The season so far...
After the Monaco race, the F1 teams gear-up for the back-to-back races in North-America. Next Sunday, the 10th of June, the Canadian Grand Prix is scheduled at the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit in Montreal and only a week later, the F1 engines will roar at Indianapolis Speedway.
As the teams left the Principality of Monaco last weekend, the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes Team is leading the Constructors' Championship with 20 points more than rivals Ferrari and 46 more than BMW Sauber. Both McLaren drivers have the same amount of points, but Fernando Alonso is the Championship leader as he won 2 races and team mate Lewis Hamilton is still waiting for his first Grand Prix victory.
After five races, the season has brought a lot of surprises. Lewis Hamilton, the rising star of Formula One, ended his first five races on the podium. The British media is going crazy over the rookie driver as it's been a long time since there was a British driver so successful in the pinnacle of motorsport. Not only the media, but also a lot of F1 fans are hoping for a World title for the youngster. But to do so, he has to beat his team mate and double World Champion, Fernando Alonso.
The Spaniard won in Malaysia and Monaco and hopes to prolong his title. It appears that Alonso is feeling at home with the Woking based team after five years with Renault.
Of course, not only the McLaren drivers are battling for the title. We can't write off Ferrari. Felipe Massa, who won at Bahrain and Spain, has only 5 points less than the McLaren drivers. Team mate Kimi Raikkonen seems to disappoint the Italian team. The Finn, who won the opening race at Australian, had to retire in Spain and made a costly mistake during the qualifying session at Monaco. Raikkonen only collected 23 points, that's 5 points more than the number 5 in the Championship standings, Nick Heidfeld.
The BMW Sauber F1 Team surprised friend and enemy as they are fourth in the Constructors' Championship and faster than World Champion Renault. Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica have proved their worth for the team and the development of the car. 'Quick' Nick collected 18 points so far and is standing in fourth place while team mate Robert Kubica is sixth with 12 points.
Renault seems a bit lost after the departure of their Champion, Fernando Alonso. Giancarlo Fisichella is now the strong man at the French team as he has teamed-up with rookie Heikki Kovalainen. So far, the strongest performance of the Roman was a fourth place at Monaco. Heikki Kovalainen has made a difficult start to his first year in F1. The Finn has been criticised by the press and the comparison with Lewis Hamilton has been made over and over. But you can't really blame Kovalainen as he has been given a difficult car to race. Yesterday, Pat Symonds defended the youngster by saying "Kovalainen was conversely unlucky to have to debut with the difficult 2007 racer." After five races, Heikki is 11th in the Championship standings with 3 points.
The Williams F1 Team on the other hand is doing rather good this season. After the departure of Mark Webber, test and reserve driver Alexander Wurz was promoted as second race driver next to Nico Rosberg. The team is performing better than Toyota, which is supplying Williams with engines. They are in fifth place in the Constructors' Championship with 7 points.
The team with the largest budget in F1, isn't the team that is having the best car or drivers at this moment. The Cologne-based team is having problems finding race pace and Jarno Trulli has been outpacing team mate Ralf Schumacher over and over. There have been flying around a lot of rumours about Ralf Schumacher and a possible replacer for him. It appears that Toyota has set an ultimatum. Ralf has to perform better during the North-American back-to-back races or he'll be fired. Adrian Sutil, the rookie driver of the Spyker F1 Team, has been named as a possible replacer, but of course these are all rumours and we have to take them with a grain of salt.
The Red Bull Racing Team still has a lot of work to do. The Adrian Newey designed car still needs some development work and the team needs to sort out their hydraulic problems. Powered with a Renault engine, the team collected 4 points so far.
It has already been a successful season for the Super Aguri F1 Team as the Japanese team collected its first World Championship point during the Spanish Grand Prix. The Scuderia Toro Rosso, the Spyker F1 Team and surprisingly the Honda Racing F1 Team haven't collected a single point and still have a lot of work to do.
It appears that the McLaren duo and the Ferrari duo will once again be battling for victory during the Canadian Grand Prix, but we can't forget about the outsiders: Nick Heidfeld, Robert Kubica and Giancarlo Fisichella. We'll see how it goes at Montreal next weekend.
