Apparantly, Kimi Raikkonen's instructions for qualifying read something like this:

1) Extend right hand.
2) Apply right hand to neck.
3) Squeeze right hand.

Either that, or those wacky McLaren engineers gave him a trick tire... "Hey, Bob! Lookit what I put on Kimi's car! When he puts the brakes on, it'll start to smoke!"

The Iceman needed to pole. Instead, he created tire flambe and ended up 5th on the grid. Who took the top spot?

Fernando Alonso. The Spaniard looked like he was on rails the whole way around Interlagos, almost no mistakes, very steady... kinda like he's been all season, in other words. He's been brilliant occasionally, and very very good the rest of the time (or, at least, when he's not leaving stray parts of his car behind for David Coulthard's Chin to run into).

Of course, many people seem to think that "very good" is dull. Many people would be right, too, but it also has him poised to become the youngest F1 champion ever.

Over at Planet-F1.com, they ran a poll asking "Does Alonso deserve to be F1 Champion?" 80% of the readers said "no." I think they're full of haggis. He's done a fine job this season, and, hey, at least he's won a few races. Official First Reader Mallory may correct me on this, but didn't NASCAR have a champion a couple years back who never finished higher than 2nd?

Kimi may be the best driver in the fastest car, but it kept breaking on him or he drove it to destruction... and Alonso didn't. It's that simple.

In other qual news, Jensen Button claims that the reason he's not on pole is because he was hit by a windgust that was strong enough to add a quarter-second to his lap time. Apparantly Mr. Button has discovered Brazil's secret weapon: the micro-hurricane. I think it's more a case of the BAR-Honda car being too frickin' slow, Mr. Button, rather than a headwind.

And lets all wish a happy 24th birthday to Robert Doorknob, who celebrated by taking a trip to the run-off area of Interlagos (which means "Between the Lags" in Portugese) on his qual lap. Well done, lad. Now lets give Zsolt another try, eh?

Finally, this site's hero, Takuma 'Suicide' Sato will be starting dead last after not turning an official lap. BAR is testing a new engine, it seems, and they're making him do the heavy lifting on it so it'll be ready for Suzuka.

*sigh*

Did I mention that I despise this track? I do. It's never sunny there, everything seems gray, I've seen gravel roads that are smoother, and they can't even get the remote cameras to run without making me seasick... though, to their credit, the one on the pit wall is pretty flash.

My official position on Interlagos? It'd be better if it was just IN-lagos. Maybe have a unlimited-class hydroplane race there or something.

(hmmm... apparantly, the F1 Update folks are grumpy today...)

Posted by: Wonderduck at 03:41 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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