Bahraini GP 2006: Monday Morning Debrief
The Renault F1 Team took its first victory of the 2006 season
yesterday in Bahrain. Here's the latest inside line.
One for the boys
The final laps in Bahrain on Sunday were nerve-wracking for
the Renault F1 Team. Much like last year in Imola, when Michael
Schumacher hounded Fernando all the way to the chequered flag,
we knew that our man was in control of what he was doing –
but the last twenty laps still seemed to take an unusually
long time! As soon as Fernando crossed the line, though, his
first words were for the team: "This race is yours,"
he told the boys (and girls) on the radio. "The pit-stops
today were great, absolutely fantastic." Indeed, the
race had been a classic tactical dog-fight between Fernando
and Michael Schumacher, and the second pit-stop was crucial
moment – both in the handful of laps before the number
1 Renault stopped when the track was clear, and in the stop
itself. So why was Fernando so eager to thank his mechanics?
Well, his car made it out of the pits 1.1 seconds quicker
than Schumacher – which put him in position to take
the lead into turn 1. Overall, the Renault spent 52.822 seconds
in the pits yesterday, compared to 54.383 for the Ferrari.
The strategy of going for long stints meant there was less
fuel to put in the car at the final stop, and some slick work
from the mechanics helped win the race. It was a performance
that showed the true team nature of Formula 1, and put the
Spaniard in pole position for the season.
Determined to bounce back stronger
Giancarlo Fisichella endured a difficult weekend in the number
2 Renault in Bahrain. He suffered a mysterious problem with
an ancillary engine component in qualifying, that robbed him
of approximately 50 bhp, and in spite of the team's best efforts
to resolve this overnight, and the initial belief that it
had been cured, the problem recurred in the race. The performance
deficit Fisico had to contend with was clear from the speed
traps: he was the second slowest car, at 297.3 kph compared
to a quickest speed of 308.3 kph for Fernando. In the circumstances,
the Italian did a quite exceptional job to set the lap-times
he did, as Pat Symonds made very clear after the race: "We
have apologised to Giancarlo for the engine problem, which
left him something like fifty horsepower down from his maximum.
But when you take that into account, he was driving an exceptional
race." As for Fisi, he was able to rationalise the experience
quite neatly: "Last year, I won the first race then had
a difficult season. This year, I hope it will be the other
way round – a bad race then a lot of good results!"
Starting with this weekend in Sepang.
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