Ahhhhhhhhhh... the Legendary Announce Team. All is right with the world. Lets get right to it!

*HAVEN'T WE SEEN THIS BEFORE?: No, we're not talking about this particular race (which, of course, was butchered on CBS). We're talking about these two cars, running on this track, dicing for first place for an extended period of time. Like, say, last year? It just amazes us that this sort of thing can happen... serendipity, we suppose.

*IS THAT ALL THERE IS?: Thanks, Italian TV, for giving us the in-depth coverage of Alonso vs Schumaker. In the future, however, would it be too much to ask for a few other cars, too? There WERE other racers on the track... not that you could tell from the Italian coverage, however.

*GOODBYE, IMOLA... YOU KNOW THE REST.: They're going to be remodling Imola; Variante Bassa will disappear, replaced by a widened and modernized pitlane. Maybe we'll see a track that people can pass on now.

*TEAM OF THE RACE: Ferrari. As much as it pains me to say it, Ferrari. Particularly after the nightmare they had in Australia, 1st/4th is a fantastic result. But it IS Imola, and Ferrari ALWAYS does well at Imola.

*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Slappy. We're going to go kill ourselves now.

*MOVE OF THE RACE: We've been told that Mark Webber had a big pass on Barrichello, but nobody got to see it due to the love affair Italian TV had with the color red. So Webbo gets it on word-of-mouth.

*MOOOOOOOO-O-O-OVE OF THE RACE: We've got two for your enjoyment this race! The first, on lap one, goes to Fast Yuji Ide, for his... um... ham-fisted driving that launched Christian Albers into a quadruple roll with a half-twist. 9.5, with a 4.3 from the East German judge, he didn't like that at all.
The second bovine manuever goes, not to a driver, but to the lollypop man for Honda. There was absolutely no sign that Jensen Button's 2nd stop was finished; the tires were on, but the fuel hose was clearly still attached. Still, up the lollypop went and off Jense went... dragging half the pitcrew with him, ripping the nozzle off the fuel rig, and nearly guillotining the driver with the lollypop. Thankfully, the safety devices on the fuel rig worked perfectly, but even so some amount of fuel DID spill. Somehow, it didn't ignite. Moo!

*DRIVER QUOTES: more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 05:16 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 476 words, total size 3 kb.

Good lord, what a race that was! Lets just get right to it, shall we?

*BENNY HILL IS NOT DEAD: At least, judging from the first moments of this race! We have JP Montoya spinning on the recon lap, then The @$$less Wonder stalling his car on the grid, causing another recon lap (saving Montoya from starting from the back of the pack), then Massa being speared into Rosberg, who loses his rear wing while the Ferrari loses the left side of his car in the tirebarrier (and blowing his radiator, to boot). As if that wasn't enough, The @$$less Wonder ALSO spins when he comes up to this incident. THEN David Coulthard's Chin bumps The Engineer, breaking the Toyota's left-rear suspension and bringing Trulli to a halt on the track, bringing out the Safety Car. MEANWHILE, as the Chin and Trulli tussled, the two McLarens seem to be on the verge of breaking the cardinal rule of F1: DON'T KILL YOUR TEAMMATE! And then it all settles down behind the safety car. Weird beginning to a race, but as we saw, it got SO much stranger.

*DEAD CARS EVERYWHERE: ...but nobody went out in a way more flamboyant than Jensen Button. Never mind the fact that he had a miserable race, dropping off from Pole to nowhere and never challenging for a podium, on that final lap he gave us quite the show. He had managed to hold of The @$$less Wonder for multiple laps, and it looked like he would escape with fifth. Then in the last turn, in the immortal words of Steve Matchett, "KaBLAMMO!" The left bank of his engine lets go, smoke, then a GIGANTIC plume of flame. Fisichella must have proved he indeed has an @$$, for it sure LOOKED like the flame was over the front of his car, and there's a reason those outfits are called 'poopy suits.' Fisi's was probably filled with, well, you can guess. Button, on the other hand, either couldn't make the line or he figured that it'd be best to stop short (and thus not suffer an engine-change penalty). Either way, he stopped three lengths from the finish line. Say it with me now: "OH-ver-RAY-ted *clap clap clapclapclap*!"

*TEAM OF THE RACE: Renault. 1st and 5th, and a complete domination of the race by Fernando Alonso. Nobody ever came close to him, save during the many safety car periods. (Sucky Team of the Race goes to Ferrari. Both cars wreck? Gonna be a LONG three week layoff for the Boys in Red.)

*DRIVER OF THE RACE: Cora's husband, Ralf. Toyota first podium of the year, even it DID seem like he picked up some places under yellow. Toyota's bitten the wax tadpole all year so long, looking like complete amateurs. Not today. (Worst Driver of the Race? Yuji Ide, SuperAguri. His fast lap of the race {look it up} not withstanding, he was a rolling chicane all day, and he surely cost Rubens Barrichello a few places on the grid during quals with his cow-like driving.)

*MOVE OF THE RACE: We've got two this race. The first goes to Fernando Alonso during the rolling restart after the first safety car. You can't pass on a restart until you cross the start/finish line. Alonso timed his getting on the gas perfectly, crossing the line side-by-side with Button, exactly .023 seconds "behind" him. A half-second later, he was past and gone, with a 2.7 second lead by the end of the lap.

The second move goes to about 10 cars during the lap 38 restart and subsequent yellow-safety car sequence. Liuzzi wrecks in turn 2, and immediately half the field tries to pass the other half, seemingly all in a space roughly the size of a shoebox. At one point there were four cars abreast, trying to get past two more side-by-side cars... and nobody wrecked. Why do people think F1 drivers are the best in the world? Right there is why.

*MOOOOOO-OOVE OF THE RACE: Slappy Schumacher. Oy. When was the last time you saw Schumi screw up like that during a race? He goes too wide on the last turn (not the first to do so, nor the last) catches a tire on the outside of the curb, catapulting the rear of the car off the ground and sending the Ferrari hard into the wall. Yes, his tires were lousy. Yes, he was pushing to compensate for that. Boo-frickin'-hoo... he went too fast, too hard, too bad so sad. Crunch.

*DRIVER QUOTES: more...

Posted by: Wonderduck at 11:09 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 1127 words, total size 7 kb.

1 Yay, great update

That was the most fun I've been awake for at 5am in years. I was a little wired on coffee, I could have sworn I remembered 6 safety car periods, even though according to the BBC and others there were only 4.

On a serious note, those were some nasty wrecks today, high speed with cars spearing off in the wrong direction unexpectedly. I know there were issues with keeping heat in the tires, but I still felt myself that there was something not right, that we shouldn't see that many big moments. Just glad everyone is in one piece.

My personal highlight was Fischi's telling off by his bosses, live on the race coverage. Essentially he was the naughty schoolboy caught out slacking off.

And Button. Bad day at the office doesn't even start to cover it. It is good to know that we Brits are right behind him too. I was on a message board just before the race, and we were trying to predict how many corners he lasted in the lead. Not many was the main answer

Posted by: flotsky at April 02, 2006 07:41 PM (6T2ID)

2 I thought Honda did away with the Push-To-Detonate(pass) button on their engines after 2002. Poor Jense just couldn't resist the temptation of the forbidden fruit though, it seems.

I had to chuckle when I heard Permane chewing out Fisichella as well.

Posted by: SkarTisu at April 03, 2006 12:39 AM (g/Pq4)

3 Well, as the Legendary Announce Team told us US watchers repeatedly, that's the problem with 'temporary circuits.' No runoff area, really really hard walls, and the like.

I kept flashing back to Alonso's wreck in the 2004 US Grand Prix, when he took a hard left coming down the front straight (but the track turned right). That one was due to a flat tire, though, and the ones here in Australia didn't seem to have anything to do with that.

Posted by: Wonderduck at April 03, 2006 05:27 PM (Ffvoi)

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