Team-Mate Wars: Spa

Wednesday 19th September 2007

In F1, the first person you have to beat is your team-mate. Even if - like Fernando Alonso - you have to bribe your mechanics to do it!

Renault
Season: Fisichella 5 Kovalainen 9
Race: Heiki
Heikki Yet again Kovalainen outqualified his more experienced team-mate. The fact that it was round Spa - the drivers' circuit - says it all about Fisichella's season. Giancarlo suffered an engine change, got sent to the back of the grid, then started from the pitlane and went off-track on the opening lap damaging his suspension and ending his race.

Ferrari
Raikkonen 7 Massa 7
Race: Kimi
Raikkonen always had the measure of Massa on a circuit where you need to be brave - and Kimi does brave in spadefuls. As James Allen alluded to in the ITV commentary, in 2002 one of the regularly-exploding BAR-Hondas (Sato) grenaded its engine going through Eau Rouge in qualifying and left a trail of smoke going up the hill towards Le Radaillon. Raikkonen was next through in the McLaren and would surely have to lift because the thick white smoke was obscuring the track. He gunned his McLaren all the way through, seemingly without a thought. It was a calculated risk, not sheer bravado; Kimi had seen a trail of oil going up the hill and turning off track and assumed it was a blow-up not an accident. It was one of the most awesome TV moments in F1 history. If he should go on to win the drivers' Championship this season there will be few more deserving of the title. And come on, the guy dresses up in a gorilla suit in his spare time, you can't imagine Schumi, Lewis or Fernando doing anything nearly so interesting.

McLaren
Alonso 7 Hamilton 7
Race: Fernando
Alonso got the better of Hamilton at Turn 1, but he was very lucky to be P3 on the grid in the first place. His trip into the gravel at Rivages in the final part of qualifying so nearly ended in P9 or P10. Hamilton looked faster than him on Saturday, but his failure to make enough space for himself on track compromised his final pole attempt.

Alonso's unnecessary use of all the track at the start was a handy warning that he is quite happy to have a bump if necessary. It looked a bit like some of the opening laps from last season with Raikkonen and Montoya playing go-karts with each other. The fact that Hamilton made so much of it shows how far his perspective has changed since the beginning of the season. The reason we loved Hamilton when he came into F1 was that he would just shrug something like that off, he was just excited to be competing. Having a moan makes him like all the others.

Lewis should be grateful that unlike any other season before, Bernie is very keen to have a McLaren driver - i.e. him - win the World Championship. Ron Dennis has admitted this week that Alonso can be reclusive. Certainly Fernando's behaviour at the pre-season testing in Spain, when he went berserk at the level of public attention, confirms that. Bernie has also moaned that Fernando doesn't do enough public events as World Champion. In Lewis he has the perfect vehicle to promote the sport. So lighten up girlfriend.

BMW
Kubica/Vettel 4 Heidfeld 10
Race: Nick
Nick Heidfeld will be pleased to have got the better of his team-mate at Spa. Robert Kubica was 9th on Lap 5 and 9th at the chequered flag so he was hardly flying on all cylinders.

Honda
Barrichello 8 Button 6
Race: Jenson
Button qualified much better than Barrichello, and now that the car is beginning to show a slight improvement in pace, it is Jenson who is beginning to show the speed. No doubt all eyes in the team are focused on the upcoming Honda vs Toyota battle at Mount Fuji. Or should that be Honda vs Toyota vs Super Aguri?

Toyota
Schumacher 6 Trulli 8
Race: Ralf
Considering how much pace the cars seemed to have in Friday practice and a good qualifying session from Ralf - he got out of Q1- on Saturday it was still another dismal result.

Red Bull
Webber 10 Coulthard 4
Race: Mark
Webbo contributed more points to the Red Bull total while DC yet again found the limitations of his hydraulic system. It must have been a bit of a culture shock to have to defend 11th place from a Spyker, but such is the leap forward by Mike Gascoyne's team that we can expect more of it before the season is out.

Williams-Toyota
Rosberg 10 Wurz 4
Race: Nico

Alex Wurz had the opportunity to show Williams he can get close to Rosberg at a circuit where the driver's input can make a big difference over a longer-than-average lap. He didn't. Unless he is passing on fantastic set-up advice to Nico Rosberg the sand is running out of the hourglass.

Toro Rosso
Speed/Vettel 6 Liuzzi 8
Race: Tonio
There may be a certain degree of re-assessment going on at Toro Rosso right now. Vettel 'the wunderkind' hasn't exactly blown Tonio Liuzzi away. If Tonio can keep ahead of the fast but inexperienced German till the end of the season then his future employment prospects can't be so bad. Should Sebastien Bourdais arrive and be slower than Vettel next season, then Gerhard Berger will have to admit that he got it wrong.

Spyker
Albers/Winkelhock/Yamamoto 5 Sutil 9
Race: Adrian
Sutil did an incredibly good job at Spa, aided by another Mike Gascoyne wheeze (akin to starting Winkelhock on wets at the Nurburgring) of starting him on Bridgestone softs.

Super Aguri
Sato 6 Davidson 8
Race: Taku
Taku seized back the initiative after having recently losing out to Ant.

Star of the Race
Hamilton 5
Raikkonen 3
Massa 3
Alonso 2
Heidfeld 1

Overtaking Move of the Race
Alonso 2
Hamilton 2
Rosberg 1
Wurz 1
Heidfeld 1
Sato 1
Fisichella 1
Massa 1
Button 1
Webber 1

Spot The Paddock Tosser
We've had a rash of tossers appearing in the background of ITV interviews in the latter half of the season. These are what Borat might gently describe as "retards" who think they look really cool phoning home while wandering around in the background of Steve Rider and Mark Blundell's post race analysis.

They are clearly ringing their care homes to re-assure nurse that they haven't got their legs stuck between seats in the grandstands or dribbled too much while watching the race and been sent to the minibus. They may think it's big and clever but about 10 million people are thinking, 'what a complete tosser!' - and for a change, not about Blundell.

Andrew Davies

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