Round 10: Monza, Italy
Friday, 25 September 2015QUALIFYINGCode: Select all
1 – 7 A. Powell West Cliff 1'32.777
2 – 1 V. Ickx Alitaliana 1'33.981
3 – 2 M. Mouton Alitaliana 1'34.097
4 – 23 L. Lombardi (H) Minardivas 1'34.513
5 – 16 S. Schmitz Shell JLD 1'34.518
6 – 5 D. Patrick Restov 1'34.766
7 – 24 G. Amati Minardivas 1'35.090
8 – 6 N. Lindgren Restov 1'35.266
9 – 4 S. de Silvestro Autodynamics 1'35.842
10 – 15 An. Cope Cope-ersucar 1'36.033
11 – 77 K. Legge Foster's Good Women 1'36.075
12 – 40 D. Galica SonicSport 1'36.167
13 – 87 K. Ihara Super Reppu! 1'36.283
Code: Select all
14 – 39 S. Wolff SonicSport 1'36.413
15 – 54 R. Frey Filles sur Roues 1'36.617
16 – 55 V. Piria Filles sur Roues 1'36.833
17 – 78 K. Mikami Foster's Good Women 1'36.953
18 – 14 Am. Cope Cope-ersucar 1'37.442
19 – 88 M. Bumgarner Super Reppu! 1'37.686
20 – 3 A. Beatriz Autodynamics 1'38.025
21 – 8 P. Cow West Cliff 1'38.722
22 – 90 L. Tander Team Australia 1'39.382
23 – 10 E. Kimiläinen Rosenforth 1'39.480
24 – 91 S. Reid Team Australia 1'39.921
25 – 17 J. Mihara Shell JLD 1'40.788
26 – 11 K. Andrews Rosenforth 1'41.450
Code: Select all
DID NOT QUALIFY
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DNQ – 98 C. Allemann Psycho Soldiers 1'42.728
DNQ – 97 P. Mann Psycho Soldiers 1'43.427
It's time to deliver. Alice Powell needs only to finish five points ahead of Michèle Mouton in this race and one point ahead of Vanina Ickx, and the Drivers' title will be hers. Obviously, if she wins the race, then it's Goodnight Vienna for the rest. Maria Teresa de Filippis, a shade short of 89 years old, has turned up at her home track to present the trophy in person, should the some-say-inevitable happen today, and on this qualifying performance, you wouldn't bet against it. A whole second plus change ahead of Scuderia Alitaliana's two challengers?
Take that. Worse still for the Viking-riding Scotalians, it's Ickx who is ahead on the grid, and having not won a race this season so far she will be determined to do so. At least the news behind the top three is good; they're half a second clear of fourth-placed Lella Lombardi, having an Indian summer to her second season out of life-retirement; Sabine Schmitz snapped at her gearbox but couldn't quite beat her time, and the Queen Of The Ring lines up fifth. Sixth is the only other driver who can still mathematically take the title, Danica Patrick, but her performance is going to have to be as brilliant as the top three's would have to be bad to keep her in the hunt; expect her to give it her all as the Clausura is still up for grabs, though. Who'd have thought it, there must be something in the local cuisine as the Italians coming home has inspired their performance; Giovanna Amati in seventh is something of a surprise. Nettan Lindgren completed row four, with Simona de Silvestro already behind her – already three seconds adrift of pole, such was Alice Powell's blistering pace – with Angela Cope the better of the two twins by far, taking tenth. Katherine Legge clearly got the better of the deal whereby she traded cars with Cyndie Allemann mid-season, as she hauled the wheezing Judd-powered SAC8 to eleventh, ahead of Divina Galica in the far more powerful ATS Rial run by SonicSport, and Keiko Ihara, the lead driver for Super Reppu!.
Into the second half of the grid: Susie Wolff was particularly badly incapacitated by all the shenanigans at the Hungaroring, and still looked a bit out of sorts now; she could only manage 14th and was hurling all sorts of Scottish insults towards the lower end of the grid. Rahel Frey was, unusually, matched by her team-mate, bringing Filles sur Roues to lock out row eight. Kazumi Mikami and Amber Cope followed, definitely the number two drivers for Foster's Good Women and Cope-ersucar, with Michele Bumgarner, still pretending to be Japanese, lining up 19th in the second of the rising sun liveried Domes. Into the 1'38s and Ana Beatriz had a shocker in qualifying to start the race in 20th, but it was the full basket-of-eggs-on-the-face treatment for anyone 22nd or below; Pippa Cow has qualified as high as 18th this year (at Silverstone), but is hardly renowned for doing so. She beat both Team Australia cars, inside which Emma Kimiläinen found her geriatric Minardi even more of a hindrance than usual, also Junko Mihara who was still also slightly incapacitated from Hungary, and... what's this? Brace yourselves, the rest of the field, Karen Andrews has managed to be not quite as catastrophically rejectful as usual, and has somehow sneaked onto the back of the grid.
Did I say "somehow"? It's safe to say Psycho Soldiers aren't the most popular team out there at the moment, and rumours abounded that someone had been fiddling with the cars. They'd already turned up late, held up in a mysterious traffic jam that none of the other teams seemed to have any problem with, found the entire stash of sushi in the catering van had turned rancid almost overnight, and when the cars took to the track... let's say that was a performance more in keeping with how those David Prices used to run in the Main Series last year. Both Pippa Mann and Cyndie Allemann were heard screaming "WHERE'S THE POWER?" over the radio as they tried helplessly to qualify, and this time they couldn't rely on Karen Andrews to bail one of them out. Some of the other teams were seen cracking open celebratory Lambrinis as the times appeared on the telemetry screens...
...it is widely thought, round the other thirteen teams, that they all know who interfered with the cars, but they are keeping a stony wall of silence. Sir Bernard Shekelslike would have promised a full investigation but says he's busy with the pressing need to buy Princess Darciella a whole wardrobe full of dresses for all her parties next week. The message should be clear, though: witchcraft will end in tears. And maybe Ai will
shave her head for good measure.
RACECode: Select all
1 – 1 V. Ickx Alitaliana 53 1h 26'37.516
2 – 2 M. Mouton Alitaliana 53 1h 27'13.950
3 – 23 L. Lombardi (H) Minardivas 53 1h 27'16.360
4 – 7 A. Powell West Cliff 53 1h 27'26.216
5 – 5 D. Patrick Restov 53 1h 27'36.386
6 – 24 G. Amati Minardivas 53 1h 27'56.256
7 – 39 S. Wolff SonicSport 52 + 1 lap
8 – 87 K. Ihara Super Reppu! 52 + 1 lap
9 – 54 R. Frey Filles sur Roues 52 + 1 lap
10 – 15 An. Cope Cope-ersucar 52 + 1 lap
11 – 78 K. Mikami Foster's Good Women 52 + 1 lap
12 – 77 K. Legge Foster's Good Women 51 + 2 laps
13 – 3 A. Beatriz Autodynamics 51 + 2 laps
Code: Select all
14 – 88 M. Bumgarner Super Reppu! 51 + 2 laps
15 – 90 L. Tander Team Australia 51 + 2 laps
16 – 16 S. Schmitz Shell JLD 50 + 3 laps (DNF, collision)
17 – 4 S. de Silvestro Autodynamics 50 + 3 laps (DNF, collision)
18 – 8 P. Cow West Cliff 50 + 3 laps
19 – 10 E. Kimiläinen Rosenforth 50 + 3 laps
20 – 91 S. Reid Team Australia 50 + 3 laps
21 – 17 J. Mihara Shell JLD 50 + 3 laps
22 – 11 K. Andrews Rosenforth 49 + 4 laps
23 – 14 Am. Cope Cope-ersucar 42 engine
24 – 40 D. Galica SonicSport 18 transmission
25 – 55 V. Piria Filles sur Roues 9 engine
26 – 6 N. Lindgren Restov 3 engine
For Vanina Ickx, taking her first win of the season, this was the right result. After last year it seemed inconceivable that it would take her this long to do so, but so this has been her fate. For Scuderia Alitaliana, though, this was the
wrong result, Drivers' Championship-wise; however, at 84 points clear with only 86 available, that all but guarantees the Scotalians will take the Bertha Benz Cup. Put it this way: Pippa Cow will have to contribute to a couple of 1-2 results for West Cliff in the remaining two races with Alitaliana not scoring at all, and that's not going to happen, is it? Time to crack out the champagne, whisky, prosecco, whatever floats your boat, even if the Viking mechanics who Team Principal Alasdair Lindsay has insulted so many times this year quite deliberately won't be joining in, and have warned him to keep his mouth under control... lest something happens to the celebratory drinks.
As it stands, no trophies will be presented this race. For a while it looked as if Maria Teresa de Filippis might get her moment on the podium, but it was not to be; though Alice Powell took the lead at the start, the diesel SPAM for once didn't quite have the legs on the screaming supercharged Viking MJØLNER-03s driven by Michèle Mouton and Vanina Ickx. Mouton initially took second place, Ickx fought back, but at Ascari on the second lap, Mouton finally stamped her authority on her Belgian team-mate and chased down her young English adversary. Mouton charged into the lead on lap 5, and that, for a while, looked like it would be the way to go. But enter the unknown quantity that was Lella Lombardi. Hacking through the field like a katana-wielding samurai, she stormed first past Vanina Ickx and then, on lap 11, Alice Powell... before she had to pit for fuel and dropped back to ninth. Whether or not her strategy would work remained to be seen, as it was near-certain she would have to stop again, and her pace after the first stop suggested so. Mouton and Powell pitted within a lap of each other... Powell found herself behind the charging Lombardi, in third. Meanwhile, Danica Patrick was making some fine progress behind them, as was Simona de Silvestro, who found herself regularly in the company of Sabine Schmitz. Later on in the race, de Silvestro and Schmitz were split... as Lella Lombardi emerged between them after her second pit stop, the one everyone knew she had to make. Sabine was dispatched with consummate ease... and then came the most significant point of the race. What must have been going through the Alitaliana pit crew's heads I will never know, but on lap 35 at the Rettifilio, Michèle Mouton was caught napping, Vanina Ickx said ta very much and stormed off into the distance towards that first win that had eluded her all season. The team needed Mouton to finish ahead of her, all things considered. But as it would turn out... Ickx would have won anyway. Mouton was called in on the last lap for a splash and dash; it would have lost her the lead, but she was second, and so far ahead of the competition that she never lost the place, despite being very agitated as the last drops of fuel were added to her tank. That agitation was definitely tempered as a blue and yellow car pulled into the pits ahead of her belching black diesel smoke... and it wasn't Pippa Cow. West Cliff had made the same miscalculation with the one driver they couldn't afford to, and this time there was a fly in the ointment... Lella Lombardi, whose pace had been so strong she beat Alice Powell to third place, and so gave Michèle Mouton a three-point extra advantage.
So amazingly, the championship isn't over, and the top four are those still left in the Clausura. As for the rest, Danica Patrick's spirited driving that was almost unnoticed due to the battle at the front earned her fifth place, but saw her bow out of the title hunt, whereas Giovanna Amati, coming in sixth and still on the lead lap, was utterly delighted – that's better than she usually manages. Seventh to eleventh were all one lap down, and were headed by the still-recovering Susie Wolff, lucky to be there due to a particularly rejectful piece of driving that we will encounter further down the field. Keiko Ihara salvaged more points for Super Reppu! and will no doubt wish that the championship could be extended to the last rounds so she could race in Japan; Rahel Frey managed to steer her notoriously unreliable Stefan to the finish, ninth place and a couple of points, so no need for Sophie Fabron to open another bottle of mind-rotting sherry this time. Angela Cope took the last point in the bright orange Spyker that matches the colour of her face (and her sister's), but she had to take advantage of two horrible mistakes further down the field to get it. Kazumi Mikami missed out on the points, as did Katherine Legge – and it was her mistake that allowed Angela Cope to score, as she had a spin into the gravel trap on lap 44 that cost her an entire lap to extricate herself from. Ana Beatriz, Michele Bumgarner and Leanne Tander – putting up a bit of a fight in the lower midfield – were also two laps down and pointless. At the head of the three-lapped cars were Sabine Schmitz and
Simona de Silvestro, who'd been practically welded to each other for the entire race, and with only two laps to go, the Italian tried an insanely rash overtaking manoeuvre at Variante della Roggia, smacked into the back of Schmitz's car and took them both out. In front of her home fans where she was expected to pick up some decent points, which they would both have done (seventh and eighth were up for grabs, and there could have been more), that's a
Reject Of The Race award if ever there was one. Behind the crashed couple, Pippa Cow brought the second West Cliff SPAM home three laps down, beating Emma Kimiläinen in the Stone Age Minardi, Samantha Reid in a very off-colour Monteverdi, a still-ailing Junko Mihara in Shell JLD's F1RM, and – four laps down in the end – Karen Andrews, who somehow managed to finish, and watched Vanina Ickx sail effortlessly past her on the back straight to be lapped for the fourth time right at the death.
Only four other cars failed to finish; Nettan Lindgren, inexplicably, saw her engine expire with only three laps gone – we all thought it was made of sterner stuff than that; Vicky Piria soon suffered the same fate, but in a Stefan with a Toyota engine that the Japanese company put as much effort into preserving as Zoran Stefanovic did at making the car competitive in the first place. Divina Galica found her gearbox jammed in second with 18 laps gone, and the last to perish was Amber Cope, with another engine blowout.
And so we go into the last two rounds. The Teams' Championship is a foregone conclusion; there's still a glimmer of hope that the Drivers' isn't, and there's a dark horse in the Clausura with an H on her forehead. Watch this space; we're not done yet.
DRIVERS' CHAMPIONSHIPfor the Maria Teresa de Filippis CupTwo races to go, 50 points can be won...
~ indicates a driver who has switched teams – only the latest team is shown* indicates a driver still in contention for the championshipCode: Select all
1 – 7 * A. Powell West Cliff 160
2 – 1 * V. Ickx Alitaliana 124
3 – 2 * M. Mouton Alitaliana 120
4 – 5 D. Patrick Restov 97
5 – 16 S. Schmitz Shell JLD 60
6 – 23 L. Lombardi (H) Minardivas 52
7 – 6 N. Lindgren Restov 50
8 – 40 D. Galica SonicSport 49
9 – 39 S. Wolff SonicSport 48
10 – 4 S. de Silvestro Autodynamics 46
11 – 87 K. Ihara Super Reppu! 43
12 – 15 An. Cope Cope-ersucar 38
13 – 24 G. Amati Minardivas 24
Code: Select all
14 – 14 Am. Cope Cope-ersucar 21
15 – 88 M. Bumgarner Super Reppu! 20
16 – ~77 K. Legge Foster's Good Women 15
17 – 10 E. Kimiläinen Rosenforth 10
18 – 54 R. Frey Filles sur Roues 9
19 – 97 P. Mann Psycho Soldiers 8
20 = 90 L. Tander Team Australia 7
20 = ~98 C. Allemann Psycho Soldiers 7
22 = J. Kleinschmidt Autodynamics 1
22 = 78 K. Mikami Foster's Good Women 1
Two races to go, 86 points can be won... mathematically, it's not all over; practically, it is.
* indicates a team still in contention for the championshipCode: Select all
1 – * Scuderia Alitaliana / Viking 244
2 – * West Cliff Racing / SPAM 160
3 – Restov Racing / Super Aguri 147
4 – SonicSport / ATS Rial 97
5 – Scuderia Minardivas / Forti 76
6 – Super Reppu! / Dome 63
7 – Shell JLD Motorsport / F1RM 60
Code: Select all
8 – Cope-ersucar / Spyker 59
9 – Autodynamics Simtek Grand Prix / Simtek 47
10 – Psycho Soldiers / David Price 16
11 – Foster's Good Women with Plus One / SAC 15
12 – Rosenforth Engineering / Minardi 10
13 – Filles sur Roues / Stefan 9
14 – Team Australia / Monteverdi 7
v (9) de Silvestro (17th)
(2) Ickx (1st) v (10) Ihara (8th)
(3) Mouton (2nd) v (6) Lindgren (DNF)
(4) Patrick (5th) v
(12) Lombardi (3rd)And the line-up for the semis:
(1) Powell v (12) Lombardi
(2) Ickx v (3) Mouton
Don't know how that could be done in the way described in the race review though. Maybe a cover-up involving bribing the media?
Yeah, but she's not though, is she? 
Just mailed Jamie&Enoch about this)
