#thought the 2nd gif was struggling to load for a minute lol. but it was my human socialisation failing to unload

[vro0m]

vro0m’s rewatch - 48/288

2009 Italian GP

Recap + GIFs (yes there are GIFs this time)

Ahhh it’s crashgate time! I touched on this when I wrote the recap for that race but let me take you back.

Singapore 2008. Alonso is fast in his Renault but 16th on the grid because of an engine problem in quali. At the beginning of the race, he’s carrying little fuel because the team hoped for a Safety Car, which did happen in the person of teammate Piquet who crashed right after Alonso refuelled, while nobody else had made their stop yet. So Alonso got the lead and won.

Fast forward to the 2009 summer break : Piquet gets sacked after the Hungarian GP. 4 days later, he goes to the FIA saying he crashed deliberately in Singapore, as ordered by his chief engineer and Flavio Briatore. Who both deny it, of course. Piquet says he did it to increase the chances the team would keep him. Alonso claims he didn’t know anything about that.

So the FIA will meet to review the evidence but Piquet’s sworn statement has leaked already. Renault has started legal proceedings against him for false allegations and trying to blackmail them. Lol. So Jake says he talked to Mosley about it who emphasised the importance of the integrity of Formula 1. First of all, Mosley was found engaging in s*domasochists acts with pr*stitutes in n*zi uniforms last season, and second of all, look where we’re at with the integrity in 2022. Bullshit. Anyway.

Quali report : Fisichella is driving for Ferrari now? He’s 14th while he was on pole in his Force India last GP lol. Liuzzi is replacing him in his former team then, and is 7th on the grid. Ironic af. Sutil is 2nd btw. Oh. Both BMW’s engines blew up within 2 minutes of each other and they were both new and had the same mileage and seem to have had the same failure. That’s not good. Webber is 10th, Barrichello 5th, Jenson 6th, Raikkonen 3rd, Kovalainen 4th. AND LEWIS IS ON POLE! He says the best strategy here is a one-stop one but it depends on the fuel load, how you manage the tyres etc.

Look how calm and confident this man looks, it’s heartwarming.

However he is NOT on a one-stop strategy, unlike all the others including Kovalainen, which makes me nervous because why. Also fun fact : 6 out of the 7 first cars on the grid have a Mercedes engine.

Formation lap.

And they’re racing!

Mmmh, that wasn’t a great start for Lewis, he almost got overtaken even though he has KERS? It’s okay after the first corner though. Webber is beached and Jenson overtook Kovalainen. The Force Indias are so quick in the straights it looks unreal. Heikki is really struggling even though people thought he had the best chances of winning. Lewis is setting fastest lap after fastest lap.

He pits for a first time on lap 14, and is back out in 5th. It was earlier than projected. The tyres were badly grained. He’s now on hard tyres though so maybe it’ll be better. There’s a bunch of DNFs too : Webber, Alguersuari, Kubica, Rosberg... Now Liuzzi is also out. Meanwhile McLaren tells Lewis he has to go faster to beat the Brawns.

We’re halfway through, the one-stoppers are pitting. Barrichello first, from the lead. Lewis is in front now, by 5 seconds, which isn’t much given he has to make a second stop. Yeah I don’t think this is gonna work out.

He stops with 19 laps to go, yeah, he’s behind. That strategy was a bad idea. He’s 5th. It’s all about the racing now, then.

15 laps to go, Barrichello - Button - Lewis. He’s only 2.4 seconds behind Jenson. 1.8 seconds. 8 laps to go. Come on. 5 laps to go. NO HE SPUN ON THE LAST LAAAAAP WHYYYY. Safety Car. He’s done.

It’s the end of the race.

Barrichello wins from teammate Jenson, Raikkonen in a surprise P3. Lewis 12th.

Asked about the shunt, he says he’s built like a rock so he’s all good.

“Were you pushing hard? It looks like you were pushing hard.” He answers : “every lap I was pushing like qualifying laps”.

He says they didn’t have the pace, but hum... He did though. He was making fastest laps, remember? And he was on pole. The strategy was shit and then he spun while trying to make up for it, is what happened.

He says he’s sorry to the team and he did all he could. He also apologies to his fans and sends love to his family. The journalist asks how the progress with the car is going now. He says the car is much better and it was still good today, just not good enough. But they have upgrades coming and hopefully it’ll give them an edge for the end of the season. “Maybe I won’t have to push 130%, maybe I can push 110%.”

#f1 #lewis hamilton #2009 #2009 italian gp #vro0m's race reviews