Centurion

The starting grid for tomorrow's race is pretty much what we anticipated as far as manufacturers.
We see both drivers for each of the top 3 manufacturers:

1 - F. Massa Ferrari
2 - L. Hamilton McLaren-Merc
3 - K. Raikkonen Ferrari
4 - F. Alonso McLaren-Merc
5 - N. Heidfeld BMW
6 - R. Kubica BMW

Some interesting post-qualifying statements I recall:

L. Hamilton is basically surprised (me too!) at how well he is doing only after his first 2 races.
Fernando is feeling good about his car and appeared to have confidence that he can really open it up. He admits that his battle is with Ferrari.
Nick seemed to be content at being the third strongest team (BMW).
R. Kubica is optimistic and hopes to get his first points tomorrow.
Kimi is never happy.

I think the report was for better weather for race day, with a good possibility of no rain throughout.
Enjoy!

BetterMakeWay

Nice qualifys. BMW put up some good performance. It's nice to see both drivers from BMW, going out just once in Q2 to secure the superpole. It shows great performance and confidence. 3rd place in Q2 and a very disputed 5th place in the superpole is the best bmw got. Nick hopes the cars ahead were running light and that some of them will pit sonner than him.
All the best to Kubica. Let it be a clean race for him

PoleApart

I know in qualifying Kubica was driving the spare car - the one in Malaysia and Australia was clearly jinxed. What does he get to drive in the race - the spare or the jinx?

BetterMakeWay

I dunno where you got the info. I didn't know that and nor do i know if it's true. BMW Suber F1 website didn't say anything about this...

BetterMakeWay

4th place for Heidfeld. GREAT RACE FOR HIM! Who says bmw doesn't have what it takes huh? Heidfeld got a taste of Alonso and that's great. Great pass, on the outside and with the current world champion.
6th place for Kubica which is good but something is wrong or he simply did his best?! My quick after the race hunch is that something didn't work quite right with his car. Maybe the set-up.

Great race for Hamilton.

Soon my friends, soon BMW will take a podium and maybe 1st place...we'll never know. THEY HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN!

Very pleased with the results.

nicke60gre

Yeah, Heidfeld took Alonso's underwear (we say in Greece) in that curve.

VIIV

The fuel filler door didn't close after the first stop. The feed didn't pick up on that, not as obvious as the same problem with Red Bull. But Robert didn't seem able to challenge Nick anyway.

There was some nice passing today, by DC especially. Nick's pass was very good but clearly helped by McLaren being poor on scrubbed tires. Ferrari seemed better on scrubs than fresh rubber, which also helped Alonso get past Kimi at the better. Kimi was working very hard in his car, compared to a very smooth Hamilton and Heidfeld.

Interesting to see Wurz up there on trap speed. Clearly the Toyota lump is plenty powerful, which again points out the importance of aero balance and mechanical grip. It will be interesting to see if BMW can keep pace with improvements that we can expect from Ferrari and McLaren in advance of Spain. If they do, it will be a big step to consolidating them into the top three, rather than just best of the rest.

madoon

i work in the track... and was soo busy the entire weekend that i couldnt see the race...
but it seems excellent that nick finished ahead of alonso... am a ferrari fan so congrats to massa on his win... there were alot of brazilians from around the world gathered to cheer him on.. must say he didnt disappiont them...
ill try to catch a rerun....

Centurion

Yes, very bold move by Nick indeed and it paid off. I'll admit, I like watching Fernando race, but I enjoyed that outside pass very much.
This is his last season on contract with BMW. He may be trying to prove to them that he would like to stay longer. So far, this is his best season start: three races and three 4th place finishes. I'm sure he can just sense a podium finish by now.

Robert Kubica finally gets some points under his belt, although, he didn't do as well as I expected. At the very least, he should have been right behind the first pack of cars, but he let them get away. He was dictating the pace of the 2nd pack of cars instead.

Felipe's car was solid all weekend. This was his race to silence the critics. Congratulations.

Kimi was doing a dance around the circuit called the Finnish slide.
However, I think you could attribute some of that to Fernando who seemed to be braking earlier when approaching the curves. Maybe he was trying to play dirty.

What happened to Renault? Did Fernando take half of the team's talent when he left?
When asked about his thoughts on his former team, he said he got out at the right time. Sounds like their could be some bad blood between the two.

This is what I'm talking about...
Three drivers all tied up in points for 1st place. One of them a rookie. Again, I'm not hating here but this post-Schumacher F1 season is a lot more enjoyable which is more than what I could say for the past few seasons. Anyone else agree?

And lastly, the bad news... the Spanish GP is 4 long weeks away.

PoleApart

http://www.f1-live.com/f1/en/headlines/new...413165622.shtml

or google Bahrain Kubica spare car