McLaren have been right on top with their car's performance and reliability this year and the US grand prix was a testimony to their sheer domination. The first four cars that finished were the one's that started from the same positions on the grid. There were two instances where Alonso challenged Hamilton but couldn't get past due to superb driving by the latter. Turn 1 this year didn't provide too many crashes, only 6 cars retired from the race. McLaren go to France from here with 106 championship points in their kitty and Lewis leads the drivers championship with 58 points with Alonso on 48. With some upgrades expected on the car in France McLaren could emerge stronger.
Felipe Massa had a decent race and help up the challenge from fellow team mate Kimi Raikkonen in the finishing stages. Kimi lost 4 places in the starting lap but fought back agressively to gain all of them back. He was also set the fastest lap of the race at 1m13.117secs which could be signs of the Finn fighting back. Nick Heidfeld was driving well until his car simply gave up on him. Ferrari and Sauber have good cars and are the one's that can challenge McLaren. Surprisingly the Torro Rosso Car of Luizi was the fastest in terms of top speed hitting 335 kmph in the straight section from Turn 13 to Turn1.
1 Lewis Hamilton Vodafone McLaren Mercedes 1h39:09.065
2 Fernando Alonso Vodafone McLaren Mercedes +1.518
3 Felipe Massa Scuderia Ferrari +12.842
4 Kimi Raikkonen Scuderia Ferrari +15.422
5 Heikki Kovalainen Renault +41.402
6 Jarno Trulli Toyota +1:06.703
7 Mark Webber Williams F1 +1:07.331
8 Sebastian Vettel BMW Sauber +1:07.783
9 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault +1 lap
10 Alex Wurz Williams F1 +1 lap
11 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri +1 lap
12 Jenson Button Honda Racing +1 lap
Can someone ask the Indianapolis Motoring Speedway authorities to do some publicity and get the stands filled? It's appalling to see stands vacant in the main straight track of the race.
3 comments:
Lack of crowds... a very good reason for the US GP to be taken off the calendar... The recent talks of bringing it to India is all fine, but I think that the Indian GP would also run to empty stands unless the ticket prices are affordable.
India is a big auto market and there are huge number of fans. Case in point, last weekends JK kart championship. I went to the track hoping about 50 people but the whole village was full. Pricing of tickets should be competitive but Formula1 is like an Aerosmith concert, people will flock to it.
True... as long as the pricing isn't exorbitant, the crowds will flock to it. A couple of years' time would tell like the US GP on the crowd support :-)
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