Oliver WhiteRobert Kubica has win the 2008 Canadian Grand Prix. In a very interesting race that just about had everything, the Polish driver came through to win BMW’s first race. Nick Heidfeld in the sister car came home in second making the Swiss-German teams results even more sweeter. David Coulthard finished third and deservedly took to the podium with joy, scoring his first points of the year. Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikkonen retired after the Briton crashed into the Finn during the pitstops.
A full report will go up on Monday morning.
| 1. | Robert Kubica | BMW | 10 Points |
| 2. | Nick Heidfeld | BMW | 8 Points |
| 3. | David Coulthard | Red Bull Racing | 6 Points |
| 4. | Timo Glock | Toyota | 5 Points |
| 5. | Felipe Massa | Ferrari | 4 Points |
| 6. | Jarno Trulli | Toyota | 3 Points |
| 7. | Rubens Barrichello | Honda | 2 Points |
| 8. | Sebastian Vettel | Scuderia Toro Rosso | 1 Point |
| 9. | Heikki Kovalainen | McLaren | |
| 10. | Nico Rosberg | Williams | |
| 11. | Jenson Button | Honda | |
| 12. | Mark Webber | Red Bull Racing | |
| 13. | Sebastien Bourdais | Scuderia Toro Rosso | |
| 14. | Giancarlo Fisichella | Force India | |
| 15. | Kazuki Nakajima | Williams | Retired |
| 16. | Fernando Alonso | Renault | Retired |
| 17. | Nelson Piquet Jr. | Renault | Retired |
| 18. | Kimi Raikkonen | Ferrari | Retired |
| 19. | Lewis Hamilton | McLaren | Retired |
| 20. | Adrian Sutil | Force India | Retired |
😀
In my decade or so of watching motorsport, this is my happiest and most fulfilling professional event. My favourite drivers score a one two finish, and resultantly reward my beloved BMW sporting organisation its ultimate scenario. I am delighted beyond my capabilities of written expression.
I’m pleased your happy, Jamie. My favourite team (Force India) got a DNF, but Kubica’s, Heidfeld’s and BMW’s successes brought a definite smile to my face. This is their Spa 1998 and don’t be surprised if they challenge for the title this year (for all their modesty, this year isn’t exactly out of the question either…) Coulthard getting a podium pleased me too.
Can’t wait for Clive to come on here and smile at us all – as a BMW fan, he’ll be delighted!
I’m also very pleased for Robert. I’m a little upset for Heidfeld because I really felt that out of the pair, Nick deserves a win more; Nick has worked his backside off for BMW since he joined and even proved that Villeneuve Jr wasn’t all that great (and therefore earned a shedload of respect from yours truly). But, today wasn’t Nick’s day as he seems to be having a few issues at the moment and Kubica drove really, really well. Reading comments like Jamie’s above are very warming indeed – the spirit lives on.
I’m so happy for BMW and for Robert and Nick. I have a lot of respect for how hard the team and drivers have been working at BMW. It’s nice to see them earn this one and reap the rewards of their hard work.
Real bummer for Lewis. He has only himself to blame. He seems to do so well and then he hurts himself – like in Brazil last year.
Can someone explain how the pit lane can be open one end and closed the other. Surely if the Safety car has gone past the entrance to the pit lane thus in effect allowing it to be opened then when it passes to exit to the pit lane the same must happen.
@Mike (2nd Mike, that is): But what happens if the safety car is out for more than one lap? When the safety car (and following tail of cars) passes the pitlane exit again, the same thing happens: the pit exit is temporarily closed.
Well, here’s the smile: 😀
It’s so good to see hard work, perseverance, good design, efficient teamwork, level heads, talented drivers and the best looking car on the grid (okay, that last one is a personal opinion) rewarded at last. Now they must keep their heads, work even harder, and the next win won’t be long in coming.
What struck me quite forcibly after the race is how popular the win was. Everyone seems to be happy and even McLaren and Ferrari were gracious in their congratulations. Of course, that may be because they don’t really believe yet that the Beemers are a serious threat – it’s early in the season, says Kimi. We shall see, we shall see… 😉
Yes it was a very popular win for BMW. And yes, they’ve certainly put forth the proper effort to deserve it. But I’m not sure they earned it in the traditional understanding of the word “earn”. If not for Hamilton’s stupidity, it would have been a huge contest between Lewis & Kimi for the win. That said, I too am happy for BMW and hope they continue to improve and make the fight for the championships even more competitive.
I hope it wasn’t me who said ‘earned’, because I largely agree with what you said, donwatters. BMW ‘deserved’ the win, but I think it’s still a bit early before we get to say they earned it. Having said that, I do think Kubica would have still been in with a healthy chance of winning in Canada even if Hami and Kimi continued. Kubica and Raikkonen were neck and neck coming out of the pitstop and both were ahead of Hamilton. What’s more, Kubica was on the right, and the pit lane feeds out to a right-hander with another right-hander further up the track, giving Kubica the racing/defending line all the way. But as Murray Walker says, “F1 is ‘if’ spelled backwards…”
Some body has complained to OFCOM about Martin Brundle’s commnent when on the grid at the start on Sunday’s GP he mentioned something about ”Pikey’s laying tarmac” Suggest who ever complained look up the word in a Dictionary, ”Piker or Pikey,” timid person, one afraid to risk expenditure, poor sportsman. Nothing wrong in that.
Some people need to get a life.
A more worth while complaint would be about why the pit lane was closed, when the safety car had already passed it. Traffic from cars following the safety car would not have been at risk from cars exiting the pits.
The other cars could have been at risk – the near-collision between Montoya and Coulthard when Juan Pablo ignored the red light in 2005 indicates that Safety Car snakes are not set up to have cars trying to join in the middle of them. So the pit lane remains closed until there’s no chance of the last couple of runners being slow (or some other delay-inducing incident) and facing that problem.
Regarding Brundle’s language, I heard that nobody had complained officially, but of course it has made the news and some agencies had brought up a similar case recently when a broadcaster was given a rap on the knuckles, or something similar. I haven’t checked my feeds yet, but that is the last I heard. Pitpass wrote about it here.
@Mike and Oli re: the pit lane, what I’ve yet to understand is not why there was a red light at the end of the pit lane, but why it was green at the entrance. I was under the impression that pit stops for fuel were not allowed while the safety car was on track. That makes sense to me from both a safety and a sporting perspective, so why was the pit lane opened while the safety car was still on track? And what determines when the pit lane will be opened? Is it only on the last lap before they anticipate the safety car being called in? Why not wait and open the pits when it leaves the track and let the drivers follow it right into the pits if that’s what they need to do?
(sorry, I realize that’s about 3 different versions of the same question in my first post…)
@seccotine: It’s a good question, and without doubt the current pitlane rules are overly confusing, bordering on non-sensical. But I think we can shed some light on what is actually meant to happen.
Here’s some blurb from the official FIA-published rules regarding the pitlane during a safety car period.
In plain old English, and to the best of my abilities, this means:
As soon as the safety car is deployed, the pitlane closes. This is to avoid cars rushing back to the pitlane to grab a free stop (as previously done because a safety car pit stop could mean less time was lost – competitiors could quickly get to the back of the queue of cars, and when they pitted, they would be in the lead). I wrote an article about this two years ago – The Price Of Pitstops.
However, once all the cars are lined up behind the safety car, the pit lane opens to allow for stops, and when a car leaves the pit lane it must travel at an “appropriate” speed to rejoin the tail of cars. And of course, the exit of the pit lane may close should the cars on track be passing the exit.
The pitlane needs to re-open in case the safety car is out for a long time and drivers need fuel or damage repair. As it stands at the moment, many drivers are forced to pit when the pit lane is closed to avoid running of fuel. They unfortunately incur a penalty for this.
I hope that helps a bit, but I’m not denying it is all unnecessarily confusing and convoluted. Hopefully though, the rules regarding all this will be changed after next weekend’s French Grand Prix. Due to complaints from the teams and drivers about this, the FIA and Technical Working Group have devised a way of controlling the speeds (or policing them better at minimum) via the standard ECU. This software is being trialled at this week’s test in Barcelona and during one of the French Free Practice sessions and if all goes well, it will hopefully be implemented ASAP after that. More info in this recent article – Safety Car Rule Changes On The Cards.
@Oliver: Thanks for the explanation, but as with most F1 regulations, answering one question just leaves me with a different question. (the learning curve for a new F1 fan is just a bit steep)
The fluidity of F1 regulations is staggering. I’m not sure whether to be impressed with how quickly they are able to respond to flawed rules following an incident (I’m thinking mostly of the minimum qualifying lap time here), or whether to be appalled at how flawed the regulations are to begin with. With the stakes so high for each race, it’s rather shocking how often a driver gets hamstrung by a silly rule.
@seccotine:
This is how I view the constant changes in the rules. Incompetency and lack of fore-thought to begin with leads to stupid rules being implemented and then constantly updated in attempts to fix the blatent flaws. I’ve mentioned on the site before how I feel for new fans – the rules change quite a bit and I imagine it must be pretty hard to keep up while you’re just trying to get used to the general way the sport works. Don’t get me started on qualifying… 😉
Oh, and welcome to BlogF1, by the way. It’s good to see new fans joining in and asking questions. 🙂
I’m sure people are wondering how a super professional like an F1 driver could drive into the back of a stopped car, but remember the last time you were following a car with no brake lights and they stopped. All you had to go by was the size increase of the car in front. I’ve had a few white knuckle times because of that.