For My Wife on Mother's Day

I'm going to take a detour from the F1 posts to put up a short one about my wife because today is Mother's Day.

Trina is an incredible woman.  She is strong, smart, beautiful, loving and generous.  She is more then any husband can ask for in a partner and I am grateful to God that she is mine.  She is also the best mother to our three children there could possibly be.  Trina works full time and then some, home schools the boys and yet still finds the time to help in Church and take Caleb to his piano lessons every week.  At the end of every day she is tired but there is never a moment of regret for the choices she's made.

I love my wife so much it hurts sometimes.  

Trina, after all these years my heart still pounds when I look at you.  

I love you.

Happy Mother's Day

Grand Prix of Bahrain...Qualifying

Another session of qualifying come and gone with not much action.  The only thing remotely exciting is that BMW were on Pole.  Pole on the Pole to be percise.  Robert Kubica posted the quickest time, 1/100th of a second ahead of Massa who needs so bad to finish a race.  Rumour has it that if he doesn't win this race, his seat a Ferrari is gone.  Massa isn't that great a driver to begin with so he better cross his fingers.  He reminds me a Villeneuve, a mediocor driver in a great car but when the car isn't running 100%, he has no hope of doing well.  Both Massa and Jacques relied on the talent of the car more then their own talent.  I give Massa to the end of the year and I'll wager that Ferrari has two new drivers.  Kimi will retire and Massa will be fired but that another story.

                                                                                                                                                                                       

The grid may have shuffled around a bit but it's still the same players near the top.  Lewis may struggle this race, he's not great when he starts a few rows back.  Shakir is a hard track if the wind picks up.  There are no tress and the desert sand blows accross the track so it gets slick pretty fast.  One of the best tracks in the world for passing, it should be a great race.

Malaysia Grand Prix

Another great race this season with a wonderful finish...for the Finnish.  Massa started on the pole and looked good for the win but 2/3 of the way through the race he showed why he is, and will most likely always be Ferrari's number two driver.  Massa spun out in what was a normal corner where he definitely should not have.  He beached the red car in the gravel and I'm sure got an earful back in the pits.  What should have been a Ferrari 1-2 finish ended up with another 0 points haul for the Brazilian.

Massa's loss was Raikkonen's gain as the Ice Man once again proved to everyone that one bad race doesn't mean he's finished.  His near perfect drive certainly makes up for the Australian failure he had.

Right: Kimi relaxing at the $65,000 wheel (that's right, that's what the steering wheel costs)

To me the best part of the race was watching Jarno Trulli hold off Lewis Hamilton.  I love Lewis and hope dearly that he becomes Champ this year but the Toyota was doing so well I couldn't help but cheer him on.  After the 5 place grid penalties the McLaren's paid (and so deserved to pay) Lewis had a tough go at it.  In the last 8 laps however he cut 6 seconds off of Jarno's lead on him.  It was amazing driving and if the race was 2 laps longer, Lewis would have passed him.  I'm glad he didn't but it was a blast not knowing how it would end.

     Left: Jarno Trulli who's winery is expected

                                               to produce more than 100,00 bottles 

                                               of 1st class red wine this year.

Another great battle was Webber and Alonso.  Mark did an excellent job of holding off the cry-baby from Spain and it looks good on him.  Red Bull is an awesome team that really has fun and the look of the new car, so different from the others is really cool too.

This season has been so good because for the second race in a row, no team has taken two places on the podium.  Robert Kubica's 2rd place was fantastic and there's a guy who will be a Champ soon.  To show you all just how talented these drivers are, look at Kubica's lap times below.  The track is 5.5km long and there are 15 turns.  The drivers shift over 50 times per lap and there are about a million opportunities for mistakes for these drivers yet Robert is flawless.

11:38.763, 1:38.518, 1:38.197, 1:38.136, 1:37.828, 1:37.705, 1:37.569, 1:37.452, 1:36.989, 1:36.957, 1:36.841, 1:36.770, 1:36.700, 1:36.576, 1:36.709, 1:36.258, 1:36.200, 1:36.103, 1:36.239.

The end of the race saw Kimi, Robert and Hekki on the steps.  The McLaren driver drove a quiet race, never really pressured from anyone.  I wonder if Renault is kicking themselves for ditching him so soon?  I hope so, it was a foolish mistake.

Well that's a poor review of Se Pang, Malaysia sorry but time is short.  Hope you liked it though.

See you in Bahrain.

Malaysia Qualifying

Once again the new qualifying routine has some kinks to work out.  Malaysia is the hottest circuit of the year and it is not unusual to see teams start to cut small holes in the bodywork of the cars to get air into them.  This year was no different.  

After a terrible Austrailian GP, Ferrari was back on top with an all-red front row.  That's a good sign because Australia marked the first time in 11 years that both Ferrari's had mechanical failure and the first time in 14 years that both cars didn't finish because of engine failure.  It wasn't looking like it was going to be there year.  I had my money on McLaren.

Here's where the new qualifying rules got in their way.  You now have to start the race with the fuel you end qualifying on.  What do the teams do to save fuel?  They coast to the pits after their flying lap in qualifying.  That's all well and good unless there are a half dozen or so cars still whipping around the track and you get in their way.   That's what both McLaren drivers were penalized with by the stewards.  McLaren had both their silver cars dropped down 5 places on the grid for impeeding the lap of the Heidfeld's BMW and Alanso's Renault.  It was a good call and I'm sure that there will be changes to the rules to avoid this happening again.

All in all it was an exciting session and the race....well you'll have to wait for the next post.