Well, this weekend saw some encouraging progress for BAR. After a rather impressive pair of engine failures on Friday during practice (one caught JV's car on fire), BAR rallied to set 3rd and 5th fastest Friday qualifying-qualifying times. This with less than 15 hot laps between the two drivers!

The nature of the engine failures was "quality control problems" with the camshafts (or a related component). Not to denigrate the press statements given by Nakamoto-san, but I think that's an awfully simplistic way to sum up a problem.

It's likely that there is some design issue that was not foreseen that made itself apparent with the additional factor of poorly constructed materials. Example: If the cast magnesium or aluminum valvetrain support structure had excessive porosity, the material would fail quite quickly and comprehensively. The team will know more a day or two after they get those failed parts back from Albert Park, Melbourne.

The race itself was very interesting, with the podium free of Ferrari colors for the first time in over 3 years!!! An excellent bit of pit strategy by Ron Dennis' team and good performance from the MP17 and the Michelin tires led to the Coulthard victory. Jaguar and Toyota seemed to be much more on the pace and Sauber seemed to struggle with ultimate pace. Jordan had bad luck but looks set to remain a mid-field contender.

Minardi took a BIG chance with the rules and didn't bother qualifying now that the 107% rule is out. That allowed them to start from pit lane but work on the cars all night. In all fairness, that was probably a good thing, as it meant they could check the car and ensure that it was not going to disintegrate during the race. Minardi seem to be showing some decent pace with the new Cossie engine deal...at least now they can run some downforce without being 20mph slower on the straights.

Other notable things were the track conditions and weather. It rained overnight before the race and this meant that the teams had to figure out what tires to start on. Bridgestone convinced many of their teams to run intermediates...the problem was that the sun had been out and the track was RAPIDLY drying. Rubens Barrichello was the loser in this situation, as his tires wore off too quickly and he spun the car before he could get into the pits to refuel and change rubber to drys.

We've already spent a lot of time on the professional motorsports board here at TOV talking about the botched pit stop. The simple fact is: Jensen Button lost easily 20-30 seconds of track position just due to his sitting in the pitlane and then probably another 15 seconds of track position being stuck behind Jacques during the last sprint to the flag. Jensen had the pace to catch Ralf Schumacher and battle for points. Whether or not Jacques did it on purpose or really did have radio trouble is moot now....the race is done...BAR P9 and P10, outside the points. Get it together boys, the next race will be tougher yet!




At the request of one of our readers..I couldn't find a group picture, but I COULD doctor up one and make fun of the Speed Channel guys ;-)....