Translated material
Uncomfortable neighborhood
Lewis Hamilton made his titled partner nervous
The first stage of the North American Formula 1 road tour was a great success - an exciting fight from the first to the last lap, impressive accidents that caused the safety car to appear on the track four times and brought confusion to the tactical schemes of many drivers, fines and disqualifications, mistakes of recognized masters and impeccable piloting by newcomers, an expected victory and an unexpected podium.No one doubted that this would happen sooner or later, starting from the first race of the season. 22-year-old Lewis Hamilton looked very confident already in Australia. And after the Monaco Grand Prix, it became clear that the victory of the phenomenal newcomer McLaren was just around the corner. The statistics of this championship show that whoever wins the qualification wins the race. In five previous cases, this rule did not work only once, and therefore the qualifying battles are not inferior in intensity to what is happening on the track in the race itself. Several times Lewis lost pole position at the flag, when more experienced rivals waited in the pits until the last minute, entering the track behind the Briton, which allowed them to rely on his time. But in Canada, Hamilton was unstoppable. Even Alonso could not surpass his result - in the first two sectors the reigning champion was still ahead of his partner, but in one of the turns the Spaniard could not control the speed, the car skidded, and he remained only second.
Rarely mistaken, Alonso in Canada made as many mistakes as he probably couldn’t accumulate in his entire brilliant career. What caused such an uncertain performance by an experienced pilot? In an interview with the Spanish radio station Cadena Ser, Nando admitted that he does not yet feel very comfortable at McLaren. “The team is British, my partner is British,” the driver shared his impressions of the new team. - He works great, so more support is given to him, which I understood from the very beginning. But I'm not complaining. I won two out of six races, I have 40 points, which will allow me to fight for the title until the end.” In addition, a beginner is ready to forgive failures, while a two-time world champion constantly needs to confirm his class, being under the close supervision of fans, journalists, and rivals. And finally, intra-team rivalry, almost forgotten in the recent history of Formula 1 - the last time we saw a real battle for the championship crown between two drivers of the same team was back in 1996, when Jacques Villeneuve, who made his debut in F1, put up worthy resistance to Damon Hill, but experience still won that season. So Alonso has yet to learn to cope with such pressure from his team-mate, which he did not have to deal with at Renault.
During his time at the Circus Maximus, Alonso never showed a hint of the ardor so characteristic of the Spaniards, preferring to wait for other people’s mistakes rather than make his own. This albeit ineffective, but effective manner consistently brought dividends to the Spaniard in the form of points scored. But in Canada, a completely different Alonso appeared before the audience. Where did his composure go when he decided to get ahead of Hamilton in the first turn. It was only by luck that Fernando cut only the grass on the side of the road, leaving the nose cone of his partner’s car unharmed, a few centimeters from which he was swept by an uncontrollable avalanche. It is not difficult to imagine what epithets the Spaniard would have received in the British press if the collision had occurred. But the dashing attack only resulted in the loss of one position, which did not seem to be extremely difficult to win back from Nick Heidfeld. However, on this day Alonso had to fight not with rivals, but with the same fatal turn, where he made mistakes over and over again. After the finish, the champion said that throughout the race he had experienced considerable difficulties with the Bridgestone tires. But on the same tires, Hamilton was ten seconds ahead of Heidfeld by the 20th lap, and Alonso also let Massa go ahead.
In Canada, we saw the new safety car rules in action for the first time. In the event of an accident, the pit lane is closed until all cars have gathered behind the pace car, and any incident turns pit stop strategy into a lottery, with unpredictable results. This time, Alonso and Nico Rosberg were unlucky, whose turn to replenish their fuel supplies was due to Adrian Sutil's accident. The drivers risked stopping with empty tanks while waiting for the pit lane to open, so they chose to break the rules.
By the way, the adequacy of punishments in Formula 1 has long raised questions. In Montreal the law was strict, but not for everyone. An illegal refueling resulted in a ten-second stop in the pits, and leaving the pit lane at a red light resulted in disqualification for the violators. Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella paid for their inattention, but Takumo Sato, who also ran a red light, escaped punishment. After this, the Japanese developed such speed that he overtook Ralf Schumacher and Alonso in the last laps. Or overtaking the same Alonso, Kimi Raikonen in the pit lane, and even under yellow flags! But the judges ignored this episode too.
Perhaps they were influenced by the disaster of Robert Kubica, whose car, after several impacts on concrete barriers, was a terrifying pile of debris. I immediately remembered the events of ten years ago, when, as a result of an accident at the same circuit, Olivier Panis received severe fractures of both legs. But all the efforts of the International Automobile Federation aimed at improving the safety of racing were not in vain: the monocoque withstood terrible blows, the driver escaped with several bruises and is already preparing for the next race. Or maybe the judges were upset by the death of a beaver that threw itself under the wheels of Anthony Davidson's car, or the stupid accident of Jarno Trulli, who failed to keep up with the pace car. In any case, for the judging, the Canadian race turned out to be very tense, which is why mistakes arose.
It is impossible not to mention three more heroes of Montreal. Nick Heidfeld, finishing second, finally realized the great work that the BMW-Sauber team has done over the past year. Alex Wurz celebrated his tenth anniversary in Formula 1 with third place. And of course, Heikki Kovalainen, who started the race from last place, broke through to fourth place.