Well, that was interesting! We discovered that Charlie Whiting has a sense of humor, that Giancarlo Fisichella is on the edge of going nuclear, and that the Super Aguri might be REALLY difficult to drive today.

In the first round of quals, we had a mystery red flag thrown with five minutes left to go, leading to team confusion and scrambling to get cars out on the track. Then, as if to emphasise the confusion even more, the FIA's timing and scoring system went to hell, making it look like Jacques Villenueve (to name the driver that the Legendary Announce Team were talking about) hadn't made it to Q2. When we came back to the track after commercial, they had everything fixed, but that couldn't have made things fun for the teams.

Then in Q2, we had Giancarlo Fisichella failing to advance AGAIN. This time, though, he believed he had someone to blame it on: Jack Newhouse. He threw a temper tantrum on track, waving and gesturing at Jack's BMW-Sauber. Alas, Jack was quite a bit ahead of the Italian, so he probably missed the gesticulating. In fact, he was far enough ahead that... well, there really wasn't a reason for Fisi's emotive handwaving. Ah, the legendary Italian Temperment (tm).

But it wasn't over yet! Oh no, it just got better! After Q2 was over and he had been relegated to 13th, Fisichella decided to take a stroll... well, a stomp... down to the Beemer-Sauber pits, and after walking into the wrong stall to begin with, finally found the target of his ire (who was sitting in his car, helmet on and about ready to get going) and let loose with a torrent of what I assume was rather heated Italian, all of which was caught on camera.

I rewound the VCR and turned the volume up to hear the exchange. The following is a transcript:

Fisichella: (translated) "I'm very slow in the car, but I'm going to blame my lack of talent on you, because you were faster than me."
Newhouse: "Someone get this guy a WAAAAHmbulance."
Fisi: "You SO did not just go there."
Jack: "Out of my way, slow lad, let the REAL drivers go to work."
Fisi: "Oh, snap."

Q3 gave us the usual parade of fuel-burning-laps, followed by Slappy Schumacher and Ferrari screwing up the final tire runs, making their last pit stop too late. That gave the Ferraris only one lap before the clock turned zeros, while Fernando Alonso had two. Alonso made the most of it and took pole, his first of the year.

Other news of the day was that Yuji Ide may have gotten a bit of vindication as Franck Montagny, replacing Fast Yuji, ended up a full ELEVEN seconds behind Takuma Sato, owing to a spin on his... well, we can't call it a hot lap... on his tepid lap. Maybe it isn't so easy to drive the Super Aguri.

We also discovered that the Williams boys had to change BOTH engines, owing to an apparant bearing problem, meaning that both Mark Webber and Nico (Wonderboy) Rosberg will be unlikely to do much of anything in the race tomorrow.

The weather was bright and sunny at The Nurb today, which means it'll probably be snowing at race time. Should be interesting... F1 on Skis!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:07 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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