9th lap he was already 22 seconds ahead.

as the track started to dry, schumacher's timings started to soar. he firstly made overtaking barrichello look easy, and topped that by seemingly walking past button. p4 for the man headed for retirement and soon it became p3 when kimi raikkonen became the first retirement of the race when he suffered from an apparent engine or clutch problem.

tyres became the major concern for all manufacturers as decisions formed a crucial part of the final outcome of the race. barrichello screamed instructions "keep the tyres" as he pitted showed how difficult it was for teams and drivers alike to come to a decision. schumi and fisi too kept their intermediate tyres while leader alonso took a gamble by changing his front intermediates.

and wad a poor gamble it turned out to be. soon after the first round of pit stops both fisi and schumi started to eat into the 20 second gap and a few laps later the three cars were neck to neck with only 1 second in between the three cars. a beautiful overtaking move by schumi pole vaulted him ahead of his main rival alonso and it was p2 for the ferrari while fisi took p1.

the track continued to dry further and the tyre issue became dire. BMW were the first to gamble on dry tyres while their cars were setting fastest laps and kubica paid dearly for the premature move - wasting all his previous overtaking by once again dropping ten grid positions to 17th after two major spins.

eventually car after car pitted for dry tyres but the focus was on the duel between fisichella and schumacher. on lap 40 schumacher pitted after a brilliant dummy move by ferrari, furthermore coming just perfectly as yellow flags were waved for a monteiro spin cum retirement. his out lap matched the sector times of fisichella as one lap later fisichella himself pitted for slick tyres.

probably the turning point of the entire race was now. fisichella had a quick pitstop and looked set to retain his lead as he came out of the pits - schumacher was a distance behind. but apparently the exit of the pitstop was still moisture-filled and the new tyres he had on were not warmed up enough to gain enough acceleration out of the pits, and around turn 1 schumacher showcased a piece of brilliant driving skill - going on the inside of fisichella and snatching the race lead - a seemingly impossible position after ytd's qualifying performance.

towards the end alonso blazed the track as he took back p2 from fisichella and that summarizes an action filled shanghai grand prix - actually i left out most of the action which was going on elsewhere. haha go watch the replays to see its yourself.

and now the standings are as follows:

renault: 179
ferrari: 178

michael schumacher: 116
fernando alonso: 116

EXCITING RIGHT?

well suzuka next week is gonna be really exciting and i'm forgetting that there is even promos on the line. hahaha

its been a german afternoon in GP. germany won A1's feature race. wah damn exciting oso. it rained too.

and with that summarizes another of yewliang's no one bothers to read F1 posts.

nevertheless its fun. once again i must say this:

THEY DO NOT GO AROUND IN CIRCLES.

adios pple. gd luck for promos!

12:22 AM;

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Wong Yew Liang
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