Barcelona Testing Day One and Day Two
After two days of testing at Barcelona, and dry ones at that, the teams are somewhat beginning to show their true colors. It was expected for this one test is the closest the teams get to a Grand Prix circuit before the racing begins and of course the factor that Circuit de Catalunya is an awesome indicator of the readiness of the teams at this late stage.
On the first day, Mark Webber scorched the tracks in his Red Bull. He lapped in a best time of 1:21.487, almost a second quicker than second placed Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg’s time of 1:22.407. On the second day, Hulkenberg upped the ante by finishing first with 1:20.614 and upstaging Fernando Alonso’s 1:20.637 in the Ferrari.
It was the last day of testing for both the Williams and Ferrari driver, and as expected they did some low-fuel running it seems. Reportedly, Alonso did his low-fuel runs earlier in the day and then went on to do race simulations while Hulkenburg managed his quick time in the last minutes of the day.
That the Ferrari is quick is in no doubt. The lap times that Alonso has charted in Valencia, Jerez and Valencia reflect that the car is good both on high-fuel and low-fuel loads. Plus it is reliable as both he and Felipe Massa have clocked over 600-laps each not counting the Barcelona test. That sort of mileage alone proves that Ferrari are pretty confident about their race pace and come Bahrain will be one of the teams to watch out for.
Williams too have racked in the laps but for them it has been to gel in the chassis with the Cosworth engine. In both Valencia and Jerez, they concentrated on high-fuel loads and no one could really guess as to where the pace parameter placed them on the pecking order. With this quick lap-time, the rookie driver showed that the Williams car is fast and that he is one to watch out for. Just how fast we will have to wait until all cars are running on the same loads.
This brings us to Mark Webber’s time. First of all, the difference between the best times on day one and day two is representative of the fact that conditions at the track change very quickly. Of course Bridgestone were testing different tyres compounds on the two days (as per reports) and then there is the fuel load factor. A couple of days back there was this news flash of Kimi Raikkonen returning in 2011 with Red Bull when Webber is out of contract. If the Aussie displays such good form throughout the season and maybe, just maybe, ends up with the crown, then what?
A marriage of convenience?
Yesterday there was this bit of news on Autosport that the FIA is to inspect USF1’s preparations for the 2010 season. For this assignment, technical delegate Charlie Whiting is flying to the team’s headquarters. While the FIA has neither confirmed or denied it, the other bit of news is that USF1’s main backer and You Tube owner Chad Hurley is trying to make a deal with either Campos or Stefan GP for a possible merger and somehow save the team.
Both are interesting bits. What if the FIA at this late stage finds that the team cannot make it to the grid at Bahrain? Would they grant them permission to miss the first three or four races? Are they prepared enough to show their face in the fifth race of the season or will that end in a no-show as well? These are some of the questions that will be answered by this visit.
Why it is important to answer them is because the governing body certainly wouldn’t want egg on their face. A big nuisance was created last year with this issue being one of the talking points and if the chosen new teams can do nothing to increase the value of the sport that is Formula One, then what is/was the FIA intending to do in the first place?
The other issue here is of the team itself. Chad Hurley wouldn’t want to be remembered as an associate of a non-starting organization and therefore it is understandable that he is pulling out all stops to see the You Tube name in F1 atleast for a season. Of course there is the small matter of the staff as well and keeping them buoyant so that their move to this team doesn’t prove an entire failure.
If there is a merger then, what team should it be? Stefan GP, for all their readiness and money, do not inspire confidence enough for they have just bought Toyota’s plans and come to race. What next on their agenda? Where will the development come from? Then there is Mike Coughlan as one of the major players in the team and one gets the feeling that not too many people in the paddock would appreciate seeing him there after Spygate 2007. In that sense then, Campos and USF1 coming together with the blessing of Bernie Ecclestone seems a match made in heaven.
Look at it this way: even Sir Frank Williams will be happy for there will be two cars less on the grid.
Thank You Sachin!
Almost eighteen years to the day, in the 1992 World Cup, India took on Pakistan. That was the first match I watched, thanks to our babysitter who was a cricket fan as it turned out. A curly-haired guy got a half-century – whatever that meant I must have thought then. Important point was everyone was happy and later got happier because India won. It was a good day.
Probably an infantile obsession began that day for Sachin Tendulkar too seemed no more than a child in the world of men then. I hated that my brother had curly hair like him. So I tried to emulate him whilst playing gully cricket. All through my life I have bought bats with the same sticker on them as his bats – SG, Power and MRF – although I am yet to purchase one from the new range of Adidas bats he’s come out with.
It is astonishing how one man touches billions across the world. My own experience is but a tiny part of the world that we share with him. I think almost every one who follows the game ardently remembers what he was doing when he played this knock or that knock. There are 90-plus tons that he’s scored over twenty years and many more where he didn’t get to the three figure mark. But we remember most of them, and celebrate them all, like it’s each and every one of us who has scored those runs. I doubt if any one Australian remembers all of Ricky Ponting’s ODI or Test tons for that matter, or revolves his life around them. That, right there, is a measure of who the greater batsman is.
The generation that I belong to has grown up watching him play and are we blessed or what? Classroom discussions in school when he conjured up a dust-storm in Sharjah in ’98, the shock and anguish of the pain in ’99 against Pakistan, the continued discussions this time in the college cafeteria about the killer six off Shoaib Akhtar in the 2003 World Cup, burning off half a pack of Wills Classic when he was bowled for a duck in the crucial encounter against Sri Lanka four years later – these are but some of the prints that he has left on all of us, I am sure.
I must admit though that the feeling on seeing this 200 not out was quite different. I felt like shedding a few tears – joyous ones of course – for this was an overawing moment that I know I have lived for. A culmination of a childhood dream! A dream common to us all just like those memories – I forever wanted to see a double ton in ODI cricket and I wanted Sachin to make one. I got mine!
P.S – This post is the first one on this sports blog-based venture which is under construction and due for proper release sometime in March 2010. But 24th February 2010 was too good a day to wait for such trivial matters. Only Sachin Tendulkar can make us do such things – posting on an unfinished website.
