Schumacher Apologises To Barrichello
Michael Schumacher
Michael Schumacher admitted that his blocking manoeuvre on Rubens Barrichello towards the end of Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix had been “too hard” and, in a rare apology, said he was “sorry” for placing the Brazilian in danger.
Barrichello, now racing for Williams, described Schumacher’s move as the most dangerous made against him in his 300-race career and accused his former Ferrari team-mate of almost killing him to settle old scores.
“If he wants to go to heaven before me he can; I don’t want to go to heaven yet,” Barrichello said. “It was a go-karting manoeuvre. He’s taking something from the past into the present and there’s no need for that.”
The incident occurred when the pair were battling for the final point-scoring 10th place and Schumacher ran wide coming into the pit straight. Barrichello moved to pass the Mercedes driver on the inside but the German, making a comeback this season after three years in retirement, closed the gap, squeezing the Brazilian gradually closer to the pit wall.
An accident was averted only when the wall ended and Barrichello was able to veer right and pass into turn one. Schumacher, 41, was given a 10-place grid penalty for the forthcoming Belgian Grand Prix on Aug 29.
Schumacher was initially unapologetic, claiming that Barrichello was making a fuss about nothing. “We know certain drivers have certain views, and then there’s Rubens …” he said. “As far as I was concerned there was enough room for him to get through there. But it’s clear that I wanted to make life for him as difficult as possible.”
However, on his website on Monday, Schumacher admitted he had been in the wrong and said his post-race reaction was borne of adrenalin.
“Yesterday, right after the race I was still in the heat of the action, but after I watched the incident with Rubens again, I must say that the stewards were right with their assessment: the move against him was too hard,” Schumacher said.
“I wanted to make it hard for him to pass me. I clearly showed him that I didn’t want to let him pass but I wasn’t seeking to endanger him with my move. If he feels I was, then I’m sorry; this wasn’t my intention.”
It was not the only controversial incident of the race for the Mercedes team, who also released Nico Rosberg from a pit stop with one of his wheels not properly secured. The German had only gone a few yards when the wheel flew off and bounced down the pit lane, knocking down a Williams mechanic, who escaped with bruised ribs.
Team principal Ross Brawn said that the team had worked out where they went wrong and promised to be more vigilant in future.
“It appears that as the guy came off with the wheel gun, it spat the wheel nut but he didn’t see it disappear,” Brawn said. “He went back on, fired the gun and realised the nut was no longer there so came back out to grab the other gun and the rear jack guy thought he had finished, so he dropped the car and away he went. I think we understand what happened and we will look at how we can prevent it happening again.”
He added: “When the gun went on to take the nut off, the gun hadn’t engaged properly, so the nut was off the axle and it spat it out.”
Meanwhile, the sport’s governing body has announced the date of Ferrari’s hearing into their actions in Hockenheim two weekends ago when they defied a ban on team orders by instructing Felipe Massa to stand aside and allow team-mate Fernando Alonso through to win the race.
Ferrari were fined $100,000 on the spot – the maximum allowed – and the case was referred to the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council for further consideration under Article 151c of its Sporting Code, which deals with disrepute charges.
FIA president Jean Todt, a former team principal of Ferrari, is not expected to attend the hearing on Sept 8, the week of the Italian Grand Prix at Monza. It will be chaired by the FIA’s deputy president for sport, Graham Stoker.
Todt is keen to avoid allegations of a conflict of interests, having promised an overhaul of the governing body’s disciplinary process during his election campaign last year.
Courtesy of The Telegraph
Barrichello: Schumacher Hasn’t Changed
Rubens Barrichello of Brazil
Rubens Barrichello felt he was lucky to be alive following a hair-raising duel with former Ferrari team-mate Michael Schumacher.
Barrichello laid into the seven-times Champion after claiming 10th place from Schumacher four laps from home of the Hungarian Grand Prix, after almost ending up in the pit wall for his troubles.
Mercedes star Schumacher blatantly squeezed Barrichello to the right of the start-finish straight as the Brazilian attempted to pass, coming within millimetres of hitting the concrete barrier.
The incident left Barrichello fuming, and the stewards were on his side as they hit Schumacher with a 10-place grid penalty for the next race in Belgium on August 29 for illegitimately impeding the Williams driver.
Barrichello was later scathing in his comments as he said: “It was a go-kart manoeuvre.
“If he wants to go to heaven – in the event he is going to heaven – I don’t want to go before him.
“Thank God I was lucky the wall finished where it did because I was millimetres from it.
“I said to the stewards we are two of the most experienced guys out there, and if Michael does that, it means kids can do that too.
“That is where it is wrong in my opinion. But I am just very glad and very lucky we are here to talk, honestly.”
Asked whether he had spoken with Schumacher, Barrichello refused to let up in his condemnation of the man he spent six seasons working alongside, and playing second fiddle to, at Ferrari.
“I won’t speak to him because it won’t resolve things,” added the 38-year-old.
“You know Michael. You talk to him and he will always feel that he is right.
“But I’m a just guy, and justice was done in a way because he has been away for three years and he hasn’t changed a thing. He is still the same guy.
“I love racing, but what has been done to me is literally over the top.”
Courtesy of PlanetF1
Mark Webber Back On Top Of Standings
Mark Webber and teammate Sebastian Vettel.
Australia’s Mark Webber leads the Formula One world championship after winning the Hungarian Grand Prix from Fernando Alonso.
His team-mate Sebastian Vettel again failed to turn pole position into a race victory after a controversial drive-through penalty. The German finished third after failing to find a way past Alonso, with Felipe Massa in fourth.
With Lewis Hamilton’s McLaren suffering a gearbox failure on lap 24, Webber now lead of the championship by four points from the Briton, with Vettel a further six points down.
With just a fifth of the 70-lap race gone it appeared as if a processional run to the finish was in store on a circuit where overtaking is virtually impossible.
But thanks to nothing more than that piece of debris on the track from Vitantonio Liuzzi’s Force India, it sparked remarkable scenes, penalties and retirements.
The safety car came into play, with Vettel just receiving the call in time to pit as he cut across the kerb running alongside the entry to the pit lane. With the exception of Webber, running third at the time, the bulk of the field piled in to change their tyres.
Mercedes’ Nico Rosberg was primarily the instigator of the mayhem – or at least part of his pit crew were as they failed to correctly fit his right rear tyre.
As the German pulled out onto the pit lane the tyre worked loose, initially rolling and then bouncing its way through the other pit crews, with one Sauber mechanic just avoiding injury. Whether it was a distraction to Renault’s pit team is unclear, but Robert Kubica was released too early by his lollipop man.
Within an instant he had run into the side of Force India’s Adrian Sutil just as he was about to pull into his pit entry box.
The damage was too great for Sutil to continue, and although Kubica was soon sent on his way again he unsurprisingly received a 10-second stop-go penalty for an unsafe release from the pits.
As for Rosberg, he trundled down to the end of the pit lane on three wheels, and with his crew unable to retrieve him, that is where he retired. The stewards are to further investigate both incidents after the race, with the likelihood the teams will receive penalties given the danger that had been created.
The safety car initially seemed to serve McLaren well as Hamilton jumped Felipe Massa in the pit stops and Ferrari were forced to back their drivers up.
That allowed Hamilton to move up to fourth, whilst Jenson Button, who had made his stop just before the safety car was deployed, had moved up to 10th from 14th following a woeful start.
The drama, though, did not end there because just as the safety car was poised to return after two laps on track, Vettel allowed Webber to open up a considerable margin.
The tactics were clear, with Webber needing to stop, the team were looking for him to get a flyer in the hope he could then eke out a lead, take on tyres and so secure a one-two, likely behind Vettel.
Vettel, though, allowed the gap to Webber to exceed 10 car lengths, which is against the regulations, resulting in him being handed a drive-through penalty.
When he served his punishment at the end of lap 31, he allowed his emotions to get the better of him as he clenched his fists in anger, seemingly towards the stewards, as he drove through the pit lane.
In filing in between the two Ferraris, and despite staring at the back of Alonso’s exhaust for around the final 30 laps, the 23-year-old never once found an opportunity to pass.
Out in front Webber, who it initially appeared had made a mistake in not making his stop when the safety car appeared, stayed out on the super-soft tyres for 43 laps.
By that time he had built up a 23-second cushion to Alonso, enough to allow him to take on fresh rubber, retain his lead and stroll to victory.
At the end the margin was 17.8secs, with Alonso holding off Vettel for second, followed by Massa in fourth and Renault’s Vitaly Petrov enjoying his best result for the team with fifth.
That was also the case for Williams’ Nico Hulkenberg who was sixth, whilst Pedro De La Rosa ended his points drought for Sauber with seventh.
Behind Button in eighth was the second Sauber of Kamui Kobayashi, whilst Williams’ Rubens Barrichello claimed the final point.
That was after a pass on Michael Schumacher in his Mercedes on lap 66 in which he was almost pushed into the wall along the pit straight, another incident the stewards are to investigate.
Courtesy of The Telegraph
Alonso Wins Controversial F1 Race
Fernando Alonso celebrates his win with a disappointed Felipe Massa and Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel.
Formula One was engulfed in a fresh ‘team orders’ row on Sunday night after Ferrari were found guilty of bringing the sport into disrepute by ordering Felipe Massa to stand aside and let Fernando Alonso win Sunday’s German Grand Prix at Hockenheim.
The Italian team were fined $100,000 (R740000) on the spot, with the matter also referred to the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council “for further consideration” under Article 151c of its Sporting Code, which basically gives the governing body carte blanche to sanction Ferrari as it sees fit.
Punishments could range from a slap on the wrist to exclusion from the championship, with a hearing not expected to take place until after this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix, during the sport’s August break.
The verdict capped a controversial day in Germany in which the stewards also mulled over the legality of the front wings on the Ferrari and Red Bull cars, although these were later cleared.
It was an uncomfortable victory for Ferrari, who should have been celebrating their first one-two since the season-opening race in Bahrain. But they ended up defending their Machiavellian tactics. In an ideal world it would have been Massa celebrating his first win since Brazil in 2008. The Brazilian’s dejection at the end — he looked utterly miserable in the post-race press conference — was all the more poignant for the fact that yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of his near-fatal accident in Budapest when he was hit on the helmet by a metal spring and spent almost three days in an induced coma.
Capitalising on Sebastian Vettel’s poor start from pole and the German’s subsequent preoccupation with Alonso, Massa, starting third, passed the pair on the outside and led the race going into the first corner. Although Alonso generally had the better pace, and indeed briefly passed Massa on lap 21, the Spaniard could not make the move stick and voiced his frustrations to the pit wall, and the wider world, saying: “This is ridiculous.”
Ferrari were faced with a difficult decision and eventually decided to back Alonso, who led Massa by 31 points going into the race. On lap 47 Massa’s race engineer, Rob Smedley, came on the radio to deliver the crushing news: “OK, so, Fernando is faster than you. Can you confirm you understood that message?”
The whole world understood it. Two laps later Massa allowed the Spaniard through on the exit to turn six, whereupon a sympathetic Smedley came on again: “Good lad. Just stick with it now. Sorry.”
It may not have been as blatant a case of team orders as the incident at the 2002 Austrian Grand Prix when Rubens Barrichello pulled over on the finish straight to allow Michael Schumacher past, but it was fooling no one. Eddie Jordan, commenting on the BBC, described the incident as “theft”. “They stole from us the chance of having a wheel-to-wheel contest between the drivers,” he said. “Ferrari should be ashamed. For me, it is cheating and these two cars should be excluded.”
Red Bull’s team principal, Christian Horner, was also scathing. “The regulations are pretty clear,” he said. “Team orders are not allowed.”
Indeed. Article 39.1 of the FIA’s Sporting Regulations, introduced in the wake of the incident in Austria in 2002, states: “Team orders which interfere with the race result will be prohibited.”
Ferrari and Massa later tried to claim, half-heartedly in the case of the Brazilian, that the idea had been the driver’s. “I’m very professional and I’ve showed today how professional I am,” Massa said during a heated press conference. “You have your job to do and I have mine.”
Alonso, by contrast, was unapologetic. Asked if he ranked this result up there with Singapore 2008, the infamous race in which Renault’s Nelson Piquet Jnr crashed his car to help his then team-mate win. “I think you have a very strong result from Ferrari today, one and two, a very strong performance all weekend and if the final thought of the weekend is your question it’s because maybe you didn’t see the whole practice, qualifying and the race,” he said.
Not good enough. Pressed on whether he could understand why some fans might feel cheated, Alonso made reference to Red Bull’s episode in Turkey when their drivers crashed into one another while fighting for the race lead. “Today Ferrari has 42 points [sic; 43] in their pocket, so I think it’s what we are here for,” he noted.
The end justifies the means, in other words. It did not wash with his audience, many of whom booed and hissed, and clearly it did not wash with the stewards either.
It was not supposed to happen like this. Vettel, the darling of the thousands of fans who packed Hockenheim, was meant to emerge from Michael Schumacher’s shadow to press his claims for the world title. He again choked on the start line and finished third, thereby going level on points with Webber in the standings.
It was another spot of plundering in Spain’s bountiful sporting summer. Rafael Nadal at Wimbledon, the footballers in South Africa, Alberto Contador in the Tour de France and now Alonso, back in the F1 hunt.
The sport needed him back. Even tarnished by controversy.
Courtesy of The Telegraph
Behind The Scenes With Rubens Barrichello
Brazilian Rubens Barrichello is a veteran of F1 racing.
Q: Are you the kind of guy to have a ‘Plan-B’?
Rubens Barrichello: I would say yes. It’s probably not a real Plan B, but let me give you an example. I am very open for changing lines after the start of a race. You can always start by saying to yourself that you’re going to be on the inside, but when you see that there is absolutely no space on the inside, well that’s the time to go on the outside. I am very open to these kinds of things.
Q: What is your favourite high?
RB: I am always so positive and smiley, but when I am at home doing nothing – and it’s probably something I shouldn’t do – is to drink a Coke. That gives me some sort of high.
Q: Who is your dream date?
RB: The way the question is put it obviously has to be a woman and you have plenty of faces that you would love to have opposite you at the table, even though my wife wouldn’t let me. But someone I really would love to have a chat with is Tiger Woods.
Q: Which film makes you cry?
RB: ‘The Champ’. It was a long time ago and the first movie that I can remember that made me cry. But I cry a lot to be honest, especially after having the kids. I have a lot of passion for my father and when I see him in my kids sometimes you just cry for the love of it.
Q: What are you afraid of?
RB: Violence. Money is so critical in the world that sometimes people start to steal, and I am not talking about just Brazil. Brazil I know and I don’t go to places with a violent character, but nowadays you get to see more of this in areas where you don’t expect it.
Q: What was the last book you read?
RB: That’s quite funny. I saw this book about somebody who lost weight without going on a diet. It’s called the Gabriel Method. I read that one recently – it’s quite unique.
Q: What was your biggest (non-Formula One) speeding fine?
RB: I was doing 186 km/h on the motorway. I was by myself and completely lost the plot. You just drive with an open mind and I got carried away a bit. That was because I was alone. When my family is with me I am a very tame driver!
Q: Name five things that you hate?
RB: Traffic, late planes, waiting for people at meetings. I cannot say that I hate it, but I don’t like it if the food is not what you expected. I hate it if somebody is hurrying me when I have a shower. My showers are quite long!
Q: Have you ever dyed your hair?
RB: Dye my hair with colours? No, never. I’m just losing my hair so I’m not painting it!
Q: What was the first CD that you bought?
RB: I think it was a Fleetwood Mac CD.
Q: Do you have any tattoos or piercings?
RB: I have a tattoo on my right arm. It’s a funny story. I always wanted to have a tattoo but I never told my dad because in the eighties a tattoo looked like an aggressive thing, so I never said anything. But at the end of 2005 my dad comes to me and shows me his new tattoo that he had just got! The next Monday I went to get my own one. My tattoo is two letters. It’s an F and an E. F for Fernando and E for Eduardo – my sons. Then I put a little accent and it becomes FÉ, which in Brazil means faith. That’s the story behind my long road to a tattoo.
Q: What did your teachers say about you in your school report?
RB: I was a great schoolboy because my father always told me that the only way for me to find sponsors is to have a good record in school. And that was the only feedback that he wanted. Teachers loved me. I was not so fantastic at school but at home I was able to learn very quickly, which showed in my results.
Q: Who were your childhood heroes?
RB: Ayrton Senna, of course, and I followed Keke Rosberg a lot too. I was so much into racing that I was not really looking anywhere else for heroes.
Q: Do you have any guilty pleasures?
RB: I make fun of other people a lot. That sometimes makes me feel guilty. I’ll give you an example. When I was on my honeymoon the place was perfect – probably too perfect! The big yellow sun, the beautiful blue sea, all serene and quiet, so I put shampoo on the bathroom floor and my wife almost fell into the bathtub. That was very funny and made me feel guilty.
Q: Do you collect anything?
RB: I collect other people’s helmets. I have a lot of them and I also exchange them. I have around 40 helmets, from almost everyone in the paddock now.
Q: What do you miss most from home when you’re travelling?
RB: My kids’ smiles. I miss the kids. One of them is very quiet and the other one is a little bit of a devil, and that makes a great combination.
Q: What was your worst buy?
RB: Well, the most expensive one for sure was the plane, but that has now become the best buy. But when I bought it, and spent most of my money on it, it occasionally made me feel I’d made a wrong decision.
Q: How do you take your coffee?
RB: I don’t take coffee. I like to drink a cola as it has the caffeine in it, but I don’t drink coffee.
Q: Your ideal non-race Sunday morning?
RB: Playing golf.
Q: What was your first car?
RB: A VW Golf – and I treated it so carefully.
Q: What’s the most embarrassing mistake you’ve ever made?
RB: The one I remember most was when I asked a friend of ours how pregnant she was and she replied that she wasn’t pregnant at all, just fat. I was truly embarrassed
Q: What is the best thing that you can cook?
RB: I can cook a lot of things. I have improved over time and the best thing I would say is a Brazilian barbeque.
Q: When was the last time you were really angry?
RB: It is really hard to get me really furious. Traffic drives me mad, especially in Brazil, where I always hope to be at home, because after five it’s just madness!
Courtesy www.f1.com
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