The Official Bahrain Grand Prix 2009 Thread (*spoilers*)

Jenson drove a brilliant race. The start was so so crucial as Vettel proved. Like the team radio said, Button won the race in the first lap and overtaking Lewis.

A fantastic move on Lewis aswell, pretty far back but he had the confidence.

After that a nice controlled race to the flag. Didn't really need to push too hard but just enough.

RB vs NP was good. Piquet suprised me a little, I expected him to just back off really but both fought well, RB getting a little too frustrated for no reason.

Alonso vs Trulli was quite good. Alonso did very well. I have no no no idea why Toyota pitted him early :s

Lewis drove the wheels of his machine! You could see every lap over and over the back end out a little. He pushed like a madman by the looks of it! Fantastic and one of the best drives imo.

Vettel wasnt as good as I thought really, kinda expected a little more fight from him.

Anyway 3 out 4. Awesome! Getting the wins whilst he can!

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

Toyota were very disappointing...the decision to do the middle stint on mediums seemed to backfire. Glock fell away completely, I was gutted.

Great stuff from Jenson, any thoughts of writing him off for the season are premature. A simple race, and Jenson got it right.

Good displays also from Piquet and Raikkonen, answering some of their critics. Ferrari have points!

BMW? They seriously need to re-evaluate their race-weekend strategy.

Finally we have some points!

It sucked to hear that Felipe had a KERS problem again and the front wing squish. We were well on for a bag of points. Jenson, as his engineer described, won it as soon as he passed Lewis. I was shocked to see the straight line advantage for the KERS cars for the first time this race . I mean the advantage Nelson had over Rubens was massive on the back and the pit straight.

Otherwise a normal race, great work by Mark to capitalise on his lighter fuel load. Toyota was nowhere. I thought they would've been able to get a big gap on the others and pull out a lead to get a 1-2. Bad move to switch to the Prime. Even though Ferrari aren't winning this year, I'm still loving the season.

SO MUCH OVERTAKING FTW!

btw. There is always a simple answer...

It was clear Brawn didnt and do not have one lap pace, so my initial thought was why not run two flying laps? Take an easyish first one then when the tyres will be persumably at the best bang one out for a second lap. But Brawn just said on TV their cooling was at max for one lap anyway so to do two consecutive flying laps would have been risky.

Also, does anyone know how many engines the teams have used?

edit - in 2008 Ferrari had 47 points at this stage of the championship whilst Mclaren had 34

in 2007 they had 49. And in 2007 Mclaren had 58.

Given that one race was half points Brawns 50points is pretty good. Rubens, though has been quick has not produced his best yet and he has alot more to come I feel. Hopefully if Brawn can sort qualifying out then he be up there again.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2009 06:14PM by chet.

i think Rubens is very lucky to still be 2nd in the championship, he hasn't done as good a job as quite a few of the drivers behind him.

hopefully he lifts soon, because i would love to see him get a win or two!

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X (@ed24f1)

Solid mistakefree race for Jenson, the deserved winner. Barrichello should've been up there on the podium if not for his strategy bogging him in traffic. You've gotta think the guy is due a race win soon too. Vettel staying close there in 2nd is probably the best he could've done today.

Sets up the stage nicely now for the European leg of the season, once we see what upgrades the teams have in store.

Roll on Barcelona!

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Karan Wrote:
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> Roll on Barcelona!

I believe that is the first time anyone has used those words in that particularly order!

A good race, especially the first few laps. Well deserved win for Button and Vettel did well for 2nd.

Piquet and Kimi, were much improved today. For Nelson, he needs results like this every race. Today is where he should be finishing, within a few positions of Alonso. Excluding incidents in races which are out of his control. I think today was judgement day today for him, to prove he deserves the seat. Flavio said something in the press conference about this was his first normal race this season and they will be looking to how well he performs.

BMW were shockingly bad today. I fully expected Kubica to win the championship pre-season, or least a strong contender. Now, They are going to have improve a lot to get 6th.

On to Europe, nice reasonable race start times, although this one wasn´t bad.

gav Wrote:
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> Karan Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Roll on Barcelona!
>
> I believe that is the first time anyone has used
> those words in that particularly order!


ROFL....Hmmm, any chance of rain? Could do with a '96 style Waterworld.

Karan Wrote:
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> Roll on Barcelona!

Iam worried about Barcelona. As an early prediction I would put RedBull in front but if Ferraris supposed update of 0.8/s is true then it puts them right in it! And what of Mclaren?? They are not far at all now!

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

But Chet, for McLaren there's still the impending outcome from the Court Case that they will have next week.

What an effective driver Jenson is, great job by him!, that's how you win a race

Sorry for Massa as i think he's the strongest of the Ferrari drivers but hasn't been very lucky. and also sorry for Alonso, after all the effort from last year he's struggling, but he'll be back, i'm sure

nice race by Jarno

And that's causing trouble how? It's not they will stop working until the case is over. And I can't see them being excluded (although that would lie in the line of the dubious FIA decisions of late).

I loved the start of that race,the pack split in two and both halves were overtaking everywhere

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"Arguing on the internet is like taking part in the Special Olympics...Even if you win you're still retarded"

Nickv Wrote:
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> And that's causing trouble how? It's not they will
> stop working until the case is over. And I can't
> see them being excluded (although that would lie
> in the line of the dubious FIA decisions of late).


Don't see why being excluded would be a dubious decision. McLaren are constantly being a massive pain in the arse. They are still under probation for the spying issues, and they have consistently lied about the incident in Melbourne, all the way from after the race, to the stewards, right up till now.

Previously they have had the largest fine in the history of the sport, been thrown out of the constructors championship, and put on probation, and they are STILL pulling this crap. I guess thats what happens when you have someone as dodgy and slimy as Whitmarsh in charge. You need to clear off the BS before you see what's happening.

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First of all, I'm probably not totally unbiased in this, since I'm a McLaren fan, although they're making it bloody hard for me to keep being one with their recent behaviour.

They've been punished for it by being disqualified, the man in charge of it has been fired, their image has been severely damaged (again) and some sponsors are thinking of leaving. That's punishment they've deserved and it's their own fault they got it. However, I can't see why McLaren should be punished twice by the FIA (WMSC is an FIA organ, isn't it?) for the same event.

EDIT: Never mind the above. The FIA obviously can't punish a team the day after the incident with a ban or something, so they'll have to punish twice. A ban would be a big punishment IMO. But BAR got one after the collector tank incident, so if McLaren got one due to fraud (which is just as bad, if not worse), I wouldn't be surprised. I found the collector tank ban quite a big punishment too though and if McLaren get banned for this, I think it'll be quite a big punishment as well. But if the rules or guidelines say that an X race ban is suitable for this crime, then so be it. They've called it over themselves.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/26/2009 10:56PM by Nickv.

Average Race, Button did well at the start, shame about Vettel getting stuck behind Trulli, really thought he was going to win this.
Glad to see Ferrari and Kimi getting the first points for the team, hopefully the updates for Barcelona can help them fight higher up.
Piquet wasnt so bad either. lol

They've been punished for it by being disqualified, the man in charge of it has been fired, their image has been severely damaged (again) and some sponsors are thinking of leaving.

Ryan wasn't in charge of it. Whitmarsh directly after the race lied. We just didn't know it at the time. We assumed what Whitmarsh said was true. Then during the stewards meeting Lewis and Ryan lie, and only then did it become apparent that Whitmarsh was lying too. The FIA requested the tapes of the BBC interviews which prove it too. McLaren sacked Ryan, blamed him, wrote a letter saying sorry and hoped it'll all go away. Unfortunately for them it was all caught on video.

As for the race -

Can't fault Button. Brilliant drive. Same with Vettel. I get the impression the RBR becomes undrivable behind another car. Vettel struggled and Webber couldn't even pass slower cars properly. Ending up behind Piquet at the end.

Trulli was pretty good. Made a better job of it than Glock did. Lewis wasn't bad, but should have really gotten the Toyotas when he had the chance. Rubens was messy, but hey, at least he was racing, not following.

Williams - poor
BMW - even worse

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Lewis wasn't bad, but should have really gotten the Toyotas when he had the chance

If Vettel in one of the quickest cars couldn't then god knows how Lewis should have. He could barely follow through the corners without the backend getting abit wobbly!

To simply keep up through the corners he looked to be pushing so so hard, always correcting the back end exiting T13. And that was JUST to keep up through the corners in an attempt to use KERS (but then we all know oversteer and exit speed dont go together). To me it was a lose-lose and to stay as close as he did was to me nothing short of amazing but to get past would have been heroic in that car.

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"Trulli was slowing down like he wanted to have a picnic" LOL

I think McLaren should be relieved with just a ban or two. They COULD get expulsion, although I don't think they will and it'd be a really bad move by the FIA if they did. I think gav said it before, but they effectively lied to get another driver out of the points, and when he was penalised, and they were questioned about it again, they kept shtum. In many sports, that would warrant a serious penalty.