August 27, 2006

F1 UPDATE!: ISTANBUL!!!

Two good races in a row, with two first-time winners? Be still my heart, and let's get to the Update!

*THIS WINNING STUFF IS KINDA COOL...: It took him 66 starts, but Felipe Massa is taking the Giant Gold Donut from Istanbul home with him. His celebration up there on the podium was stuff of legend, and we here at F1 UPDATE! thought he was going to try a stagedive when he ran out like that. That's twice in two races we've gotten true unbridled joy at a victory celebration, as opposed to Schumi's little "hop, I ween!" or Alonso's "look at me, I'm a matador/bull/kangaroo/ocelot/three-toed-sloth/whatever" pose. Much nicer.

*THE DOWNSIDE OF MASSA'S WIN: Anybody here doubt that if Parky got past Alonso, even if it was on the last lap, Massa would have 'had a spin' and lost the lead? Massa was never challenged, ran away and hid from the rest of the field, and Ferrari still would have made him give it up. That's just wrong.

*TEAM OF THE RACE: By position, this should go to Ferrari, but you just know that there's no happiness in that team right now. Renault actually thanked Fisichella for not running into Alonso, so that instantly DQs them. Which means that HONDA, for the 2nd week in a row, gets the nod. While the cameras were mostly on the two Ferraris and 'Nando, there were actually four cars that were the cream of the field, and Button's Honda was the 4th. He was within a few tenths of the first three's pace all race, and could have gotten a podium with a little luck. Rubens Barrichello's 8th place finish put a capper on the day.

*DRIVE OF THE RACE: Felipe Massa, Ferrari. First win, first pole, never challenged. Nicely done, lad. Hope your voice breaks soon.

*MOVE OF THE RACE: We here at F1 UPDATE! have a quandry. There were SO many good passes that we can't decide on one to award the MotR. We're leaning towards Kubica's pass of Rosberg on lap 4, but we're really not strong on it. Leave your favorite in the comments!

*MOOOOOOOOO-OVE OF THE RACE: Now THIS one, we've got no problems with. We're going to do something we've never done and award the Mooooo-ove to THE ENTIRE FIELD for the hijinks going into turn 1 at the start. It all began up front with the two Ferraris squeezing Alonso between them, causing him to slow and Fisi to jam on his brakes. This caused a chain reaction throughout the field, highlighted by Christian Klein's 'lock up all four tires and pray' spin that somehow didn't collect anybody else. American Scott Speed ended up backwards. Heidfeld nails Fisi. Everybody hits Kimi. Montiero and Sato kill each other dead. Ah, such wonderful carnage. A strong contender for Moooo-ove happened on lap 40. Robert Kubica and Mark Webber had been fighting for position for a few laps in what seemed to be evenly matched cars. Then, in quad-8, Kubica blew the line and wound up heading for the hills. Webber, laser-locked on Kubica's tail and forgetting the old adage "don't let the other guy drive your car," followed with his OWN off-track excursion, bringing derisive laughter from the F1 UPDATE! crew. Honorable Mention, lads.

*QUOTES OF THE RACE: "Thank you! Thank you! Sorry for Michael, but thank you!" - Felipe Massa. (note: real quote. There's something wrong with this...)

"Remember when I used to win races? What happened to those days?" - Fernando Alonso.

"Remember when I used to do the impossible? Remember when I didn't screw up on the track? What happened to those days?" - Michael Schumacher.

"Not quite as good as my result in the last race." - Jenson Button. (note: real quote.)

"Kimi Who?" - Pedro de la Rosa (aka Pete Rose).

"I'll point this out again: I'll be the lead driver for Renault next year." - Giancarlo Fisichella.

"Vrooooooom! VROOOOOOOOM!" - Ralf Schumacher.

"*sob* Why did Ferrari let Massa win and not me? *sob* WHY? More beer! *sob*" - Rubens Barrichello.

"Anybody notice that I cut my hair?" - Jarno Trulli.

"There are days that I'm the greatest F1 driver ever. Then there are days when I should be back in Formula Ford. Guess which one it was today?" - Mark Webber.

"Hello ChampCar!" - Christian Klien.

"Ah me, gone are the days of fast laps in practice. Woe is I." - Robert Kubica.

"I am from Manteca, California. Did you know that Manteca, when founded, was originally spelled 'Monteca', but the Central Pacific Railroad misprinted some of their tickets to the town. It being cheaper to change the name of the town, Manteca it became. This is somewhat unfortunate, because 'manteca' means 'lard' in Spanish." - Scott Speed.

"Mental note: the car does NOT handle well with the front wing stuck under the car." - Nick Heidfeld.

"Gearbox failure. Pants." - David Coulthard's Chin.

"Midlands F1. Pants." - Christijan Albers.

"I finished 18 laps down. But at least I beat Yamamoto." - Takuma Sato.

"I know it was a smart move, but there's nothing more embarrassing than allowing yourself to be passed... IN THE PIT-IN... on purpose." - Nico Rosberg.

"I'm disappointed I didn't finish the race. Of course, I've never finished a race, so I'm not surprised, but I'm disappointed." - Sakon Yamamoto.

"My rear axle locked, and I spun. Yeah. That's what happened." - Vitantonio Liuzzi.

"MBLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!" - Kimi Raikonnen.

"This is one of the most frustrating situations for everyone: the mechanics, engineers and myself. NO, I'm not talking about being a Midlands F1 driver." - Tiago Montiero.

And so the 2nd Turkish GP comes to an end. In two weeks, we get the legendary Monza. Until then, enjoy the fezzes!

Posted by: Wonderduck at 06:27 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 964 words, total size 6 kb.

Posted by: Ed Flinn at August 29, 2006 10:34 AM (suTNB)

2 How many F1 races have sovereignty implications?

You're comment filter won't let me paste the actual url - which is related to the topic of the post - so make the obvious change to get to the international law implications of F1 Istanbul.

http://opiniojuris.pow3rblogs.com/posts/1156886056.shtml

Posted by: HC at September 03, 2006 02:45 PM (3vjdC)

Hide Comments | Add Comment

Comments are disabled. Post is locked.
24kb generated in CPU 0.0207, elapsed 0.1257 seconds.
47 queries taking 0.1151 seconds, 202 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.