MICHAEL PICKS UP FIRST WIN IN SAN MARINO
(Image taken from Yahoo)
So the show's hit Europe, where the majority of the action always is. Renault's running things so far but now they've hit Imola, bonafide Ferrari territory. Off the track, Toyota were dumb enough to fire Mike Gascoyne for embarrassing the motor company's President(talk about a shot in the foot!). Elsewhere, Honda really needed to get their act together after letting Jenson down in the flyaways. In short, everything boiling nicely.
First up of course was qualifying. DC dodged a bullet in session one but the biggest shock of that round was his teammate Klien not making it - in other words it was a non-event. The same couldn't be said about session two where despite the Scotsman putting up a solid looking time early on, he went on to crumble and picked up 14th. He was in good company though, Fisichella was left in 11th. The top 10 looked Ferrari dominated, with Shumacher and Massa trading pole laps before Jenson crashed the tifosi party! Michael still got back pole but Button claimed second with Barrichello blowing away his previous Honda qualifying performances with third. Massa was fourth with Alonso all the way down in fifth. That kept the tifosi happy for a while.
In the race...well DC had a pretty noneventful time, cruising round the midfield. He never got higher than 12th and was then seen late on going very slow. His driveshaft was busted and his race ended after 47 laps. A DNF is alway a bummer particularly with the '06 Red Bull seemingly not as good at picking up points as it's predecessor.
As for Jenson, well he started solidly enough, kept himself in second place and survived an early safety car period(that's most of the problems in Oz taken care of). And then he went into the pits. Well a loose tyre slowed down his first stop and when things settled down, he found himself in third behind Alonso - and then the fuel pump stuck to his car after the second pitstop. Eventually he picked up seventh which at least got him some points but the Brit has got to be the unluckiest driver of '06 so far.
With Button's demise, the contest for the win was left between Schmacher and Alonso. The Ferrari had gremlins of some kind but the German was in no mood to let his rival past and Renault's attempt to outsmart Ferrari at pitstop strategy by bringing their guy in early fell flat. Eventually, Alonso gave up - the guy's still leading the championship after all - and cruised for second while Michael picked up his first(and the first non-Renault) win of the season. Montoya quietly picked up his first podium of '06 by picking up third.
Lessons learned from San Marino:
Honda(am I picking on these guys too much? Who cares?): I think your pit crew need more training.
Four rounds down and the Championship looks like this: Alonso leading with 36 points, Michael up to second with 21, Raikonen down to third with 18, Fisichella down to fourth with 15 points(and a win in Malaysia), Montoya up to fifth, also with 15 with Jenson down to sixth on 13. DC's on joint 14th with one point.
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