FINAL STAGE: Interlagos Race Report
Season 10, Round 17
It was an exciting race, and it was a boring race.
With McLaren having both championships already locked up by far, they didn't have much to worry about for this race. For all they cared they could park the cars on lap 1 and go home.
Or could they?
While Horton had the driver's championship secure, his teammate Trendell had a bit to worry about. The fight for 2nd and 3rd place was extremely intense and a mistake here could cost McLaren a 1-2 overall. When you dominate, you want to dominate completely.
The fight for 3rd best in the WCC was hot also, with BMW, Williams, and Ferrari all standing a chance of being the best of the rest.
Although, when the best of the best included Super Aguri, either way teams were going to end up red-faced.
The qualifying grid was as always delightfully mixed. Machiels nipped the pole for Red Bull over Appie's Aguri by inches, while Horton as always qualified a strong 3rd for McLaren. Rees in the Sauber rounded out row 2.
Two ends of the extremes were on row 3 as Ferrari's Hutchinson beat out Spyker's Smith. Dubois continued to qualify well in the Honda, in 7th, but one of these days he hoped to drive well also. Chang took 8th for Williams - completing the string of 8 teams in 8 positions. Row 5 was more of a repeat as Trendell needed just one shot to crack the top 10 and Skywalker took the outside position with a typically good Red Bull quali.
The back end of the field was also interesting with 3 drivers failing to set a lap. Butler was one of the first ones on track and one of the first ones off as he decomposed the Honda into a wall. Toyota also wished to prove it's competitiveness as Nikolakopoulos did Honda one better by sending off his engine in a cloud of smoke that would impress any military squad. Somewhere in the middle of it all Shepherd/Hayha/Rosberg in the Williams discovered that his car's battery had died and none of the other teams really wanted to help him jump it, leaving him dead last on the grid.
Eventually the much anticipated race day came around and the lights went off. Trendell was caught sleeping and quickly shot to the back of the field - although we wonder if McLaren was just giving the other drivers a chance. Chang spun the tires a bit and lost some spots, and Nikolakopoulos did the same, although in his haste to catch up he smashed into everyone's favorite AWOL Blake Haswell...and with the magic of Teflon-coated F1 cars today nothing happened. Charkaoui proved the magic of the Super Aguri by doing just as predicted by shooting around pole-sitter Machiels in the first corner.
2 laps went by before Beyens tried the same move around the outside of Chang and ended up in the bushes somewhere, putting a sucky end to a sucky season.
The first big incident on the race occurred on lap 6 when Horton got into a bit of a tangle with Rees, irreparably damaging the McLaren and sending the BMW for a spin. Tempers flared in the pits.
Chang pulled a great overtaking move on lap 8 when he slipped around the outside of not one, but two cars into turn one for 8th, which is proving to be a great overtaking spot.
On lap 11 turn one showed it's make-or-break power again as Smith outbroke himself into it and damaged his car's wing (but not enough to warrant replacement). Meanwhile somewhere out on the track Davidson's Aguri began to take a leak and he was forced to make an early pit.
Charkaoui continued to sit around and run away from the field while the rest of the grid was being shuffled around. Fast-forward to lap 24, where Bee reported his throttle as "too fast" and pitted again to allow the engineers to slow the Aguri down. Also, Mason wiped off his nosecone at Laranga and pitted to get a new one.
Lap 25 saw Appie pit on schedule, handing the lead to the Honda of Dubois. Rees was distracted by this sign of the apocalpyse and locked up the brakes into the first corner, spinning and losing 6 spots. Meanwhile, Rosberg kicked in the VTEC (in a Williams, somehow) and gained 3 positions to 9th in an impressive lap, yo.
Horton bobbled Juncao on lap 27 and continued to hamper his car's performance, although very few in the paddock doubted he could still win this race.
The next lap Skywalker spun into Fera Dura and spent about 5 eternities getting out of the sand, losing 9 places in the process.
Lap 30 saw the long-awaited return of KamiKawa as he collided with the quickly-fading Horton, perhaps over a bit of championship bitterness. The Spyker driver was sent on a off-road adventure while McLaren called Horton to the pits to give him more of a challenge.
2 laps later the World Champion would discover that during the pit stop the mechanics induced a small oil leak in order to, yup, give Horton a chance to show that he can win from a lap down with a half-strength car. Everything seems possible.
Graham and Dunstan knocked wheels on lap 36, damaging the Renault's yellow paint job (thus slowing it) and forcing the Ferrari into a pit stop.
Skywalker became only the second retiree of the race as his transmission bit it on lap 39, grinding the Red Bull to a halt.
The Super Aguri mechanics kept busy as Davidson came in for his 4th pit stop of the race, on lap 45, after his engine started cutting out.
Red Bull became the first team ready to go home after Chang tried the 'pass-around-turn-one' move one too many times and sent Machiels flying into the barriers. The Williams was also harmed in the production of this stunt.
The retirements continued after Trendell got a little too enthusiastic going into De Senna corner and tricycle'd his McLaren on lap 54. Certainly he had a bit to sweat about as rival Hutchinson was running in 3rd, and needed only a 2nd to move up to 2nd overall.
Nikolakopoulos pulled a typical Toyota P.R. stunt and wrecked his car in spectacular fashion on lap 57.
Davidson pitted for the 5th time on lap 60, because he was bored.
Charkaoui gave everybody, Trendell the most, a shock when he reported issues with the Aguri's throttle. If he retired from the lead now with just 4 to go, Hutchinson would certainly take the position of WDC runner-up. But nothing bad came of this issue.
And so he breezed to victory an amazing 23 seconds clear of Rees in the BMW Sauber. Hutchinson ended up 3rd anyway and a point short. Dubois finished 4th in the points, a rare occurrence for Honda, and Shepherd/Hayha/Taipan/Rosberg/Williams guy took 5th. Butler completed a DOUBLE HONDA POINTS FINISH, knocking the socks and maybe the pants off a lot of people in the paddock. Smith took 2 points for Spyker, a lap down, and Taylor rounded out the points in the Renault.
Horton, unsurprisngly, breezed to the championship win with a decent total of 84 points. Trendell squeaked home in 2nd with a comparatively lowly 56 points. Charkaoui nudged out Hutchinson by wins for 3rd, with both at 55 points. Rees, one of the season's worst starters and best finishers, took 5th with 50.
We're not sure why Davidson took 6th and not Smith, as both have the same amount of wins, poles, and podium finishes, and points (45). Davidson, however, had one fastest lap, which may have been the difference.
From there on back, the standings were Shepherd, Chang, and Machiels to round out the top 10.
McLaren took the WCC by 40 points over Super Aguri, the hottest team at the start of the year and still a very quick one at the end. BMW nudged out Williams by 5 for 3rd (albeit 24 back of Aguri), and Ferrari was 5th, 4 back of Williams.
And now for some useless stats:
Most Wins: Abdeslam Charkaoui, Aguri, 4
Most Podiums: Brad Horton + Simon Trendell, McLaren + McLaren, 7
Most Poles: Simon Trendell, McLaren, 7
Best Qualifying Average: Simon Trendell, McLaren, 4.6
Most Fastest Laps: Laura Rees, BMW Sauber, 5
Least Retirements: Blake Haswell, Toro Rosso, 0
Best Driver to Not Win: Lee Davidson, Aguri, 45 points (6th)
Worst Driver to Win: Suzanne Taylor, Renault, 26 points (11th)
Wooden Spoon (Most DNFs Award): Yuuji Kawasie, Spyker, 7
Best Hot Streak: Abdeslam Charkaoui, Aguri, 3 podiums + 2 wins in 3 races
Worst Cold Streak: Jamez Shepherd, Williams, 4 retirements in 4 races
Longest Points Streak: Brad Horton, McLaren, 7 races
👍
See you all...uh, Season 12, probably. Yuuji Kawasie, race reporter, signing out. (Hopefully I can bring some inside reports from TMIII though!)