The 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix

Ed · Post by Ed » Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:36 pm

Button wins!

mlittle · Post by **mlittle** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:37 pm

A great victory from Jenson Button in the Brawn GP car; Vettel and Trulli round out the podium

Barrichello finishes 4th; adds more points to the Brawn tally this season!

Ed · Post by Ed » Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:37 pm

Vettel, Trulli, Hamilton, Barrichello, Raikkonen, Glock and Alonso make the top 8

mlittle · Post by **mlittle** » Sun Apr 26, 2009 11:41 pm

.........and thus the flyaway part of the Formula 1 season ends; the teams will pack up and head back to Europe after a whirlwind 25,000 mile voyage from the streets of Albert Park, to the tropical circuit of Sepang to the urban circuit of Shanghai and the deserts of Bahrain.

Next stop on the F1 train is the Spanish Grand Prix at the Cataluyna circuit near Barcelona; the European season is set to begin in and what a season it has been up to now!

Ed · Post by Ed » Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:23 am

Congratulations to Jenson Button on a fine win at the Bahrain Grand Prix finishing ahead of Sebastian Vettel who put in another impressive perfomance.
Jarno Trulli finished 3rd and that had to be dissapointing as the team look for their first win and this looked a really good chance but their switch to the medium compound appears to have been the wrong call.
Lewis Hamilton managed 4th, he too drove a good race while Barrichello must be dissapointed to finish in 5th place.
Kimi Raikkonen finished 6th, the first points finish for the Ferrari team this season. They have a lot of work to do
Timo Glock wouldn't be happy with 7th but his middle stint affected him badly.
Fernando Alonso makes up the top 8 but that wasn't what was expected from him.

Mark Webber is worth a mention having finished 11th after starting 18th

BMW Sauber finishing 18th and 19th would have to be one of (if not the) worst ever finishes for the team.

So far it looks like Brawn GP, Toyota and Red Bull are very close but with all the teams getting major updates for the Spanish Grand Prix in 2 weeks, will the teams like McLaren, Ferrari, Renault and BMW Sauber make a comeback ?

Your thoughts and the driver of the day ?

RE30B#16 · Post by **RE30B#16** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 4:56 am

Ed wrote:So far it looks like Brawn GP, Toyota and Red Bull are very close but with all the teams getting major updates for the Spanish Grand Prix in 2 weeks, will the teams like McLaren, Ferrari, Renault and BMW Sauber make a comeback ?

It seem to be a great and exciting start to this season. Too bad there is absolutely no television coverage of Formula 1 in the USA, and the race reports don't even make ESPN Sportcenter anymore.

To comment on Kimi Raikkonen's remarks two weeks ago about Ferrari having no chance in the WDC this year, I am reminded of 1979 when Jacques Laffitte won the first 3 races of the year in his Ligier JS11. Ferrari started that year with the previous years contender, but really got things rolling after the "ground effects" 312T4 showed up 4 races into the season. They took a 1-2 in the championship with Jody Scheckter leading Gilles Villeneuve.

What is more interesting is that despite Ferrari's success, it was a Williams FW07 you wanted to be driving by year's end with Alan Jones telegraphing his dominance over 1980. Nelson Piquet (Sr) was also emerging as a serious contender with a chassis which would become the BT49 in which he narrowly out scored Carlos Reutemann in his Williams FW07C for the WDC in 1981.

Laffitte and his teammate Patrick Depailler would win a few more races in 1979, but they would no longer be dominant even though the JS11 and its direct successor would still remain competitive through 1980.

Sorry for the history lesson, but I'm an old guy now.

Nice job, JB, Vettel, and Team Toyota!

Julian Mayo · Post by **Julian Mayo** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:33 am

MLittle lives in the Sates and gets coverage............

mlittle · Post by **mlittle** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:35 am

Julian Mayo wrote:MLittle lives in the Sates and gets coverage............

Speed Channel for the TV end; timing/scoring from Formula 1's website(one of the few good things one can say about the geniuses who run F1.................

)

mlittle · Post by **mlittle** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 7:40 am

RE30B#16 wrote:It seem to be a great and exciting start to this season. Too bad there is absolutely no television coverage of Formula 1 in the USA, and the race reports don't even make ESPN Sportcenter anymore.

It has been a great start to the season, RE. As to coverage in the States'......Speed Channel is the U.S. network of record for F1; they do a pretty good job of covering the races and Varsha, Hobbs and Matchett are a great trio of announcers

RE30B#16 · Post by **RE30B#16** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:41 am

I used to get Speed Channel which I enjoy, but now my cable provider requires I pay for an expensive "super" package to get it. I don't watch enough TV for the super expensive basic package I already have!

Still, what gives with ESPN and Sportscenter? If it is not NASCAR or NHRA, they no longer report anything about racing!

Julian Mayo · Post by **Julian Mayo** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:51 am

RE30B#16 wrote:I used to get Speed Channel which I enjoy, but now my cable provider requires I pay for an expensive "super" package to get it. I don't watch enough TV for the super expensive basic package I already have!

Still, what gives with ESPN and Sportscenter? If it is not NASCAR or NHRA, they no longer report anything about racing!

Gawd, sounds like the contempt with which Australian viewers are treated...............

mlittle · Post by **mlittle** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:52 am

RE30B#16 wrote:I used to get Speed Channel which I enjoy, but now my cable provider requires I pay for an expensive "super" package to get it. I don't watch enough TV for the super expensive basic package I already have!

Still, what gives with ESPN and Sportscenter? If it is not NASCAR or NHRA, they no longer report anything about racing!

Let me guess; your cable provider must either be Time Warner or Comcast?

I'm lucky in one sense; our cable provider(Compas Cable) has ESPN, ESPN-2, ESPN Classic, Speed and Versus on the basic tier[one of the running jokes in Morganton is "Who'd the mayor have to kiss to get those channels on the basic tier?.......the system's city owned, hence the friendly retort towards the mayor.

As for ESPN's lack of coverage of Formula1, welcome to the club. Since they don't broadcast F1 and since Speed Channel is a FOX subsidiary(as opposed to ESPN, which is part of the ABC family of networks), their view must be, "Why give a competing network free airtime?"

Julian Mayo · Post by **Julian Mayo** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 1:59 pm

Mind you, why worry. After the first few laps there were only two english drivers and a couple of interlopers in the race, which was commentated by as big a pair of dribblers as I have ever had the misfortune to hear.And I sat up til near 1am to see the race out.

JayVee · Post by **JayVee** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:33 pm

Jenson Button and Ross Brawn where the stars of the day. Button had an impressive drive and the strategy was perfect. How he managed to get in front of the Toyotas and build such a gap was something. His pass on Hamilton who has KERS was also impressive.

I think Toyota lost this race on their strategy. Trulli didn't do too bad but I think they are now at the stage where a really good driver can deliver them wins

Vettel was impressive again, Webber was unlucky in qualifying

Alonso only managed 8th

His overtake on Trulli was cool to watch. Having no water to drink in that heat didn't help!!

BMW

Next race should be interesting with all the upgrades!!

GhoGho · Post by **GhoGho** » Mon Apr 27, 2009 11:09 pm

Julian Mayo wrote:Mind you, why worry. After the first few laps there were only two english drivers and a couple of interlopers in the race, which was commentated by as big a pair of dribblers as I have ever had the misfortune to hear.And I sat up til near 1am to see the race out.

That's why they invented the DVR

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The 2009 Bahrain Grand Prix

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