Belgium
Grand Prix 2005. Yet again Kimi won first place
J. There’s always something about Kimi that I so love to watch him race. The relentless racer, never knows when to give up, never say die. Watching people with his level of determination definitely is awe inspiring J.
It was a wet (wet in extreme, water sprays were evident at the rears of the cars) afternoon, mundane with heavy clouds peppering the skies, but the race still went on J. Waited for the red lights to go green, and focused my attention on the two front positions on the grid, which were held by Montoya and beloved Kimi J. Side by side they were off, but Montoya stamped on the throttle a bit harder and maintained his pole position until almost the end of the race. Kimi followed close by, always trying to squeeze the top spot from his team mate.
It was a thrill watching huge water sprays coming out from the back of the cars as they race pass by and hit the wet spots on the track. Hehe. Always wishing that they would commit a mistake and start a pile up J. That would have been a spectacle J. But coming back to the race, Trulli tried to squeeze pass Kimi at the opening lap but Kimi held onto his second place.
Alonso was in fourth position and Michael overtook his brother Ralf for fifth place. The race went on a few laps with the drivers shuffling around for better positions. Kimi always on Montoya’s tail.
Best parts of the race? Definitely the accidents that occurred throughout the race J. It was wet, but there was no rain. The track stayed wet up to the finishing of the race. The first accident involved Fishichella, who over did on the climb up one of the corners and the car simply skidded off the road onto the tire wall. Somewhat seeing the car glide on the track surface, spun around recklessly and crashed at 300km/hr onto the tire wall. It was a miracle seeing poor Fishi climbing out of the car and walking away from it. If it were in 2000, I guess he would have died. All the suspension broke, the front and rear wings smashed, bits of carbon fibre strewn all over the crash site. The safety car was brought into action. You can barely spot two race marshals ducking behind the walls to avoid the flying debris from the car.
Hehe. Then comes the accident involving Sato and Michael. It’s just one of those days for Michael, he was racing for a better position, coming into a hairpin with three (I think) other cars chasing him, Sato directly behind. Going into the hairpin, Sato brought a tad too much of speed and banged into Michael’s rear end, rupturing Michael’s left rear suspension and taking Michael out of the race. The impact spun both cars out of the track and was stopped when both cars caught each other on the front wings. Michael was definitely pissed, he came out of his car and walked to Sato (who was still stuck in his seat), exchanged a few words and knocked on Sato’s helmet. (I so wished it was Alonso Sato knocked into).
There was one close shave involving Alonso. Villneuve (I don’t know the right spelling) was trying to over take Alonso on the way out of the V-shaped hairpin (haha, all of the corners, hairpins and chicanes in F1 tracks have names, but they’re so weird I can’t recall) and both cars were wheel to wheel. Alonso barely squeezed out of the situation, making full use of the car’s speed. (I so wished Villnueve knocked into Alonso). Crazy Villneuve didn’t stop there. Karthikayen tried to pull an over taking maneuver on Villneuve, who never gave room for Karthikayen to pass. Villneuve made full use of the racing lines and forced Karthikayen flying off the track. It was fortunate for the rookie driver to land on grass and managed not to damage the car’s underside chassis. He continued on racing until the finishing line. Villneuve was being pretty defensive throughout the race, always denying other drivers the chance to over take him. Button tried his luck, but was successfully blocked by Villneuve. For a while at least J.
There were about four more laps to go. It was looking like a one-two finish to McLaren, but as fate has it, Montoya had to crash out. He was holding onto the first spot almost throughout the race, but pit stop strategies pushed him lower. As he was navigating traffic and doing his best to regain his position, he collided with Pizzonia, ending the race for both of them. He looked dumb struck, so I’m assuming that he initiated the collision. Hehe. If it was Pizzonia’s fault, I would have expected Montoya to burst into flames J. That would have been another cool drama for the masses J. Montoya was leading Alonso in second place, so with him out of the race, Alonso moved up into second place L. Bad news for my beloved Kimi.
Kimi took the chequered (Arif, the best F1 pundit in the house, corrected this for me) flag in style, pulling a gap of 35 seconds between him and Alonso, who had to fight for second place until the end of the race. Button came in third and gave a strong showing throughout the race. It was nice seeing the smile on Kimi’s face. Hehe. He smiles only if he wins the race. Never satisfied with a podium finish.
As it turns out, Kimi has a slim chance of winning the world title. He needs to win the three remaining races and Alonso NEEDS to crash out (or at least not finish in the points) in all the remaining races. Lady luck, please shine on Kimi ;).
Have to say Spa is an interesting track. Surrounded by green hills, there are slopes to climb onto and plenty of long straights to speed on. The crazy weather also added some touch of drama to the races there. Plenty of room for over taking. The uneven track surface increased the level of difficulty in navigating the track. Longest track on the racing calendar. Hehe. (and again I don’t know how to end this piece ;P)
