F1: Team-Mate Wars: Melbourne

[Rory Phoulorie]

In an F1 team, the man you have to beat more than anyone else is your team-mate. So how did things shake out after the Australian GP?


Renault
Fisichella 1 Kovalainen 0
This was a dream start for Giancarlo Fisichella. Fifth place and four points was just so-so, but wow, a team-mate that actually made him look good, now that IS a result. What's doubly good for Fisi is that the entire pitlane knows that reserve driver Nelson Piquet almost matched Anthony Hamilton last season. And with Lewis's great drive very much in people's minds, then Flav may well be pushing forward the Brazilian one in competition with his other rookie. Now that's what you call breathing space.

Kovalainen had a dog of a weekend at a difficult track where his team gave him very little early running. But he can't afford the same kind of performance at Sepang.


Ferrari
Raikkonen 1 Massa 0
Though there were signs that Kimi had the edge on Felipe before Qualifying 2 on Saturday, this was a wretched way for Massa to start his campaign. And for all the talk of his "excellent drive" through the field, you can't help thinking that if the Great One had been with us he'd have found a way past Barrichello and Button before Massa did. (Apologies: you're going to have to put up with a season of these comparisons).

Raikkonen had it all under control. Despite the comedy moment of the weekend when Ron Dennis reckoned that BMW's strategy had denied them victory, Ferrari looked in impressive form. We shall see in Sepang if there is an overheating problem or not.


McLaren
Alonso 1 Hamilton 0
Praising Lewis Hamilton to the skies is getting a bit boring now - we've probably all seen enough "Lewis Will Be A Future World Champ" headlines to switch off when we see another. Yes, he had a great debut, but so did Nico Rosberg last year at Bahrain and look what happened to his season after that.

It was impressive that he kept pace with Alonso in Australia and finished much closer to the Spaniard than Fisichella managed on most occasions last summer, but it is just one race. If he stuffs it into Robert Kubica at the first corner in Sepang then we'll start to get the yo-yo headline effect.

Alonso had another calmly assured race, doing only what he needed to do to clinch second. You notice Fernando had no belief that the win was there for the taking.


BMW
Kubica 1 Heidfeld 0
Heidfeld only qualified in front of Kubica because of his lower fuel load allied to BMW opting to start Nick on the soft Bridgestone tyre. In the race, when the strategy panned out, Kubica was in front. It wasn't the Pole's fault that the 'New Reliable BMW Gearbox' was actually the 'Same Old Temperamental Gearbox' that they'd had trouble with throughout testing.


Honda
Barrichello 1 Button 0
Whinge, whinge, whinge, whinge, whinge. Jenson's hopes of ever being a World Champion may be fast receding, but they're going away even faster because of his attitude. If you were an F1 Honda employee watching the race you can't have been overly motivated by Jenson calling the car "cr*p". Getting paid god-knows-how-many -million pounds a year should give drivers a sense of responsibility for the team.

As Rubens was on the soft tyre to start with you might have thought that Button would have made it easier for him to pass and maximise his strategy, but he didn't. At least you can't have a go at Honda for pulling team orders...


Toyota
Schumacher 1 Trulli 0
Jarno outqualified Ralf and looked like he had better race speed in the early stages of the race, pushing hard behind his team-mate's car. But after the pit-stops they were thrown a long way apart and in these circumstances the Toyota driver rarely bounces back. Ralf went on to collect the points.


Red Bull
Webber 1 Coulthard 0
It'll be interesting to see if (without any mechanical/accidental event being the cause) that 12 places is the greatest separation of any two car's qualifying throughout the season. For Webbo to take 7th and DC to qualify 19th is a horrendous result for the Scot. He compounded this by making a very ambitious overtaking move on the trundling Alex Wurz.


Williams
Rosberg 1 Wurz 0
Good to see Nico Rosberg re-establishing himself with a strong drive and the neatest overtaking move of the race. His qualifying performance was a cut above that of Alex Wurz. This will be one of the most interesting battles of the year because on sheer mileage Alex should have the edge, but he'll take a while to get back into the idea that the other cars out on the circuit are racing him not testing with him.


Toro Rosso
Speed 1 Liuzzi 0
Speed got the drop on Toro Rosso team-mate Tonio Liuzzi, but as we saw last season, they're still pretty evenly matched.


Spyker
Albers 1 Sutil 0
Sutil's debut was inauspicious and he can thank the focus of attention on Hamilton and Kovalainen that his errors went largely unnoticed.


Super Aguri
Sato 1 Davidson 0
Takuma Sato got the better of Ant Davidson in qualifying, but it was the usual embarassing story of blocked lapping cars when the rest of the field caught up with him in the race.


Star of the Race
Hamilton 1


Overtaking Move of the Race
Rosberg 1


The Golden Arse award
Melbourne: Though Takuma Sato has to get a mention for his failure to look in his rear view mirrors - The Japanese has had several seasons in F1 now and is still not able to do two things at once. He complained he only held people up because his new flag marshal warning light system on the steering wheel wasn't working... So you look in your mirrors... Time for the FIA to start issuing race bans to persistent offenders. That would focus everybody's attention.

However the Toyota pitcrew have to receive the award for sending Jarno Trulli out on a qualifying lap with the rear jack stuck under the back of his car.


Driver Most Likely To Be Replaced Before The End Of The Season
1. Heiki Kovalainen
2. Adrian Sutil
3. Alex Wurz
4. David Coulthard


Whingey B'stard of the Race
1. Jenson Button ("my car's cr*p")
2. Flavio Briatore ("my driver's cr*p")
3. Ron Dennis ("BMW made a cr*p tyre choice")

http://www.planet-f1.com/story/0,18954,3265_2008843,00.html

[worksux101]

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