Max Mosley rocked the F1 boat during winter, tipping many rituals overboard. The results are here for everyone to see. Intense racing, up and down the order, blazed in Bahrain. Renault and Fernando Alonso scuppered resurgent Ferrari and Michael Schumacher’s long awaited return to the top step. McLaren were not far behind.(you get it! it's my race report. dont read any further. I just had to have it this way)Calm, composed and confident. These are hardly the qualities that can be attributed to, if at all, any, team boss for 2006. Max Mosley’s F1 overhaul has added the spice that a 300km/h+ sport deserves. At Manama in Bahrain, 2005 World Champion Fernando Alonso swung into business, taking victory from the clutches of a once-more dominant Scuderia Ferrari. For the spoils, Alonso battled wheel to wheel with the exhaustive, breath-taking force of Michael Schumacher on his comeback drive. Alonso expressed his pleasure, “This was a good, fighting win”, admitting, “I think the competition is a little bit closer than we thought overall, but this is the perfect start for the season.” Meanwhile, Kimi Raikkonen deftly strung together the pieces of McLaren’s shambles to lace up third place, a scintillating drive from dead last. The 22nd position on the grid was earmarked for him as the rear right lower wishbone failure during qualifying flushed plans of running even a single competitive lap down the drain.
The Bahrain GP emphatically unveiled the mystery surrounding the teams’ progress since 2005. Winter testing of the new 2.4litre V8 powered cars failed to throw up a clear car-driver combination that looked set to dominate the 2006 season. Honda, Renault, McLaren looked the business. Ferrari remained tight-lipped as ever about expectations for the year to come and went about clocking the kilometres relentlessly. Who had the edge over who was elucidated only once the restyled three part qualifying session in Bahrain was through. Ferrari’s 2006 contender the 248, looked like it had the bit firmly between the teeth. Ferrari race-seat fresher Felipe Massa in the second Ferrari looked every bit as fast as the Michael and then some more.
But, it was Michael who stormed to pole tweaking the 248 settings all the way through. Felipe sprinted in just 1/10th of a eye blink behind. Actually it was 0.047th of a second. Honda’s V8 power pack propelled team mates Jenson Button and former Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello to a very respectable third and sixth respectively. World Champion Fernando Alonso’s Renault ran without a glitch to take fourth, but Giancarlo Fisichella’s Renault suffered sudden power loss and limped to ninth. Juan Pablo Montoya was the sole hope for Team McLaren. He started in fifth even as Kimi Raikkonen was lined up twenty-second and dead last. Another nail in McLaren’s 2006 title hope coffin seemed to have been hammered into place a little early. Cosworth engines did little harm to Williams, evident in Mark Webbers seventh place on the grid. Christian Klien outpaced veteran team mate David Coulthard and brought the Red Bull RB02 in eighth.
On Sunday, Alonso showed that the Renaults quick start genealogy had been retained even in the R26. Alonso swept past Massa’s Ferrari and into second with Michael firmly in his sights. Much to Button’s chagrin, Juan Pablo also moved up a spot to fourth thanks to the slow starting Hondas. At the tail-end Kimi Raikkonen launched his recovery drive from the word go and moved up the leaderboard rapidly.
Meanwhile, Massa was adamant on getting his position back from Alonso. The Brazilian tried to out-brake Alonso into the first corner on lap six, only to have his rear Bridgestones lock up. Massa’s spinning Ferrari, almost collected Fernando’s prow on it’s way into the run-off area. Thus, Massa headed to the pits for an emergency pit stop to switch his flat-spotted tyres. Reminiscent of the pathetic pit-stop fate shared by his predecessor, Massa’s the rear left wheel refused to come off due to a determinedly lodged wheel nut. Over a minute stationary in the pits ensured ignominy for Massa for the rest of the race.
Jenson Button scrambled all over Montoya’s diffuser trying to make up lost ground. Button held the inside line going into turn 1 and the advantage of slipstream. He out-braked the McLaren with surgical precision and started to pull clear. After the first round of pit-stops completed, everyone had pitted at least once; while some (like Sato) as many as four times! All, except for Kimi Raikkonen’s mirror-finished McLaren. The odds of going till half distance without a pit-stop in the 57 lap race were stacked against the Finn. But the ‘Iceman’ went on hacking away to third place behind Michael and Alonso. Meanwhile, newcomers, Suzuki Aguri suffered an embarrassing trial-by-fire pit-stop sequence where both cars came in at the same time and a subsequent retirement of Yuji Ide. Another newcomer – Nico Rosberg charged to turn his torrid race into a worthy debut. He picked his way up the order after his spin on lap 1 to reach eleventh by mid way.
Defying norms and all expectations, Raikkonen took his Mobil sipping McLaren past the half way point, pitting on lap 30! Brimmed to the gills with 11 seconds of fuel the McLaren sloshed back on to the track in fifth, behind Mark Webber’s Williams.
Meanwhile Alonso was within a second of Michael before taking the pit stop on lap 36. This offered Fernando a chance to negate Michael’s earlier half second gap and build a cushion of his own with a few quick laps. The intensity of Alonso’s blinding laps was dimmed by the traffic train he had to encounter. Rejuvenated with four fresh Michelins and some of Elf’s premium blend Alonso charged out of the pit-lane right into Michael Schumacher’s line for the first corner of lap 40. Alonso judged his margin by the millimetre deliberately ran wide, and forced the Ferrari wide. With Michael filling up his rear-view mirror, Alonso reeled off personal fastest laps to keep Herr Schumacher at bay.
Thereafter, the wily Spaniard held his lead with confidence and took the chequered flag with a 1.2 second margin. Though, Michael wasn’t disappointed with second, “If someone would have told us during the winter months that this is the way we would have finished the first race of the season, I wouldn't have believed them. Today we must be really pleased with the result”, insists Michael. Behind the lead duo, Raikkonen popped up into third once again as Montoya and Webber headed for their second and final pit stops. The Finn’s steely drive saw him fend off the charge from Honda’s Jenson Button, less than a second separating the duo at the finish. The Finn muttered a sigh of relief, “We didn't know where we were after testing and everyone had been saying that we were struggling.” but the result “proves that we are competitive and if not for yesterday we could have been even better."
Juan Pablo made it two McLarens in the points and on par with the Renault. Fisichella’s Renault suffered a hydraulics failure, thus, retired at two-thirds race distance. There was jubilation in the Williams garages. Mark Webber and Nico Rosberg finished in the points, sixth and seventh, respectively. Nico’s Rosberg heritage shone through, as he rammed home the fastest lap of the race! That too on his debut! Dieter Mateschitz’s Red Bull franchise offered early returns in the season as Christian Klien finished eighth. Felipe Massa, ruing his debut, finished just outside the points in ninth.
It’s been a explosive start to a season that promises to only get louder, rougher and faster. The Red Bulls, BMWs, Toyotas and Midlands seem to be packed in much closer than ever. The Ferraris, Renaults and McLarens will be kept company by Hondas and Williams? It’s a level playing field, more or less; and the speedsters have never been more motivated to seize the opportunity. It’s going to be a heavy rubber smoking year!
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