iSport's Motorsport Expert Kunal Shah enjoyed the battle between Ferrari and Force India in Spa. While he's celebrating the podium place for Force India - he is a little disappointed that they didn't try and gun for victory in Belgium. Read on...
Forza Ferrari! Forza India!
Unexpected! Two teams that had the worst start to the 2009 season were the teams that clinched the top two steps of the podium in Belgium. Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen clinched their first victory of the 2009 season whereas Force India and Giancarlo Fisichella clinched their first points ever in true Kingfisher style – by finishing a strong second.
Giancarlo managed a fantastic start off the line holding his position into the La Source hairpin and accelerated up towards Eau Rouge. Kimi on the other hand took the outside line and a wider arc going on to the artificial turf and still managing to come back and re-join in third place and KERS-ing his way past Robert Kubica.
The first lap accidents led to a Safety Car period and Kimi used this to his advantage to further KERS Giancarlo to the entry of Les Combes. Perfect Kimi stuff – to grab the lead for the race.
While the front runners matched their pace lap to lap I was a little disappointed to not see Force India try a different fuel strategy to jump Kimi’s Ferrari. Both the teams decided to bring in their drivers on the same lap for both their stints – handing Ferrari the pit-stop advantage.
Post-race Giancarlo declared in front of the world media that he believed he had the pace to win. But I am certain that FIF1 wouldn’t have been able to overtake a KERS fitted Ferrari in Spa – no ways!
While the second place is a perfect finish for the team and a great way to open their championship account, I wished that the FIF1 team on the pit wall would’ve opted for a longer second stint – by a lap or two and made life a little bit more difficult for Ferrari.
By pitting on the same lap, it was certain that the team left Giancarlo to do the over-taking on track. But could they have given him an extra two laps to crawl back Kimi’s 1 second gap? Could that have just given Force India their only chance to over-take the Ferrari? A thought that they will surely have in the post-race briefing – something that will help them grow into a Grand Prix winning team.
Speculation and analysis aside, it’s a great result for Vijay Mallya’s team and hope they only build from here and get the Indian fans a step closer to hearing the ‘Jana Gana Mana’ on the the podium!
Giancarlo managed a fantastic start off the line holding his position into the La Source hairpin and accelerated up towards Eau Rouge. Kimi on the other hand took the outside line and a wider arc going on to the artificial turf and still managing to come back and re-join in third place and KERS-ing his way past Robert Kubica.
The first lap accidents led to a Safety Car period and Kimi used this to his advantage to further KERS Giancarlo to the entry of Les Combes. Perfect Kimi stuff – to grab the lead for the race.
While the front runners matched their pace lap to lap I was a little disappointed to not see Force India try a different fuel strategy to jump Kimi’s Ferrari. Both the teams decided to bring in their drivers on the same lap for both their stints – handing Ferrari the pit-stop advantage.
Post-race Giancarlo declared in front of the world media that he believed he had the pace to win. But I am certain that FIF1 wouldn’t have been able to overtake a KERS fitted Ferrari in Spa – no ways!
While the second place is a perfect finish for the team and a great way to open their championship account, I wished that the FIF1 team on the pit wall would’ve opted for a longer second stint – by a lap or two and made life a little bit more difficult for Ferrari.
By pitting on the same lap, it was certain that the team left Giancarlo to do the over-taking on track. But could they have given him an extra two laps to crawl back Kimi’s 1 second gap? Could that have just given Force India their only chance to over-take the Ferrari? A thought that they will surely have in the post-race briefing – something that will help them grow into a Grand Prix winning team.
Speculation and analysis aside, it’s a great result for Vijay Mallya’s team and hope they only build from here and get the Indian fans a step closer to hearing the ‘Jana Gana Mana’ on the the podium!
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Srikanth
said:
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... totally agree on the second stint analysis, the ease with which kimi took fisi showed that KERS was a huge deterrant for fif1...i 'm sure tht they knew tht the car was faster thn the ferrari, y did they not stay for an extra lap? it seemed such an obvious decision.....maybe they had stretched him to the limit already? |
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