23.07.2007

FISH, CHIPS AND SNAPPER!

With the track just an hour from our Cologne base, Nürburgring is a home race for the team and some can even stay in their own beds. But that didn’t mean that everything was familiar and worked like clockwork. Setting up on Wednesday, the crew got a shock when the radio mast on the engineers’ truck misbehaved. A telescopic pole which should extend in stages, it flew out rather quicker, chipping the truck roofs before crashing to the ground, thankfully without hitting anyone. Later in the day the Red Bull team experienced exactly the same phenomenon.

After our little drama the team hosted the Japanese media for sushi on Thursday evening. The food was superbly presented by the all-Japanese staff of Basho An in Freiburg, one of the top sushi restaurants in Germany. They brought with them flowered table decorations and the correct tipples to add to the authenticity. Yamashina-san, Arai-san and Kinoshita-san attended from the management and both Jarno and Ralf also put in an appearance, in between giving high-speed taxi rides around the circuit!

On Saturday evening it was the turn of FOPA (Formula One Photographers’ Association) to join us for our Panasonic-backed annual competition, with camcorders and digital cameras going to the winners and their excellent work on display in the motorhome. Daniel Reinhard took the top prize, with Jad Sherif second and Keith Sutton third.

NEWS FROM OUR RIVALS

World championship leader Lewis Hamilton had an impossible task to keep his record-breaking run of podium finishes going when he crashed heavily in qualifying and was forced to start the race from 10th on the grid. McLaren Mercedes reported that a faulty wheel gun failed to torque up the wheel nut, which caused an offset wheel and instantaneous tyre deflation. After a thorough medical check Hamilton was cleared to race on Sunday morning but had a problematic afternoon. He finished ninth and saw his championship lead over team mate Fernando Alonso reduced to just two points.

Markus Winkelhock made his Grand Prix debut for the Spyker team and, unbelievably, led his first Grand Prix. “That is something nobody will ever be able to take away from me!” he grinned. Winkelhock is the 27-year-old son of the late Manfred, who drove his last Grand Prix at the Nürbugring in 1985, shortly before he was killed in a sportscar race in Canada when Markus was five years old. Winkelhock qualified last but the team made an inspired decision to change onto wet tyres before the race started, then brought him in for extreme wets at the end of the first lap. He led the race by 30s when the red flag came out. He then had the hair-raising task of leading away the re-start. “I was expecting to see blue flags in my mirrors, not red and silver cars!” he laughed. “It was interesting…”

RACE REPORT

A dramatic European Grand Prix at Nürburgring finished without points for the Panasonic Toyota Racing team. Ralf Schumacher was in ninth and challenging for points when his race was ended after being hit by Nick Heidfeld at the final corner after 18 of the race’s 60 laps.

Jarno, who qualified eighth, came past the pits in third position at the end of the opening lap, one of just seven drivers who did not immediately pit for rain tyres. By that time, however, heavy rain was falling and Jarno was faced with the difficult task of a lap with virtually no grip, on dry tyres. He pitted at the end of the second lap and put on wet weather tyres. The track was so wet, however, that he was back a lap later for a set of extreme wets. Ralf was one of the drivers who pitted on lap one but a problem at his stop, when the wrong tyres were fitted to his car, cost him time and positions.

With cars aquaplaning in second gear, Jenson Button, Adrian Sutil, Nico Rosberg, Scott Speed and Vitantonio Liuzzi all went off the track after two laps, the first corner particularly slippery, and the Safety Car was deployed. Officials then made the decision to suspend the race, red flags were shown at all marshals posts and the cars lined up on the grid to await a restart. Ralf and Jarno were 12th and 14th respectively in the order.

After a 20 minute delay and the field now on wet tyres, Ralf was competitive until the incident with Heidfeld. “I made a slight mistake out of the chicane and Nick got close to me,” he explained. “He made a move into the final corner, we collided and that was the end of my race. Clearly that’s not the way I wanted to finish my home race. It is very disappointing for the team because we had an opportunity to score points. Nick is normally a fair driver and this is motor racing – these things happen. It was a racing accident.” Race stewards agreed when they looked closely at the incident after the race.

Jarno persevered but could only come home in 13th position. It was a really dramatic race in general because it was down to the strategy, down to good luck - so many things that didn’t work at all for me,” he said. “I had a very good start and was running fifth but that is racing in the rain, full of good and bad surprises. What really hurt me was the beginning of the race when there was a shower and there was a bigger shower on the lap I came in. I was very unlucky because the red flag came at the wrong time for me. In dry conditions I was quite competitive and I was catching up the cars in front but we had some problem at the pit stops. It was a race to forget.”

The race was won by McLaren Mercedes’ Fernando Alonso, the double world champion overhauling long-time leader Felipe Massa’s Ferrari in the closing stages when rain fell again and necessitated another swap onto wet tyres. Behind Massa, Mark Webber scored the first podium finish of the season for Red Bull Racing. Alexander Wurz was fourth for Williams ahead of David Coulthard with the second Red Bull. The BMW Saubers of Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica finished sixth and seventh, with Renault’s Heikki Kovalainen just holding off championship leader Lewis Hamilton to score the final point.

Team Principal Tadashi Yamashima surmised: “We have to look at some faults today, in terms of pit work, tyre preparation and how we best use our weather reports. I appreciate the efforts of the drivers today in circumstances that were largely beyond their control. They did their best.”

The championship continues at the twisty Hungaroring circuit in Budapest, on August 5.