Round 4: Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
Friday, 3 July 2015QUALIFYINGCode: Select all
1 – 2 M. Mouton Alitaliana 2'07.763
2 – 7 A. Powell West Cliff 2'08.946
3 – 1 V. Ickx Alitaliana 2'10.291
4 – 5 D. Patrick Restov 2'11.473
5 – 77 C. Allemann Foster's Good Women 2'11.680
6 – 6 N. Lindgren Restov 2'11.878
7 – 4 S. de Silvestro Autodynamics 2'12.412
8 – 16 S. Schmitz Shell JLD 2'12.826
9 – 15 An. Cope Cope-ersucar 2'13.480
10 – 3 J. Kleinschmidt Autodynamics 2'14.077
11 – 54 R. Frey Filles sur Roues 2'14.085
12 – 24 G. Amati Minardivas 2'14.416
13 – 10 E. Kimiläinen Rosenforth 2'14.498
Code: Select all
14 – 39 S. Wolff SonicSport 2'14.658
15 – 40 D. Galica SonicSport 2'14.894
16 – 87 K. Ihara Super Reppu! 2'14.909
17 – 23 L. Lombardi (H) Minardivas 2'15.597
18 – 90 L. Tander Team Australia 2'15.966
19 – 55 V. Piria Filles sur Roues 2'16.284
20 – 14 Am. Cope Cope-ersucar 2'16.381
21 – 88 Y. Mitsui Super Reppu! 2'17.470
22 – 78 K. Mikami Foster's Good Women 2'18.084
23 – 91 S. Reid Team Australia 2'18.743
24 – 98 K. Legge Psycho Soldiers 2'19.799
25 – 17 J. Mihara Shell JLD 2'20.459
26 – 97 P. Mann Psycho Soldiers 2'20.653
Code: Select all
DID NOT QUALIFY
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DNQ – 11 K. Andrews Rosenforth 2'24.814
DNQ – 8 P. Cow West Cliff 2'26.370
Call it trial by water if you like. Thursday afternoon at Spa was... how can we put this? So relentlessly wet it made the 1991 Australian Grand Prix look like a mild shower. But out onto the track went the fearless women of the WEC, qualifying times were posted, and to nobody's surprise, she wit the most experience of ridiculously low-grip situations prevailed. Alice Powell will have experienced a few typical English summers in her meagre years as well, so she ended up second, and if Vanina Ickx was roared on by her home crowd then she could neither see nor hear them, but they were there anyway. Danica Patrick took fourth, almost four seconds off the leader... it was one of those days, and on such days do certain drivers put their heads above the horizon: step forward Cyndie Allemann, for what must be her best WEC performance ever in the fierce rain. Nettan Lindgren, Simona de Silvestro and Sabine Schmitz followed, and by this time we're already five seconds off the pace, or as it would be put in F1, into the Caterham-Marussia-HRT zone. And we haven't even finished the top ten yet, which further contained Angela Cope and Jutta Kleinschmidt on row five, the German either having a markedly improved showing, or everyone else was a lot worse than usual. The randomising effect of the weather also put Rahel Frey, Giovanna Amati and Emma Kimiläinen into the top half of the grid, not something we'd usually see.
SonicSport were one of the teams to take a dive, Susie Wolff and Divina Galica lining up 14th and 15th, with Keiko Ihara in 16th the last driver to beat the 2'15 barrier... we are really getting into some extremely rejectful lap times here. Lella Lombardi, at least, didn't feel the effects of the cold and wet conditions physically, but having no grip whatsoever did her cause no good and she ended up 17th, with Leanne tander in 18th the only other driver to crack 2'16. Vicky Piria and Amber Cope recorded times in the 2'16s to take the tenth row of the grid, and the times continued to rise ever further... Yuri Mitsui made a 2'17, Kazumi Mikami and Samantha Reid made 2'18s, Katherine Legge in the admittedly awful David Price could manage no more than a 2'19 and the last two qualifiers, Junko Mihara and Pippa Mann, recorded times of two minutes and 20 seconds.
Call that rejectful? Look who's at the back again. And look at
those times. Incidentally, the lap record for a Formula 3 car round this circuit is in the 2'13s, admittedly on a dry track, but seriously...
RACECode: Select all
1 – 7 A. Powell West Cliff 44 1h 39'38.721
2 – 1 V. Ickx Alitaliana 44 1h 40'48.504
3 – 16 S. Schmitz Shell JLD 43 + 1 lap
4 – 4 S. de Silvestro Autodynamics 43 + 1 lap
5 – 40 D. Galica SonicSport 43 + 1 lap
6 – 24 G. Amati Minardivas 43 + 1 lap
7 – 39 S. Wolff SonicSport 43 + 1 lap
8 – 10 E. Kimiläinen Rosenforth 42 + 2 laps
9 – 23 L. Lombardi (H) Minardivas 42 + 2 laps
10 – 90 L. Tander Team Australia 42 + 2 laps
11 – 14 Am. Cope Cope-ersucar 42 + 2 laps
12 – 78 K. Mikami Foster's Good Women 42 + 2 laps
13 – 88 Y. Mitsui Super Reppu! 42 + 2 laps
Code: Select all
14 – 17 J. Mihara Shell JLD 41 + 3 laps
15 – 2 M. Mouton Alitaliana 36 crash
16 – 97 P. Mann Psycho Soldiers 35 transmission
17 – 77 C. Allemann Foster's Good Women 23 collision
18 – 6 N. Lindgren Restov 23 collision
19 – 55 V. Piria Filles sur Roues 18 transmission
20 – 15 An. Cope Cope-ersucar 15 collision
21 – 54 R. Frey Filles sur Roues 15 collision
22 – 91 S. Reid Team Australia 13 collision
23 – 98 K. Legge Psycho Soldiers 13 collision
24 – 3 J. Kleinschmidt Autodynamics 11 transmission
25 – 87 K. Ihara Super Reppu! 6 crash
26 – 5 D. Patrick Restov 4 transmission
And so it was that on the Friday, the rain relented... slightly. The drivers at least had a chance of seeing where they were going. Even so, there was nearly a moment of true catastrophic rejectfulness on the start line as Michèle Mouton fluffed her start and slithered alarmingly towards the pit wall. Alice Powell scampered away, Vanina Ickx and Danica Patrick got a bit too close for comfort behind them... but all 26 cars made it round La Source. Three laps later, Patrick was sidelined with a broken gearbox, Mouton pulled a daring move on her young challenger, and started to pull away as if Thor had seen fit to smile on his dad's shining golden chariots and remove the wet weather only for those chosen ones who happened to be driving them. It looked like that was that. Problems, retirements and crashes due to some insanely rash overtaking attempts for the conditions reduced the size of the field... but it was mainly towards the back. The most significant of those collisions was between Nettan Lindgren and Cyndie Allemann, running fourth and fifth at the time, and which – had they held onto those positions – would have been Allemann's best result by a country mile. Unfortunately she was too ambitious in trying to overtake the experienced Swede and the resultant prang took them both out. And that should have settled Reject Of The Race there and then...
Only it didn't, because far worse wad to come.
Michèle Mouton stopped for fuel for the second time. Alice Powell led the race, but Mouton was catching fast and Powell had to pit again. She could not hope to win this one, although with vanina Ickx a long way further back, second place was in the bag. Or was it? Powell had her own moment of distress while trying to lap the painfully slow Kazumi Mikami, all at sea in a very literal way. Mikami jinked left at the exit of the Bus Stop, Powell swerved dramatically and clouted the wall so hard that nobody thought the car could survive. But, somehow, it did, with no suspension or sidepod damage. Meanwhile, Mouton was catching fast...
...oh, Michèle, why
did you just overcook it there?
Pieces of gold-coloured carbon fibre littered the track at Les Fagnes. Eight laps to go, and
Michèle Mouton had thrown away a certain win, and with it, usurped Cyndie Allemann for
Reject Of The Race. News came through Alice Powell's radio, she was able to pit, take on fuel, have her tyres changed, and have her nails painted ready for the podium ceremony, and still come out in the lead. Which she did, a whole minute ahead of local favourite Vanina Ickx, and that's how it stayed. Gratefully accepting the trophy with her sparkly red nails on display, it stretched her championship lead from 30 points to 45, and secured her the Apertura (although that was done and dusted after only four laps anyway). And just as pleased was Sabine Schmitz – Queen of the 'Ring she may be, but she's no mug at Spa either, despite ending a lap down, such was the pace of the leaders; her first podium in this series has resulted in an instant unrejectification.
Behind the top three was an epic battle for the lower points. Simona de Silvestro, Divina Galica, Giovanna Amati and Susie Wolff trundled round keeping themselves out of trouble, all four on a cruise-and-collect mission for their teams in conditions where little else was possible. Except, nobody had informed Emma Kimiläinen of that script. Sure, she'd started in mid-table, and given the equipment at her disposal wasn't too likely to be much of a threat and was more likely to drop down the field, as the crashes mounted up and she kept her nose clean, she started to smell blood. That smell became ever stronger when the Allemann/Lindgren collision suddenly thrust her into 11th place. Spurred on by the thought that even a David Price can score points in this series, the Finn passed Amber Cope – the American really not used to racing in the rain – and took tenth. A point for Rosenforth! Who'd have thought it? But she wanted more. She got it as Michèle Mouton's ridiculously rejectful self-imposed demise promoted her to ninth. And all this time, Lella Lombardi was ahead in a much more powerful Forti... but Kimiläinen was catching. And on the last lap, she made a desperate lunge, made it stick and that was that. Eighth place and four points for the team in the lowest-ranked garage. Lombardi was annoyed, having scored her only half a point in F1 in similar circumstances, but that day in 1975 the race had been forcibly stopped early... this one wasn't. And, finally, with Mouton's crash, this also promoted Leanne Tander into the points – just the one, but for Team Australia, who have little resources to spread round (hence why they had to get hold of a car from a defunct team), this'll be gold dust. It also leaves Super Reppu! as the only team with a blank scoresheet at this stage.
Only 14 cars finished, still over half the field, which is amazing considering how many incidents there were. The major disasters were the three massive collisions – Reid/Legge right at the back on lap 14, Frey/the other Cope two laps later, Lindgren/Allemann up front on lap 24 – along with the aforementioned Michèle Mouton, who'd had an unforced error of Mika Häkkinen propertions, and flung her gloves away in a similar manner. As for the rest, Keiko Ihara was the only other driver to wreck her car, again in a moment of madness, driving straight on at La Source... that'll go down well with her notoriously trigger-happy team bosses. And then there was Danica Patrick, Jutta Kleinschmidt, Vicky Piria and Pippa Mann, all in various positions up and down the field, but all sidelined with transmission trouble.
DRIVERS' CHAMPIONSHIPfor the Maria Teresa de Filippis CupCode: Select all
1 – 7 A. Powell West Cliff 93
2 – 1 V. Ickx Alitaliana 48
3 = 6 N. Lindgren Restov 38
3 = 4 S. de Silvestro Autodynamics 38
5 – 39 S. Wolff SonicSport 36
6 – 40 D. Galica SonicSport 35
7 = 2 M. Mouton Alitaliana 25
7 = 16 S. Schmitz Shell JLD 25
9 – 5 D. Patrick Restov 23
10 – 24 G. Amati Minardivas 14
11 – 15 An. Cope Cope-ersucar 10
12 – 23 L. Lombardi (H) Minardivas 8
13 – 10 E. Kimiläinen Rosenforth 4
Code: Select all
14 = 54 R. Frey Filles sur Roues 2
14 = 98 K. Legge Psycho Soldiers 2
16 = 14 Am. Cope Cope-ersucar 1
16 = 77 C. Allemann Foster's Good Women 1
16 = 90 L. Tander Team Australia 1
Code: Select all
1 – West Cliff Racing / SPAM 93
2 – Scuderia Alitaliana / Viking 73
3 – SonicSport / ATS Rial 71
4 – Restov Racing / Super Aguri 61
5 – Autodynamics Simtek Grand Prix / Simtek 38
6 – Shell JLD Motorsport / F1RM 25
7 – Scuderia Minardivas / Forti 22
8 – Cope-ersucar / Spyker 11
9 – Rosenforth Engineering / Minardi 4
10 = Filles sur Roues / Stefan 2
10 = Psycho Soldiers / David Price 2
12 = Foster's Good Women with Plus One / SAC 1
12 = Team Australia / Monteverdi 1
(8) Patrick (DNF) v
(10) Powell (1st)In the end it was almost similar to the performance that Vanina Ickx produced last year. This time it's three wins and a second – although, it should have been less, if only her rivals didn't keep throwing it all away...
...it's also a trophy awarded to someone driving a SPAM PD-12, don't forget – hardly the most competitive car there's ever been!
Who will triumph in the Clausura, and also in the final standings...
)
Apparently someone from our team sold a photocopied dossier containg our secret data to Sunshine-Daihatsu F1RWRS Team. 