FORMULA ONE AUSTRALIAN GRAND PRIX:MIDWAY THROUGH yesterday afternoon, Formula One got a little bit of good luck. As the teams launched drivers out into the day's second practice session a steady drizzle began to fall across Melbourne's Albert Park circuit.
An already slippery, park-land track was converted into the kind of grip-free arena which leads to the sort of sudden, snap-tailed spins and clattering sprays of gravel critics of the season-opening snooze-fest in Bahrain a fortnight ago moan are sadly missing from the sport’s current incarnation. That the rain is forecast to possibly disrupt qualifying this afternoon and, if it arrives, perhaps provide a mixed-up grid, is all the better for observers who believe without a regular episodes of crash, bang, wallop punctuating the relentless whine, then F1 is about as blood-stirring a sporting occasion as a furious 90 minutes of lawn bowls.
There is little doubt Bahrain was a terminally dull occasion, not helped by extending an already predictable circuit to gargantuan lengths, but the Sakhir Circuit has rarely provided entertaining racing.
Melbourne, the traditionally action-packed opening race of yore, should be another story. A temporary circuit constructed within the confines of a public park, the track surface is far from the homogenised, ultra-smooth asphalt of purpose-built circuits such as Bahrain.
Bumpy, greasy and without the ultra-forgiving, runway-sized run-off areas of modern tracks, it’s a difficult environment to control for drives, made all the more tricky by the availability of places to actually pass rivals, tight and risky though those opportunities are. Add in the prospect of a shower or too and suddenly grand prix racing in 2010 begins to look a little more interesting.
And after the drivers leapt to the defence of their pay cheques on Thursday it was yesterday the turn of the teams’ bosses to offer a little perspective on the chorus of boos that followed Fernando Alonso’s comfortable drive to victory in the Gulf a couple of weeks ago.
“With regard to Bahrain, you have to look at the bigger picture, what Formula One is,” said Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner. “You have to compare it to other sports, for example, tennis at Wimbledon. For a time it was largely a serve and volley game and arguably was pretty boring, but they haven’t concreted over the courts there and people go back to watch every year because it crescendos into something great. I think that’s what we will see with this championship.
“I think there will be twists and turns to it, we will have good races, hectic races as we did last year and we will have more static races.
“The championship will go through many twists and turns during the course of the year and I think the key point is not to panic, not to make knee-jerk reactions, which could ultimately be to the detriment of Formula One. I think we have to wait and see over the next few races, how things pan out.”
Whether tomorrow sees the kind of twists and turns the paddock is pinning its hopes on remains to be seen, all the more so as yesterday’s free practice times were made more misleading than usual by the afternoon showers.
It was the McLaren duo of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button who topped the afternoon time sheets, though Button suggested that the upturn in pace compared with Bahrain. “It’s only Friday, and we may be lighter than some of the quick cars out there, but tomorrow we’ll see where we actually stand,” said Button. “For qualifying, the car should feel better than it did in Bahrain: it feels like we have the correct downforce level for this circuit. Both tyre compounds are working well too, so it’s all positive.”
The McLaren pairing were followed by the Red Bull of Mark Webber, the Australian bidding for a maiden home win this weekend in car most believe is currently the quickest, if not the most reliable, on the grid. Webber’s team-mate Sebastian Vettel, though finished 16th after a spin.
Michael Schumacher, after overcoming problems early in the session, climbed from 20th to fourth, undoing the bad press of Bahrain by comfortably out-pacing younger rival Nico Rosberg who had run quicker than his more illustrious team-mate throughout the season’s opening weekend.
Rain apart, it was a regulation Friday with little real information about true pace on offer, both Ferraris, for example, appearing to concentrate on long, heavily-fuelled runs that dropped them into midfield on the time sheets, a placing that failed to disappoint Felipe Massa or Fernando Alonso both of whom reckoned the track, when dry, to have more grip than usual.
Only Renault new boy Vitaly Petrov raised eyebrows, the largely unfancied Russian, reckoned by many to be a makeweight at a team enduring a particularly drawn out demise, powering his way to fifth fastest.
Hamilton stopped by police road car impounded
Lewis Hamilton has had his Mercedes road car impounded and is expected to be charged with improper use of a vehicle following an incident in Melbourne.
“The vehicle was seen to deliberately lose traction and was intercepted by police,” said a a Victoria Police spokesman. “The vehicle, a 2010 Mercedes, was impounded for 48 hours and the driver returned to his hotel.”
Hamilton immediately released a statement apologising for his actions. “This evening, I was driving in an over-exuberant manner and, as a result, was stopped by the police. What I did was silly, and I want to apologise for it.”
Hamilton is likely to face a fine if found to have to committed an offence.
