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PsyM Reviews The French GP At Magny-Cours
By BMWF1Talk July 4 2007
PsyM talks about the 2007 French Grand Prix, where the BMW Sauber F1 Team scored 9 valuable points. Though the result was good for the team, there was a worryingly large gap between the F1.07's pace and the pace of the Ferrari's and McLaren's. Read on..

So the French GP has just ended and here are my thoughts about what happened.

Robert Kubica was back after his major accident at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, but rumours circulated that Sebastian Vettel would once again be driving the BMW-Sauber F1.07. This time though it would be at the expense of Heidfeld.
Nick had prematurely ended the Silverstone test a week earlier due to back pain. He also did minimal running on Friday to preserve his back.
However, on Saturday Qaulifying our regular drivers were on track. Both did a solid job with Robert in 4th (personal best) and Nick in 7th behind the two rapidly improving Renaults of Kovalainen and Fisichella.
Alonso’s McLaren let him down in Q3 and he didn’t set a lap time, thus he started from 10th on Sunday.
On pole was Massa and behind him were Hamilton and Räikkönen. I was really looking forward to the first corner fight between those 3 guys!
And, as we all know, the first corner result was important for the race. Kimi overtaking Hamilton was good; otherwise Massa would have disappeared into the distance.  The Ferrari’s looked really good all weekend and they ultimately trashed McLaren in France.  This was an important outcome, as I had feared the McLaren’s would pull away and end the championship early.
Back to our guys: they both did really good! Robert started and ended his race in a lonely 4th place.  If you didn’t know, you would never have guessed that he was in a major crash just a few weeks ago.  I still however think that he was a little bit too friendly letting Hamilton pass him so easily.
Nick had his “ass” full of Alonso for much of the race and successfully held him at bay lap after lap.  Alonso did however pass him eventually with a brilliant move. It all was in vain though as he was much lighter than Heidfeld and after the pit stops, Alonso found himself once again following the rear of Heidfeld’s BMW.  Nick finished in 5th. 9 points is our best result ever and you might think I should be extremely happy.... but I’m not!  I’m happy for the 9 points, of course, but we were a long way from Ferrari and McLaren this weekend – we were far, far away. And had it not been for Trulli crashing into Kovalainen, both of the Renaults would have been chasing us down to the finish line. It seems that the other teams had done their homework a little better than us this weekend. I hope it’s just a one off, otherwise we might see the Renault’s in front of us and taking 3rd place.
So bring on Silverstone, and prove me wrong!

P.S. What the hell was Albers thinking! And thank goodness for modern Formula racing cars... Ernesto Viso’s crash was horrifying in the GP2 race. Glad he is ok.

Regards PsyM

 

 

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