The Season Begins

The first weekend of real racing is in the books. Both the IRL and F1 got under way over the weekend. While the on track activity was less than breathtaking, it was nice to see real race cars in lieu of them damn taxi cabs running around in a circle all damn day.
F1
I’m still not sure about the new qualifying procedures for the F1 boys. On one hand, they pretty much killed Schummi’s chances of winning which is a good thing. On the other, Takuma was mired in he back all day and never got anything going.
Giancarlo Fisichella took advantage of the weather on Saturday to pretty much assure himself of the pole. Using his aggregate time he was easily P1 after qualifying. Unfortunately, most of the drivers had to deal with anything from a drying track to monsoon conditions. Obviously this will take on a completely different look on weekends when the weather is consistent from driver to driver and from day to day.
Anyway, the race was pretty boring and there are a couple of legitimate reasons for it. Number one, no one wanted to really push their tyres. With the new rules allowing only one set of tyres for the race AND qualifying there seemed to be quite a bit of trepidation all over the track. The same can be said for the engines. No one seemed to want to overuse their engine and come back with a used puppy in two weeks at Malaysia.
There is speculation this morning that the teams that finished in the pits will be allowed new engines before round two. If that is the case, there will be almost a scramble for the pits on the last lap of every car that is clearly out of the points paying positions. It is not in the spirit of the rule, but clearly BAR and Ferrari found the loophole and crawled through.
My only question on that is whether or not those teams will be on the two week clock starting at Malaysia or will the two weeks be up after the race.
Overall I would have to say that Renault really made a good showing for themselves. McLaren was not bad and Red Bull was surprisingly solid and DC had to get credit for the move of the race when he swooped past Mark Webber’s Williams and into third place at the first turn.
BAR has to be the most disappointed. They had a miserable weekend and can take nothing positive away from Australia. Minardi’s little pre-race problems were eventually solved. Team principal Paul Stoddardt eventually got all of the other teams to allow him to run his 2004 cars. However, the race stewards said no. Stoddardt took them to court and was granted an injunction to race. The FIA said okay, but they would no longer hold races in Australia if the courts were allowed to make the rules. Stoddardt ultimately capitulated and declined the injunction. Amazingly, the 2005 parts arrived in Melbourne just before the start of the second practice.
IRL
No one is ever going to accuse FTRG of being smart. Yesterday he cemented his reputation. The dumbass told the viewers that it was boring down in the pits as a car owner. Wow! If this idiot gets any dumber they will have to water him every day.
Rat boy’s comments aside, the IRL boys finally hit the pavement in anger on a beautiful South Florida weekend. Tomas Scheckter took the pole at over 215 mph and the field of 22 was set for the start of IRL season 10.
As expected the Honda’s were strong and the Toyota’s only real show was by Sammy who managed to sneak away with second place. Julio was the next Toy in 5th but it was Honda and Tomas Scheckter’s Chevrolet that were the stars.
All in all there was some good dicing going on all day. Unfortunately the race really ended on lap 158 when Kosuke Matsura lost control of his car and took out 8 drivers including the charging Scheckter. Tomas, who made no mistakes in the pits, but was slow and deliberate, was in his usual position on the lap 157 restart, which was a few positions back when Matsura spun and took out 8 cars. That effectively handed the race to Wheldon who had no competition for the lead after that.
Four rookies (five if you count Carpentier) took the green flag at Homestead. Paul Dana stayed out of trouble to finish highest but was 8 laps back. Danica Patrick’s much anticipated debut was marred by the lap 158 incident. She was running on the lead lap and doing fine. Unfortunately she suffered a concussion in the crash and may miss the next race. Brit Ryan Briscoe crashed on lap 61 and Czech Tomas Enge went out with mechanical woes on lap 41.
Dario and Buddy Rice both were out early with mechanical problems. Dario’s engine let loose on lap 12 and we never got to see Ashley.
Attendance was reportedly 30,000. There were way too many empty seats. The Television coverage was awesome with the side-by-side on ESPN and the all in-car on the Deuce. For some reason, ESPN did no promotion of the race so I imagine ratings will be in the .1 range when they come out.