Rogue Review, France 2007: Fields of nothing...
July 1, 2007 - NewsLike always, France has proved to be dull. It might be one reason why it’s going from the F1 calendar for the future. The last time anything interesting happened was when Jacques Villeneuve crashed on the sprint up to the Adelaide hairpin. This hairpin offers the most excitement of this entire track and this year this also proved to be the case.
The opening lap managed to provide two bits of fun and frolics. On the way up to Adelaide, Davidson thought he would have yet another go at Liuzzi. His first attempt during Qualifying paled into comparison with the a heavy collision which resulted in both drivers retiring from the race not having completed a single mile. Moments later Jarno Trulli made contact Kovalainen at the Adelaide hairpin in what I could only describe as “ram braking”. Why use valuable brakes when you can slow down on a Renault.
As the race settled Alonso and Heidfeld had an amount of exchanging places in what would turn out to be Alonso’s biggest headache for the entire race. Unable to shake off Heidfeld, Alonso finished two placed behind him down in 7th.
After the first lap action the race settled down. Scott Speed had a moment when his tyre decided to let go and end Speed’s race. Speed admitted that he had a slow puncture and was trying to make it to his stop in a few laps. If only he had come in. Kimi Raikkonen retired around the same time as the American ending his chance to take control of the championship.
After that there was a long, dark period of nothing, nothing but cars circling round the Nevers landscape; nothing at least until Lap 30. The Dutch driver, Albers, was called in for his regular pitstop, but surprisingly his team mate was already there, filling his spot. Much panic and activity later, Sutil had his fill of go-go juice and a new set of shoes allowing Albers to take *his* slot in the pits. But now critical time was lost. Time was now very much of the essence. Eager to leave the pits Albers made a critical mistake. He left too early. In doing this his dragged the refueling team and a large number of other mechanics over into a big mess on the floor. All this would not matter if Albers had still exited the pits cleanly, but sadly for him, his eagerness to leave had detached refueling hose from the refueling rig but not from his car. 200 meters later Albers parked up to ponder how really stupid what he had just done was. But at least we salute him! Sutil got his just deserts in the end with a drivethrough penalty for speeding in the pit lane on his quest to steal Albers’ pitstop.
Then, nothing; again the excitement was gone. Rain? No. Crashes? No. Overtaking? Not really… wait, Scott Speed! Off in the gravel trap! Yellow Flags, drama and the like… Er, No. He’s just parked in the gravel. Realisation turning to utter disappointment faster than an Albers pitstop.
Whilst the result of the race was good for Ferrari and Hamilton – when will he be stopped? – the race was not really good in our opinion. Bring back Canada, all is forgiven!
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Posted by Jules at - Comments (0)
Tagged as: formula one, formula1, f1, france, 2007, trulli, alonso, raikkonen, albers, sutil, davidson
