By Matt Jones
September 25 2006

Regular RealHondaF1.com reader Matt Jones again takes us back to a previous Grand Prix, this time giving us his own views on the Turkish Grand Prix, and what it means for Honda and the championship. After a long three week break to let Jenson Button’s maiden win sink in we go to Turkey where, last year, it served us with a thrilling race. The question on everyone’s mind is how competitive are Honda going to be? The wet conditions no doubt helped us in Hungary but hopefully we can be competitive in the dry too. With the championship race between Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso heating up Turkey is brewing up to be a fantastic race.

In qualifying we had mixed fortunes with Jenson putting his car on the third row of the grid and Rubens Barrichello in the sister car lining up 14th. Unfortunately Rubens was left struggling with the car once again and had a lot to do in the race to salvage anything at all.

As expected it was an all Ferrari front row, with an all Renault second row. Nick Heidfeld impressed yet again in the BMW-Sauber, qualifying on the third row and lining up to Jenson Button. Another driver who impressed was Christian Klien, surprisingly out performing David Coulthard by quite a bit and leaving himself in a good position to score some points.

With the McLaren’s both starting from quite a way back, along with the Toyota’s and Williams’ cars, it looked likely that some midfield battles could form for some excellent racing.

Into turn one and Fernando Alonso ran wide, almost collecting teammate Giancarlo Fisichella in the process. Unfortunately for Giancarlo he had to take evasive action which resulted in him spinning and causing mayhem into turn one. Pat Symonds congratulated Giancarlo after the race, saying that not crashing into Alonso was a “sporting move”. I doubt Giancarlo had time to think of how sporting he was being as he was spinning 180° and being collected by other cars, and nor do I think he had much choice in the matter. Had he touched Alonso it’s likely it would have ended both their races.

The first corner carnage resulted in a couple of retirements and numerous nose changes down the field. The highest profile casualty was Kimi Raikonnen who once again got caught up in a racing incident which resulted in him spinning off his damaged car and retiring from the race.

A lot of drivers either lost a lot or gained a lot in the first corner incident the two Williams drivers being the biggest winners, with Nico Rosberg running in sixth and team mate Mark Webber running in fourth it looked like Williams would score a good haul of points. Unfortunately it was not to be as Nico suffered from reliability problems and Webber had misfortune with the timing of the safety car after it was deployed after Vitantonio Liuzzi span.

As both Ferraris led the rest of the field, the team had the dilemma of switching their two drivers without team orders. A perfect opportunity arose when the safety car was deployed but instead of keeping Felipe Massa on track and pitting Michael Schumacher, they pitted both cars and made Schumacher queue behind Massa, resulting in Alonso stealing second place - surely a opportunity missed by Ferrari and surely they were kicking themselves the day after as Alonso once again opened up his advantage in the world championship race which is drawing quickly to a close. Nonetheless it was an excellent display from both drivers with Massa getting his maiden win.

Renault starting to look more competitive and will be happy that, once again, they took more of an advantage over Schumacher. However, Ferrari took points away from them in the constructor’s championship and you would have to say they look favourites to take it, with Fisichella still not performing to anything near the level of Alonso.

No one expected Honda to be winning, or be anywhere near winning, but I was pleasantly surprised by our pace. Unfortunately Barrichello was struggling again with the car whilst once again Button was up in the strong points. A double points finish is great for the team again and fourth place is the constructors’ championship is highly unlikely to be taken from us. Unfortunately I think McLaren are too far ahead to try and catch so perhaps this is the reason the team is focusing on trying to get a head start for next season.

McLaren will be disappointed that once again Raikonnen got caught up in the thick of the carnage into turn one. Pedro de la Rosa is definitely putting himself in the picking for the second race seat next year with another quiet but solid display. Surely he has done enough to seal that seat?

Toyota were pretty mixed really with Ralf Schumacher suffering from engine problems over the weekend and Jarno Trulli suffering from a lack of pace. They did well to come away with some points and have now jumped ahead of BMW-Sauber in the constructors’ championship.

BMW-Sauber were looking on for a strong weekend with Heidfeld lining up on the second row. Unfortunately, it wasn’t to be, as he was caught up in the first corner incident and damaged his car heavily. I still favour them to finish marginally ahead of Toyota in the constructors championship, though.

Red Bull Racing looked on for some points with Christian Klien running strongly in the opening stages. Unfortunately he got caught up in the midfield and couldn’t find enough pace to make a difference. It’s understandable why Red Bull want to replace him, as he has been very disappointing this year.

Williams were once again suffering from terrible reliability, and have now not scored in nine races - an awful run of form. Things seem to be going from bad to worse and I don’t see a quick fix for the team. I would not be surprised if they did not score again this campaign. With Alexander Wurz taking the race seat next season he will perhaps be disappointed because it seems he is going to be driving a car he will not be able to prove himself in.

Scuderia Toro Rosso looked quite handy in the opening stages, with both drivers pulling good moves on faster cars. Unfortunately it was short lived and they made very little impression on the race whatsoever. I also find it surprising that they are keeping the same driver line-up for next season.

Super Aguri’s hopes of being able to challenge higher up the grid have been short lived with bad reliability and speed they still have some way to go before they are challenging MidlandF1.

MidlandF1 contributed very little again and there is now talk of them being brought (again). Usually there is no smoke without fire and I expect they will have new owners in the future as they continue.

As it was last year the Turkish GP proved to be a great event. The race was once again arguably the best of the season and yet again we were served with another twist in the championship race story. With four races to go its one of the closest championships in years and I’m guessing it is going to get a lot closer.

As for Honda it seems the team has firmly laid plans down for next season to ensure we have the best start possible. Hopefully that means we will once again see a Honda winning a race and who knows maybe a championship. Already it seems quite a long time ago since Jenson took the race win in Hungary and next season I think we will see it again!