Kimi Raikkonen spoiled Fernando Alonso’s bid to put a smile on the face of the Spanish people 48 hours after one of the worst airline disasters in the country’s history.
Alonso had earlier yesterday led a minute’s silence in memory of the 153 passengers killed in a crash at Madrid airport on Wednesday.
All the Formula One drivers, team principals and F1 supremo Bernie Ecclestone took part in the mark of respect that was conducted at noon.
Just over three hours later, Alonso was top of the standings in practice for tomorrow’s European Grand Prix at the newly-designed street circuit that winds its way around Valencia’s marina.
But in the closing moments reigning world champion Raikkonen posted the fastest lap of the day in his Ferrari of one minute, 39.477 seconds, knocking Alonso into second place by just 0.020secs.
It would be fair to assume in his bid to sit pretty, Alonso was running a low-fuel load late on, similarly with Jenson Button.
In a surprising turn of events, Button was third quickest in his Honda, in total contrast to team-mate Rubens Barrichello who was left propping up the standings at the end of the 90-minute run.
With Alonso and Button able to conjure such quick times, expect laps of sub one minute, 39 seconds in today’s qualifying session from the championship favorites.
Ferrari’s Felipe Massa was fourth overall, followed by the McLaren of Lewis Hamilton, both just over 0.2secs adrift.
Hamilton’s team-mate Heikki Kovalainen and Toyota’s Timo Glock were sixth and seventh, and the only other drivers to dip below one minute, 40 seconds for the 5.440km circuit.
Unlike Monaco that uses public roads around the streets of the principality, the Valencia track is predominantly purpose built.
There are a number of wide run-off areas to catch any mistakes, and there were many throughout the two sessions as the drivers acclimatised themselves to the virgin territory.
Nevertheless, it is still remarkably eye-catching, notably crossing a swing bridge that when in every-day use opens and closes to allow yachts and ships to enter and exit.
At one point, the fastest section where cars hit speeds of 315kph, there is the unusual sight of seeing them heading in one direction, whilst the other side of a large concrete barrier there is a dual roadway with ordinary road vehicles traveling in the other.
sidepodcast wrote,
very minor point, and apologies for being picky, but that image might not show the valencian street track
Link | August 23rd, 2008 at 7:53 pm
Rage-in-Chief wrote,
Thanks, and you’re not being picky.
I’ll double check, the image was captioned as Valencia, however I’ll compare it with a couple other sources to be sure.
Link | August 23rd, 2008 at 10:08 pm