Qualifying was actually really exciting the past two days.

Wet and slippery made for some fun spins on the first day.

Today was great.

Seeing Baricello take the pole by .011 seconds being the second to last driver and being at his home track was really exciting to see.

The crowd was wild.

Mark Weber, the last qualifyer, scared us all when he was beating Baricello by 2 tenths after the first two sectors of the circuit, then at the finish was .044 seconds behind Baricello.

Great qualifying.

It will be an interesting race tomorrow.

aj

 

The title of this should say "spoiler" in it. You are giving away results....

 

Doh.

I didn't know that they were going to re-air the qualifying session.

Sorry about that.

aj, who feels like a retard.

 

That was some ending...but I'll wait until someone changes the title of this to include "spoiler" before giving away any of the results.

 

Get over it.

 

What a crazy race and even crazier ending!

That one fast turn that stayed wet ate up alot of cars. Firman, M. Schumacher, Button, Webber(spun twice), and Alonso all succumbed to it. The Alonso crash was pretty bad but he gave the thumb up while on on the stretcher. My heart went out to Jordan and Fisichella becuse they finished the race first but the rules gave the win to Raikonnen after the red flag. Barichello's bad luck in front of his home crowd
continues after stopping while leading the race

 

Alonso = lucky jerk. How else do you describe someone who blows a debris flag and causes the race to be red flagged AND THEN gets a podium finish!! This race put F1 in a bad light that will take a long time for me to get over.

Kimi should have handed his trophy to Fisichella on the podium.

 

First off, rules are rules, so Raikkonen's win was fair.

Secondly, didn't Fisichella's engine catch fire in the pits after the race was ended? I'd think that if he had kept racing, that would have happened during the course of the race and he would have DNFed.

 

I don't agree. F1 engines were not built to idle for long periods of time. It's very possible that the car overheated while he was just sitting in the pits, and that caused the failure.

The "what if" to ponder is Jenson Button. He was in 5th at the time of his wreck, but he didn't have any pit stops left, and was in front of Raikonnen when it happened.

Matt

 

couldn't agree more. the more i listen to david hobbs the more i dislike him. he kept saying over and over about it being that marshalls fault with respect to alonso yet both fisi and kimi both made it through the debris and both were moving at a significantly slower speed than alonso.

i kept thinking about button as well. one of these times, matt, bar will get it right.

 

I just really hope it's Button and not Villeneuve. He was doing really well there for a while, but that turn did in a LOT of talented drivers, including the two best in the world today. I just feel bad for Fisi.

Matt

 

i hate to sound like an *******, but dude.. wtf.. he hit a damn tire.. and was it his fault the race was red flagged? if he didn't wreck, would the race still have been red-flagged? sorry, but that's an ******* thing for you to say.. accidents happen.. let's all be happy he isn't SERIOUSLY hurt, or dead.. he took a pretty big shunt.. and i'm sure he wanted to hit that tire.. " if i hit that tire i will finish on the podium!!! oh what a great idea!!!"

don't mean to rant, but he didn't do it on purpose..

i'm just glad ferrari isn't winning EVERY race this year..

and the irony.. jordan finally gets on the podium, but not under honda power.. darn..

 

Thanks fore the updates ... and results.
Looks like I'll just have to watch the re-broadcast that's on RIGHT NOW!

 

The Alonso result leaves a bad taste in my mouth as well. How does somebody crash out of the race, causes a red flag (I don't think they would have red flagged before that) and still get on the podium? Why have such a rule?

I am glad he is ok, Alonso is a fantastic talent...

 

I'm not going to complain about todays race.

I found it to be quite exciting.

aj

 

West McLaren Mercedes Team ..... ROCK ON!

 

<sigh> F1...
Gotta love it. EVERYONE finishes in the points. Hm. Some race indeed. Looked more like a greased-pig catch than a professional race. How many cars DNF'ed? How many crashed at that one corner? Makes me wonder who was the corner marshall that let Pizzonia slide into the wall and then into a car that was ALREADY IN THE WALL. Serious negligence by the officiating body and safety crews. This is separate from the incident that caused the red flag for the second time that finally put an end to this cluster f%ck, where the yellow flag apparently was not prominent enough to tell Alonso to slow from race speed before the corner where there were pointy bits all over the track.

 

two cars already made it through with no problem at a much slower speed so i still say alonso wasn't paying attention

[edit]

info to prove my point
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns10969.html


[Modified by lanceh, 10:40 AM 4/7/2003]

 

******* thing to say... I don't think so. Here's why. 2 or 3 cars were televised going thru the debris at a reduced pace then Alonso blasts thru it at a substancially higher speed and whacks the tire. He disregarded not only the yellow on that corner but most likely the one on the previous corner that is backing that incident corner up PLUS the surface flag. As a current flagger and a racer I know that some racers will not pay as much attention to a yellow... but the surface change usually get the racers attention 100%. That's why I think Alonso is a jerk. I don't think he hit the tire on purpose either... but his actions (or inactions) on track contributed to the problem. The race probably would have been red flagged after the first crash (they didn't for the Jordan's suspension collapse that littered the track) but after Alonso compounded it they had no choice.

The luck part is the previous two lap rule. There should be provision (and there probably will be after this race) about situations like this.

 

i sort of understand the rule and agree with it. i think the provision should be the person who caused the incident which red flagged the race should not be counted in the results. or something like that.

 

He didn't "let Pizzonia slide into the car" Pizzonia did that himself. What was the marshall supposed to do? Throw his body in front of the car? Rule of corner working is "If one car can get here then so can another." The marshalls were waiting for the crane to pick the car up and over the wall and didn't get a chance before the other car got there.

The yellow was out enough for at least 2 other cars to make it thru the corner before Alonso. See my other post on that incident.

 

The Williams car was in that wall for (what appeared to me to be) a fair amount of time, and there was no caution when Pizzonia slid into it. Long enough for the driver (Montoya?) to have already taken his steering wheel off. Plenty of time IMO to start waving a yellow flag.

Still, it was the most entertaining F1 race i've watched in a while...


[Modified by madhatter, 1:38 PM 4/7/2003]

 

man, no one wants to talk about how barrichello just got totally robbed from another win in front of his most adoring fans. i was more or less cheering for him from the start, was disappointed to see him be overly cautious in the beginning, but i guess it was wise, after seeing the graveyard in turn 2. since i am watching these races in china, i cant understand the commenting, so i didnt know why he pulled over, but i was completely let down after cheering with the fans as he took lead. oh well.

 

They never said exactly why he pulled off, but my heart sank just the same seeing him coast into the grass.

Bummer.

 

oh, i read from crash.net later that it was a fuel problem.