TWIM: The bore of Bahrain

This week I bring you action from around the world! We have Indycar in Brazil, Formula 1 in Bahrain, and V8 Supercars down in Australia.

The V8 Supercar Championship was held on the streets of Adelaide, Australia this weekend for the Clipsal 500. Race 1 saw the rebirth of Garth Tander. In the first 4 races of championship in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain, the races were dominated by 2-time V8 Supercar champion Jamie Whincup. However, Tander was able to come back and win the race for Holden Racing Team. Another interesting story though, was that of James Courtney. Courtney started all the way back in 16th and managed to come out in 2nd. He did this by being the first to make a pit stop before the safety car period, and when the others pitted, he moved up to 3rd before overtaking Jamie Whincup.

Full results for Race 1:

Pos  Driver                Make                  Time
 1.  Garth Tander          Holden Commodore VE   1h59m06.5574s
 2.  James Courtney        Ford Falcon FG        +     4.0420s
 3.  Lee Holdsworth        Holden Commodore VE   +     6.4380s
 4.  Jamie Whincup         Holden Commodore VE   +     8.8801s
 5.  Paul Dumbrell         Ford Falcon FG        +     9.1506s
 6.  Jason Bright          Holden Commodore VE   +    14.7726s
 7.  Fabian Coulthard      Holden Commodore VE   +    15.5416s
 8.  Michael Caruso        Holden Commodore VE   +    15.9973s
 9.  Will Davison          Holden Commodore VE   +    16.6264s
10.  Russell Ingall        Holden Commodore VE   +    23.9269s
11.  Alex Davison          Ford Falcon FG        +    25.8030s
12.  Steven Johnson        Ford Falcon FG        +    29.8968s
13.  Todd Kelly            Holden Commodore VE   +    31.6029s
14.  Tony D'Alberto        Holden Commodore VE   +    32.0715s
15.  Jonathon Webb         Ford Falcon FG        +    32.5275s
16.  Dean Fiore            Ford Falcon FG        +    39.6769s
17.  Steven Richards       Ford Falcon FG        +    46.8233s
18.  Daniel Gaunt          Holden Commodore VE   +  1m04.2621s
19.  Craig Lowndes         Holden Commodore VE   +  1m15.4790s
20.  Tony Ricciardello     Holden Commodore VE   +  1m16.1124s
21.  Mark Winterbottom     Ford Falcon FG        +      3 laps
22.  Shane Van Gisbergen   Ford Falcon FG        +      4 laps
23.  Rick Kelly            Holden Commodore VE   +     12 laps

Not classified/retirements:

     Driver                Make                  Laps
     Jason Richards        Holden Commodore VE    39
     Greg Murphy           Holden Commodore VE    38
     Karl Reindler         Holden Commodore VE    31
     Tim Slade             Ford Falcon FG         12
     Jason Bargwanna       Holden Commodore VE     2

Race 2 was actually quite similar to Race 1. Tander took the lead and managed to hold it off to the end. It was a gamble of fuel though, as he pitted just before the safety car came out on lap 50 of 78. He was able to have an overtaking battle with Whincup and eventually came out on top again. However, on the controversial side of things, Courtney took 2nd again. While defending 2nd place in the closing laps of the race, Whincup was hit from behind by Courtney, causing part of Whincup’s diffuser to become loose. He was black-flagged to remove the part that became loose. This contact soon ended with Whincup finishing in 18th.

Full Results for Race 2:

Pos  Driver                Make                  Time
 1.  Garth Tander          Holden Commodore VE   1h58m01.9244s
 2.  James Courtney        Ford Falcon FG        +     0.9765s
 3.  Mark Winterbottom     Ford Falcon FG        +     2.1313s
 4.  Shane Van Gisbergen   Ford Falcon FG        +     3.3651s
 5.  Paul Dumbrell         Ford Falcon FG        +     3.7583s
 6.  Rick Kelly            Holden Commodore VE   +     6.1308s
 7.  Tony D'Alberto        Holden Commodore VE   +     7.0281s
 8.  Steven Johnson        Ford Falcon FG        +     7.7280s
 9.  Jason Richards        Holden Commodore VE   +     8.2293s
10.  Michael Caruso        Holden Commodore VE   +    10.0627s
11.  Lee Holdsworth        Holden Commodore VE   +    10.7834s
12.  Todd Kelly            Holden Commodore VE   +    11.5896s
13.  Steven Richards       Ford Falcon FG        +    13.9538s
14.  Will Davison          Holden Commodore VE   +    16.4055s
15.  Jonathon Webb         Ford Falcon FG        +    19.2449s
16.  Craig Lowndes         Holden Commodore VE   +    21.6054s
17.  Tim Slade             Ford Falcon FG        +    23.7804s
18.  Jamie Whincup         Holden Commodore VE   +    35.5469s
19.  Russell Ingall        Holden Commodore VE   +  1m13.0672s
20.  Karl Reindler         Holden Commodore VE   +      1 lap
21.  Tony Ricciardello     Holden Commodore VE   +      1 lap
22.  Dean Fiore            Ford Falcon FG        +      1 lap
23.  Alex Davison          Ford Falcon FG        +      1 lap
24.  Jason Bargwanna       Holden Commodore VE   +      1 lap
25.  Daniel Gaunt          Holden Commodore VE   +      1 lap
26.  Jason Bright          Holden Commodore VE   +      1 lap
27.  Fabian Coulthard      Holden Commodore VE   +     16 laps 

Not classified/retirements:

     Driver                Make                  Laps
     Greg Murphy           Holden Commodore VE     2

Moving on now to the São Paulo Indy 300 on the streets of São Paulo. It was chaos-filled right from the green flag. Takuma Sato made his Indycar debut by sending Scott Dixon into a spin after braking too late in the first corner. This caused Helio Castroneves to hit Dixon’s car as well. Although Dixon and Castroneves were able to continue, Sato was not. This however, wasn’t the biggest accident. That was behind them. Sato’s team-mate Mario Moraes literally ran over the back of Marco Andretti’s car and remained there. After stopping, it took several minutes to remove Moraes’s car and take out Andretti. Both drivers were unhurt.

Later on in the race, the skies opened. Rain poured down onto the track. The race was held under a yellow flag until the officials deemed the standing water too dangerous, and downgraded the race to a red flag for nearly 45 minutes. Aussie Will Power though, had timed his pit stop almost perfectly allowing himself to rejoin in 2nd between Ryan Hunter-Reay and Dario Franchetti. Later on in the race, Ryan Briscoe took the lead and then dueled with Hunter-Reay. While going into turn 5, Briscoe got on the brakes just a bit too late, hitting the tire wall. This event caused a full-course caution. Then Hunter-Reay and Will Power dueled with each other, before Power took the lead and held it the rest of the race distance.

Full Results:

Pos  Driver               Team                         Time/Gap
 1.  Will Power           Penske                  2h00m57.7112s
 2.  Ryan Hunter-Reay     Andretti                    + 1.8581s
 3.  Vitor Meira          Foyt                        + 9.7094s
 4.  Raphael Matos        Luczo Dragon/de Ferran     + 10.4235s
 5.  Dan Wheldon          Panther                    + 10.8883s
 6.  Scott Dixon          Ganassi                    + 11.3473s
 7.  Dario Franchitti     Ganassi                    + 12.0579s
 8.  Mike Conway          Dreyer & Reinbold          + 12.1654s
 9.  Helio Castroneves    Penske                     + 12.7411s
10.  Tony Kanaan          Andretti                   + 13.4850s
11.  Justin Wilson        Dreyer & Reinbold          + 13.9193s
12.  EJ Viso              KV                         + 16.9039s
13.  Ana Beatriz          Dreyer & Reinbold          + 19.6451s
14.  Ryan Briscoe         Penske                   + 1m14.9191s
15.  Danica Patrick       Andretti                      + 1 lap
16.  Simona de Silvestro  HVM                          + 3 laps

Retirements:

    Mario Romancini      Conquest                      46 laps
    Alex Lloyd           Dale Coyne                    30 laps
    Alex Tagliani        Fazzt                         28 laps
    Hideki Mutoh         Newman/Haas/Lanigan           27 laps
    Milka Duno           Dale Coyne                    20 laps
    Takuma Sato          KV                             0 laps
    Marco Andretti       Andretti                       0 laps
    Mario Moraes         KV                             0 laps

After a long and hectic off season, Formula 1 is back! The season began in Bahrain at the Bahrain International Circuit with Red Bull’s Sebastien Vettel on pole. This race also saw the return of 7-time world champion Michael Schumacher for the Mercedes GP team at 41 years young. Along with his return, we have 3 new teams: Virgin Racing, Hispania Racing Team (HRT), and the return of Lotus.  With such an action-packed grid (filled with 4 world champions, I should mention), surely the race was at the epitome of excitement, right?

After a long and hectic off season, Formula 1 is back! The season began in Bahrain at the Bahrain International Circuit with Red Bull’s Sebastien Vettel on pole. This race also saw the return of 7-time world champion Michael Schumacher for the Mercedes GP team at 41 years young. Along with his return, we have 3 new teams: Virgin Racing, Hispania Racing Team (HRT), and the return of Lotus. With such an action-packed grid (filled with 4 world champions, I should mention), surely the race was at the epitome of excitement, right?

Wrong. Other than Aussie driver Mark Webber having smoke pour out of his car at the first corner and causing 2 spins by Adrian Sutil and Robert Kubica, it was a pretty straight-forward race. There were no safety car periods so the race went on as scheduled. It was pretty cool to see the teams’ pit stops though. Red Bull technical director Christian Horner was quoted as saying that his crew could change all 4 tires in under 2 seconds. And they proved it in Vettel’s only stop.

However the race turned sour for Vettel at lap 31. The German reported to the crew that something was wrong with the car and that he was losing power. Fernando Alonso, who had been following him the entire race up to that point, had seized the opportunity, overtaking him. Vettel would then be overtaken by Alonso’s Ferrari team-mate, Felipe Massa, and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton to finish 4th


Well that’s about all I have for you this week. Check back with us next week for coverage of the 12 Hours of Sebring, the opening round of Super GT from the Suzuka Circuit in Japan, and NASCAR Sprint Cup coverage from Bristol Motor Speedway.

Source: Autosport: (1) (2) (3) (4) | Formula 1 Photo Credit: ESPN (1) (2) (3) (4) | V8 Supercars Photo Credit: Clipsal500.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 at 8:14 am and is filed under Cars, Formula 1, Racing, This Weekend in Motorsport. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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