Looking back at the Nurburgring

By Matt Jones
May 17 2006

The European Grand Prix was frustrating for Honda fans, and RealHondaF1.com reader Matt Jones is one of them. Here's his personal review of the race from the Nurburgring...

Time for the second race of the European season at the Nurburgring, with its unpredictable weather and troublesome turn one - where the race can be lost very easily on the first lap if the drivers don’t keep their noses clean.

Qualifying came and the first session ended in complete confusion, with a red flag being shown on the timing screens, yet no incident on track. All flying laps were aborted but the clock kept ticking down. After mass confusion and appeals from teams it was ruled that Christian Klien would be the highest profile driver to drop into the slowest six cars on the grid.

Session two handed us some off track action when Jacques Villenueve held up Giancarlo Fisichella. The Italian stormed down to the former world champion’s garage to confront him and show his displeasure. Whilst Jacques may have held him up, I think it’s fair to say most drivers get traffic one time or another in qualifying and I doubt that Jacques had any intent of slowing Giancarlo intentionally. A Super Aguri in Australia held up Rubens Barrichello, and Jarno Trulli complained of being held up by Michael Schumacher at Imola, but Jacques was penalised two grid positions. The stewards are again guilty of not handing out penalties with any sort of consistency.

Whilst Jenson Button couldn’t maintain his 100% run of front row qualifying positions, Honda Racing F1 still managed a very good effort, with Rubens in fourth and Button sixth, the Brazilian out qualifying his team-mate for the first time this season. That’s great to see - we just need to pray that Rubens has solved the teething problems he has had with the car and finds the race pace we know he is capable of delivering.

Before qualifying even began it was a race weekend to forget for Williams, with the Grove based outfit suffering a double engine change. It seems to be going from bad to worse for the team - after a relatively competitive showing in Bahrain they have scored just three points. They are very much in danger of finishing out of the top five in the constructors’ championship, something that has not happened since the 1980s. Perhaps the loss of manufacturer backing will prove costly for the Williams team.

The race wasn’t any better for Williams, with Mark Webber retiring after just a handful of laps. It seems anyone who thought Williams would be at an advantage with a Cosworth V8 were ill informed, as the engine has just caused problem after problem for the team who surely will start looking elsewhere for an engine deal soon.

The troublesome first corner caught a couple of drivers out, with the Toro Rosso of Vitantonio Luizzi collecting David Coulthard’s Red Bull Racing car and ending the race for the both of them. It’s ironic that the two sister teams seem to be tripping over from week to week - surely not what Red Bull had in mind when they decided to run a B-team.

The race turned into a tactical battle between the Renault of Fernando Alonso and Ferrari of Michael Schumacher and, once again, the Ferrari team won the battle for track position. It’s certainly good to see that at a team is keeping Renault honest in their attempt to retain the championships. It’s also great to see that the teams are extremely close in terms of performance. Unfortunately for spectators, retirements aside, the winner was decided at the final stops, as we have seen on two other occasions this season. Perhaps the one thing this championship is missing is the prospect of Alonso and Schumacher going side by side around corners fighting for position out on track.

Whilst the World Drivers championship is extremely open between Alonso and Schumacher, you only have to look at the constructors’ championship to see that if Renault has any chance of retaining both titles Giancarlo Fisichella has got to get his act together.

Giancarlo had a fantastic opportunity to put right his disastrous qualifying with a solid race effort but, despite being in arguably the fastest car on the grid, was out raced by Ralf Schumacher in the Toyota which is a good second a lap off the Renault in Alonso’s hands. Thankfully, for Giancarlo, he was promoted a couple of places by retirements to make the result barely acceptable but the display was very disappointing once again.

Jenson Button, suffering from engine woes, was unlucky as he was on the way to a solid fifth place before his car gave up. Considering the trouble himself and Rubens were having with the lack of balance and grip, fifth and sixth places would have looked good. I still believe the car does have good performance, but it’s probably the most inconsistent car on the grid. Maybe it’s an issue with the car being difficult to setup, or maybe it’s simply the fact that the car has major flaws that certain tracks find out. Either way, there are definitely issues with the chassis that still need to be addressed if we are going to consistently challenge for strong points positions.

Kimi Raikkonen and Juan Pablo Montoya again opted for a very heavy first stint. Whilst the strategy worked for Kimi, Montoya was left bogged down in the midfield. Generally their pace is pretty good and, in the first stint, it looked like Kimi might come into contention late on to challenge the front two. Unfortunately it didn’t quite pan out, and maybe it’s time Ron Dennis decided to go a bit more aggressive with the strategy.

Ferrari showed Imola was not a one off with stunning performances all weekend. Schumacher showed once again why he is a seven times world champion – an absolutely stunning display of pace on his in laps pulled out a substantial enough gap to comfortably take the lead after his pit stop. Felipe Massa showed solidly again, doing a good job for the team by running a lot of laps in practice to get the data whilst Schumacher saved his engine. It’s a very clever tactic by Ferrari who seem will still do anything to make sure Schumacher is on the top step of the podium.

Renault was solid once again. Alonso did all he could to hold off Schumacher and succeeded in the first stops but it was only a matter of time… Still, he was faultless all weekend, never putting a foot wrong. By contrast, Fisichella once again ran around in the midfield, providing no support for the teams bid to reclaim both titles.

Honda were fairly solid but not spectacular. We have completely lost touch with the top three teams in the constructors’ championship and seem to be slowly slipping down in performance to the level of Toyota. Whether the performance here at the ‘Ring was a one off remains to be seen, but the chances for Honda Racing F1’s maiden victory this season are looking remote. Rubens came home with solid points which was nice to see, but it still seems he is struggling to keep pace with his team-mate. Hopefully the team can continue to adjust things to Rubens liking and we will see him really push and hopefully outperform Jenson in the near future.

Williams are certainly fast enough to challenge for decent points positions, but are being let down time and time again with awful reliability. The team could struggle to keep hold of rising star Nico Rosberg if he continues to impress the big teams in this, his rookie season…

Toyota looked fairly competitive in the opening stint – Jarno Trulli was running in sixth, just behind Button, but then disappeared after his first stop and got jumped by all of those behind him. We’ve seen Trulli do this so many times in the past and if he doesn’t pick up his game Toyota will start asking questions. Ralf made a solid job before his retirement and looked on for some good points from 10th on the grid.

BMW-Sauber looked great under Jacques Villeneuve, his good qualifying effort backed up with a very strong race, and putting himself very much in contention for the race seat at the team next season.

Red Bull reliability issues once again struck. Along with poor race pace, it’s looking like it could be a disastrously unreliable season for the team. A disappointing season so far following their amazing debut effort in 2005.

Super Aguri were handed a double retirement, both drivers suffering with hydraulic problems. However, new race driver Frank Montagny seemed to do a much better job than Yuji Ide. Midland and Toro Rosso performed as expected, though Liuzzi will be disappointed to have crashed on the first lap.

It’s onto Spain next week, with the championship race finally heating up. With Ferrari getting the results they have been threatening all season it’s sure to be another closely contested race between Alonso and Schumacher.

Hopefully Honda’s lack of pace will prove a one off and we will show some good form again, perhaps even challenging McLaren. With Rubens slowly but surely improving, race by race, hopefully we will see him really pushing Button in Spain.