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 On
the whole, Renault will be satisfied with their race weekend. Competitive in
practice and impressive in qualifying, certainly in Alonso's hands, who
qualified fourth with five laps more fuel in the car compared to Schumacher.
Fisichella suffered engine problems in qualifying, and parts were changed
overnight, but with no avail, for the Italian retired before the half way
mark during the race. Alonso played the waiting game, and took his chance to
secure an impressive season opening win. Excellent team work in the pits
aided their cause.
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 After
the difficulties of qualifying, which saw Kimi Raikkonen relegated to the back of
the grid, the race result will make comfortable viewing for team boss Ron
Dennis. Raikkonen stormed through from 22nd to third, while Montoya,
apparently suffering from a lack of straight line speed hung on for fifth
place. No signs of any reliability issue that dogged their 2005 campaign,
except for Raikkonen's suspension collapse in qualifying. Great promise,
with engine improvements on the way.
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 After
the disappointing 2005 campaign, all the signs displayed in Bahrain suggest
that Ferrari are back as a force to be reckoned with in F1 2006. Schumacher
looked on it all weekend, and equalled Senna's 65 pole position record,
while Massa was visibly delighted with second on the grid. Massa threw his
race away with a typical spin, while Schumacher chased Alonso home, and led
much of the race. Will take great comfort from this weekend.
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|
 A
terrible start to the season for the Japanese squad. Ralf Schumacher was
knocked out of qualifying after the first session, while Trulli, the master
of qualifying was knocked out in the next. Last season he started the first
race in second place, this season, he was in fourteenth. The race was no
better, with both cars lapped, and behind the restricted V10 cars of the
Toro Rosso team. Toyota have much work to do if they are to repeat last
seasons success.
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 Will
be delighted to their start to the season, and in particular with Nico
Rosberg's performance. The German rookie, making his debut in the race was
one of the stars of the day. An incident in turn one left him needing a new
front wing, but he resumed, overtook, set fastest lap of the race, and
finished in seventh. Mark Webber was solid as usual, and finished 6th, but
will be worried by Sam Michael's claim that without the first corner
incident, Rosberg could have finished third.
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 Honda
clearly have the car for the job, but perhaps not the luck. Jenson Button
qualified an impressive third place, but a clutch problem at the start saw
him battling with the midfield at the start. Meanwhile Rubens Barrichello
lost third gear, and plummeted down to fifteenth. The Brazilian had a
difficult opening race weekend, and was always off the pace of Jenson
Button, who looked well up for the task. The Briton was awesome in turn
one, overtaking Montoya twice on his way to fourth,
but should have troubled the podium.
|
||||
 Will
be delighted, simply to see both cars finish the race, let alone Christian
Klien's mature drive to eighth. The team have struggled to complete long
run distances in testing, and have had cooling issues with the Ferrari
engine. However all seemed OK in Bahrain, with Christian Klien impressing,
especially in the opening laps, running high in the points with a heavy
fuel load. David Coulthard looked racey, and had a couple of battles with
Heidfeld's BMW. Promising signs for the season.
|
||||
 A
promising start to the season. Nick Heidfeld looked up for it, with a
couple of wheel to wheel battles with David Coulthard in turn one, and
finishing twelfth, despite being tipped around by Nico Rosberg on lap one.
Jacques Villeneuve was running consistently and within the top ten, until
his engine let go in a big way with smoke and flames billowing from it.
One must hope this is not the recurrence of BMW engine issues seen in
2001-2003 with Williams. Still the foundations are there.
|
||||
 An
indifferent start to the season, but it would seem that Midland have not
exactly moved on much since last season. Monteiro was his ever reliable
self, bringing the car home in seventeenth, although two laps down. Albers
failed to get away at the start properly, and was left in the garage, and
ultimately retired. In this, their first season under the Midland banner,
one assumed they would progress further, but on the evidence of Bahrain,
it doesn't look like it.
|
||||
 Cause
of controversy throughout the weekend, with the restricted V10 engine
intended for use by under-financed teams, of which Toro Rosso is not. The
team, formerly Minardi, had signed an
agreement to run the restricted unit as early as the beginning of last
season. When the team became Toro Rosso, it was expected that V8's would
be used, but the original decision was kept. The cars were quick in
straight lines, and difficult to overtake, but in the end finished outside
the points, dampening down some of the controversy.
|
||||
 Just
making the grid in Bahrain was a success in itself, but the cars were
horribly off the pace, particularly in newcomer Yuji Ide's hands. Sato's
times were more respectable, around six seconds off the pace compared to
Ide's ten seconds. Qualifying was predictable, the cars easily the
slowest, as was the race. However Sato brought the car home in eighteenth
and last place albeit 4 laps down and with several trips to the pit lane.
Ide had a more troubled race, stalled in the pit lane, and later retired
from the race.
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 |
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| Further updates to the Weird and Wonderful section, and an F1 dictionary! |
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