I love the moments when Steve Slater yells out the “game on” phrase while commenting in a F1 race. The Turkish Grand Prix proved to be yet another thriller for the audiences jam-packed with high series of action, drama, strategies and stints. For the racing teams, it turned out to be a good learning lesson for all teams. The tactical overtaking by Heiki Kovalheinen, hide and seek game between the Ferrari’s and Lewis Hamilton, the surprise 4 pit stop strategies of Lewis Hamilton(still landing him up on the podium) were just a gift for a perfect Sunday!!! The watershed between Hard compound tyres and Soft tyres seemed to be diminished as teams looked confused on the option. The qualifying session looked to be promising(despite the absence of super aguri team) as it was Filleppe Massa once again who reigned his pole position for 3rd consecutive time followed by Lewis Hamilton accompanying him in the front grid. The track was quite challenging as it presented a range of bumpy rides. Raikonnen was quoted saying that “if you make a small miscalculation riding those bumpers, you will find yourself on the debris out of the track”. It seemed as if Massa had mastered the track on the pre qualifying session and post qualifying session. The raceday unleashed the melodrama of raikonnen and kovalheinen dashing up and with the McLaren compromising his hard earned 3rd position in starting line up grid. The game became as usual exciting with Steve exclaiming on each and every critical moments. Alex Yoong was the guest commentator who gelled well with the commentary box sharing his experiences of misfortunes and depicting the scenario of what it takes like to be there in the single seater on the Humid tracks. In the starting of the race it looked like Massa will get an upperhand over Hamilton, but the introduction of Saftey Car played the game adding the advantage to Hamilton. Robert Kubica was gong great with his improved form giving an extra push fighting for 3rd place with Raikonnen. The commentary box kept on stressing the importance of sheer force which gave an added advantage to the big bastions like Ferrari, McLaren, BMW. Honda seemed to be struggling as the experienced Rookies Jenson Button and Rubens Barichelllo(who was racing his 250th grand prix) couldn’t any rhetoric prints on the standings. Force India was once again struggling to survive in this mega form of tactics and strategical arena. It feels frustrating to drive a technically low-configured car, especially for the experienced rookies like Fishichella, David Coulthard but I was pretty much impressed with the British(Coulthard) who was able to post a very impressive challenge to other teams despite riding his speed limited RedBull. Its pretty eminent that technology will win here, but teams like Ferrari, Honda, Williams, McLaren should not only continue to aid engines or chahis to smaller teams but to share some pretty useful concepts and lesions with them, else this mega form of racing game will finally turn out to be a race of handful cars. Still looking ahead of the next session at Monaco where the qualifying nearly decidedes the championship there as you have only a small tunnel presenting as the fastest lane giving the drivers a small and only chance to jam on the accelerators(and rest all chicane asking you to drop the speed limit down with brakes on)
