Team-Mate Wars: Magny-Cours

Thursday 26th June 2008

In Formula 1, the first person you have to beat is your team-mate...

Ferrari
Season: Raikkonen 4 Massa 4
Race: Massa
As in Canada - the fastest driver with the fastest car didn't get to win. Though this time for a number of different reasons. Kimi Raikkonen did everything right all weekend; pole position, fastest lap, in control of the race etc etc Except for the small fact that he must have thumped the kerbs just a bit too hard for one of his exhausts to come loose. Massa inherited a win he didn't look likely to pull off - and thus are World Champions made...

BMW
Season: Heidfeld 1 Kubica 7
Race: Kubica
Robert Kubica made the BMW look a lot better than it was at Magny-Cours. Nick Heidfeld is no slouch and couldn't escape Q2 or even put the car in the points, Kubica made it to P5 and wasn't that far back from P3.

Renault
Season: Alonso 7 Piquet 1
Race: Piquet
At last Nelsinho has broken his duck and got the better of Fernando Alonso - but only just. Yet again Alonso qualified a lot further forward than his team-mate, though with only 15 laps of fuel on board he had to. In the race, Alonso made a couple of mistakes (and had that been Lewis Hamilton we'd have the kind of ludicrous headlines along the lines of LEWIS UNDER PRESSURE) whereas Piquet Junior kept it together and resisted a lot of pressure from Lewis at one stage. As a result, during the race we got a lot of rear-facing footage from the Renaults and you have to say that their rear wing looks very flexible - doesn't that count as movable aerodynamic parts...?

Williams
Season: Rosberg 4 Nakajima 4
Race: Nakajima
Nico Rosberg's pace wasn't that hot to start off with, but getting demoted ten places for his infringement in Canada turned the race into a data-collecting exercise. Nakajima wasn't as quick, but started a lot further forward and the Williams-Toyota didn't look like it was going to threaten the points positions.

Toyota
Season: Trulli 7 Glock 1
Race: Trulli
Jarno Trulli chose exactly the right time to head a Toyota resurgence, in honour of much-loved (but not particularly successful in F1) team boss Ove Andersson. Yet again he relegated Timo Glock to a bit-part role with one of his best performances to date. Is his contract up or something...?

Red Bull
Season: Webber 6 Coulthard 2
Race: Webber
Having lost out in Canada, Webbo was back in the points-scoring groove for France. Red Bull may not be setting the world on fire, but they've scored points at every race since Australia which is a quantum leap for an F1 team. Toyota haven't been able to buy that degree of success in seven years.

Honda
Season: Barrichello 5 Button 3
Race: Barrichello
Honda slumped back to where they probably thought they'd be at the start of the season in France. Jenson qualified ahead of Rubens, then got tagged on the opening lap and his race was effectively over. ITV's Louise Goodman was thankful for at least that, as incredible F1 reliability kept 19 cars running to the flag. Perhaps that's the new conspiracy theory - F1 teams are trying to make her redundant (even before the BBC do it)

Toro Rosso
Season: Vettel 6 Bourdais 2
Race: Vettel
Sebastian Vettel's practice times were flattered by some of the big teams running with a lot of fuel on board or not exactly pressing the pedal to the metal. Thus there were some that predicted Vettel might actually make it to Q3 in France. He didn't, but he is opening up a significant peformance gap between himself and Sebastien Bourdais. When Toro Rosso get sold he may need to have some deep pockets.

Force India
Season: Sutil 3 Fisichella 5
Race: Fisichella
Giancarlo Fisichella got the better of Adrian Sutil in Qualifying and on the race track, but the Force Indias looked in a class of their own at the back.

McLaren
Season: Hamilton 5 Kovalainen 3
Race: Kovalainen
There seems to be a lot of emphasis on Lewis's "stupid mistake in Canada" at the moment. Lest it be forgotten, former World Champion Michael Schumacher managed to crash into the Minardi of Cristijan Albers while driving to the grid one time. Now that kind of thing didn't even happen in that most beloved of series Formula Women. Not exactly a pressure situation is it - getting your car to the grid.

Lewis had to go aggressive in France and went wide and too aggressive on the opening lap. It was a tough call, but as Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen proved later in the race, you need to be a long way past to claim the line into that chicane. The only pity was that we couldn't see another camera angle on it. On the balance of probabilities it was probably the correct call for a drive-through.

Heikki didn't manage to get past as many people in France, but worked his way forward to fourth and would have been on the podium but for the farcical decision to move him down the grid five places. If Heikki needed demoting how many others in all the qualifying sessions this year could that rule have been applied to...?

Star of the Race
Massa 2
Raikkonen 2
Hamilton 1
Alonso 1
Sutil 1
Kubica 1

Overtaking Move of the Race
Hamilton 2
Kovalainen 1
Raikkonen 1
Heidfeld 1
Barrichello 1
Massa 1

Driver Most Likely To Be Replaced Before The End of the Season
Last race in brackets
1. Piquet (1)

Andrew Davies

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