Notes Taken During the 2008 Formula 1 Race in Canada

Notes taken during FOX broadcast of the Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada, Montreal, on June 8, 2008.

Welcome to the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Ile Notre-Dame, a man-made island in the St. Lawrence River in MUNT-re-all.

pressdog beer of the race is Molson Canadian. Beauty beer, eh? Always a good selection in the lager category.

Bob Varsha, F1 play-by-play guy, is in full effect. 20 years go Gilles Villeneuve became the first Canadian to win an F1 Grand Prix on this track which was eventually renamed for him.

Steve Machett, former F1 mechanic and David Hobbs, former driver are in the booth with Varsha as usual.

OMG, we're right down to it. TV hole must be tight, because let's introduce the starting line-up: Lewis Hamilton, Robert Kubica, Kimi Räikkönen, Fernando Alonso, Nico Rosberg, Felipe Massa, Heikki Kovalainen, Nick Heidfeld, Rubens Barrichello, Mark Webber, Timo Glock, Kazuki Nakajima, David Coulthard, Jarno Trulli, Nelsin Piquet, Sebastein Bourdais, Adrian Sutil, Giancarlo Fisichella, Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel.

Cars are already on their "reconnaissance lap" so we're getting after it here. NO Peter Windsor working the grid like a tour director as we always get on SPEED. I miss him and the unseen Mee-shell who gets ZERO air this race. That's just wrong.

Gridded. Let's light this candle. Standing start. Varsha: Turn up the volume for the start! (Excellent. I did just that.) Four red lights come on one at a time -- red, red, red, red -- then they go dark and that means GREEN GREEN GREEN. The F1 2.4-liter engines let out a scream like someone's killing a cat.

Everyone is away. Turn 1. Be ready with the circus music. NO, we're through clean. The medical car hovers in the background like some kind of vulturous sag wagon to pick up any shattered remains. The medical car always follows the the pack on the first lap of F1 just because of the good odds of mayhem, which means the medical car driver gets to turn a pretty hot lap.

70 laps to go -- Lock step from the start -- Hamilton, Kubica, Räikkönen. Toyotas ("Packin' A" Glock and Trulli "Madly, Deeply") are starting to fight in the back.

The F1 guys figure this may be a wider audience what with it being in Canada and on FOX at 1 p.m. Eastern in the US rather than in Turkey and on SPEED at 7 a.m., so Machett goes over the F1 tire rule (lifted from Champ Car!). There are four tires that Bridgestone makes for F1 -- Hard, Medium, Soft and Super Soft.

Allegedly the softer the tire the better the grip but the shorter the lifespan. For each race there are two types of tires designated. The "Sporting Regulations" as Machett likes to call them (rules) say you have to use both sets in the race for at least one stint. The softer of the two compounds has a thin white band around the center of the tread.

F1 uses the two types of tires for the same reason Champ Car used them -- to add wrinkles to strategy and encourage more passing. (Teams get caught on crap tires late in a stint and get passed.)

Peter Windsor, destined to get NO FACE time in this broadcast, is surprised teams started on the softer tires because the popular thought is that the softer of the two tires performed worse.

Windsor also says it was nice to see Kubica "defend" his spot from Räikkönen's charge. Blocking is not illegal in F1 from what I can see.

67 to go -- Hamilton sets fastest lap. Hobbs -- Hamilton may have qualified light and be coming in for fuel early so he can start on the soft tires knowing his first stint will be short.

F1 Tutorial Part II -- The fuel load F1 cars qualify with is the fuel load they start with. They either impound the cars or lock the gas caps or something. The less fuel the faster the car (because it's lighter) so some teams qualify light or heavy as part of their strategy.

Hobbs reminds that the Safety Car ("pace car" in American race talk) can screw up all the strategies. The booth guys pee themselves when the Safety Car comes out. But it doesn't come out that often because it has to be a festival of carbon fiber for an F1 race to go full-course yellow.

The booth boys are a bit tighter on FOX compared to SPEED. Less quippy and more explanatory. Machett hits us with an explanation of "sectors." OMG, Machett especially LOVES sectors. Sectors are just parts of the track. Usually it's cut up into three or four sectors. Then the booth guys go on and on about who's fastest in what sector. If you "go purple" in a sector you're the fastest of any car through that part of the track.

65 to go -- Hamilton is +3 seconds on Kubica. Rubens is holding up a long train of cars because he is slower and can make himself wide

Machett tells us that in F1 there isn't a single formula for the car (which makes the name of the series pretty ironic) and that each team is truly a "constructor" in that they design, build and test their cars. They all look a lot the same, but still.

Teams pour hundreds of millions of dollars into the development of their cars.

64 to go -- this is the 30th annual Canadian Grand Prix. Piquet celebrates by putting someone into the grass. FLAVIO gets air. Flavio is the Renault boss (I think). Windsor is always quipping with FLAVIO on the grid.

Alonso goes for a pass. NO. Nelsin is faster than Trulli but he's behind him. Hating life.

Onboard with someone. I think it's Piquet. Dude, give us a graphic. Team cars look identical.

58 to go -- Piquet goes under Trulli who tries to throw a block party for him. In car with Piquet. Left front to right rear contact. Hello. Both are through without damage, though.

Turn 10 (a hairpin) is already breaking up. Drivers were pissed yesterday that the pavement in Turn 10 was breaking up into gravel-ish stuff. Track people put some kind of patch over it but nobody thinks it will last long.

Machett says BMW Sauber is a relatively new team. Coming on in leaps and bounds. Kubica and Heidfeld are BMW's drivers.

55 to go -- We got fire. Force India's Sutil's front end is a smoking mess. Announcer at the track: "Your attention please. A reminder, there is NO SMOKING on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. Those smoking will be dragged off by the track workers. Again, NO SMOKING in the track area." (Kidding.) Sutil's breaks are a blaze. Not a big deal.

Machett explains the the carbon disc is gripped by a carbon caliper and the breaks run at about 900 degrees F. Actual number, so if they stop getting cooling air flowing through them (like when the car stops) they just BURST into flames. (They have little break air conditioners that keep the breaks from going up in flames during pit stops.

We're not sure why Sutil is toast and into the wall, but the SAFETY CAR IS OUT. This is going to be birth-of-a-child-level excitement for Machett. Just wait.

Machett: "THERE IT IS GUYS. THERE IT IS. The Safety Car is out." Told ya. He loves it because it tosses a total wrench in all the strategy.

Pit window is open, so the Safety Car is out at a good time. The field has to form up in back of the Safety Car. Cars CANNOT pit, even if they are about to run out of fuel, until the pits are open. You can pit to get work on the car when the pits are technically "closed."

Hobbs says by letting the cars bunch up, Hamilton's lead is now toast.

Varsha says there's some consideration of changing the rule that says you can't pit for fuel when the pits are closed even if you're about to run out of gas. In the IRL you can pit when the pits are closed to get a splash of gas to avoid running out on track. You can't work on the car though, and have to come back in when the pits are open. It's a better way to go.

Honda (Jensen Button) pits and gets the soft tires on. Back out. May do just one lap with them and come in again and get rid of them. One lap is enough to qualify as a stint.

Machett is down on everyone for not coming in ahead of the Safety Car. If you're pretty sure the Safety Car is coming out, you can dive into the pits, get service, come out and then move up when everyone pits under yellow.

Video of one of the pit crew people with some kind of reflector Darth Vader thing going on. Insane.

Pits are open. Expect a festival of pitting. Only one crew per team in F1, so if you have two cars you only have one pit crew. But there are 16 (maybe it's 18) members of the pit crew.

Leaders pit. Hamilton, Kubica, Räikkönen. Kubica and Räikkönen are out. Red light. F1 have goofy traffic signals at the end of the pits and you have to stop when it's red.

Holy Circus Music Brain Lock. Hamilton must have been sending a text message because he BASHES into the back end of Räikkönen who is sitting beside Kubica at the red light. Then Rosberg bashes into the back of Hamilton. Light turns green eventually and Kubica takes off.

Hobbs -- Hamilton was gong to run into the back of Kubica then swerved and got Räikkönen instead. Not sure if that was intentional.

Button gets back into the pits and changes tires again, so he did one lap on the soft tires.

Back in the pits Räikkönen and Hamilton are out of their cars. Done for the day. Räikkönen helpfully points at the lights for Hamilton's benefit. Hamilton just waves him off. We follow Hamilton into his pit area and he pushes the camera out of his face.

A tiny Department of Motor Vehicles car pulls up and 37 clowns jump out with oversize eye charts.

Safety car will be in this lap.

Heidfeld, Barichello Nakajima, Webber, Coulthard, Truli, Glock, Fisichelli.

Lap 49 -- GREEN. Massa pits. Massa pits under green when we just had a full-course yellow? Huh? Booth guys -- changed to a one-stop strategy, maybe. They're a little perplexed as well.

Crowd is put at 300,000. Hobbs - coming into the week predicted that there would be thunderstorms this weekend. Don't look to bad at the moment, except in the Hamilton Camp. There will be thunder in the Hamilton camp.

Replay of Lewis getting mental and ass-ending Räikkönen. Video of Hamilton in the garage looking PISSED.

Holy crap, we got bugs. Low shot of the track appears to show the cars running into a big swarm of bugs.

Vettel gets waaaaay fishy.

45 to go -- F1 engines are 2.4 liter normally aspirated V8s generating 900 horsepower and about 9,000 19,000 RMP. Wrapped. Out.

44 to go -- Machett -- people are going to have to start to refuel. Graphic said the Hamilton Brain Lock incident will be investigated.

41 to go -- Heidfeld pits. Gets out just in front of Kubica.

Hobbs -- Kubica is going to be angry he was stuck behind Vettel who held him up and let Heidfeld get out in front of Kubica.

That didn't last long, Kubica gets under Heidfeld. Alonso takes a look as well.

40 to go -- Machett explains that a lot of fuel means a lot of weight which slows the car. He gets into the math involved, but I won't.

39 to go -- Piquet around. 360 spin-o-rama. Backs up and almost NAILS Massa.

36 go go -- Windsor reports Mass had to pit under green because he didn't get all the fuel into his car. So they packed it in.

35 to go. Stock car weighs 3400 pounds. F1 car weighs 1340 pounds.

Fisichella touches the wall. Coulthard LEADS. OMG. Sun briefly goes black.

Nakajima gets seriously fishy. Big dirt-track moment. Machett estimates that teams pour $700 million to $800 million EACH into their teams EACH YEAR. WTF? That's almost unfathomable.

Honda been sucking in F1. Varsha says it's a real mystery why one of the most successful manufacturers hasn't been able to win in F1. (Maybe too smart to pour $700 million into the team.)

30 to go. Glock must pit for fuel and that will give the lead to Kubica. Machett says Kubica must be running low as well. Glock pits. Kubica has to dig fast and furious here to build a big enough lead on Heidfeld to pit and get back out in P1.

29 to go. Onboard with Alonso. Almost ass-ends his teammate, Piquet. Piquet is now BLOWN UP, Sir. Done.

Kubica goes by the pit in again. Hobbs -- Must be running on fumes.

Turn 10 is breaking up. Machett is surprised it lasted this long.

Kubica on video. Says a win is still the target, but not real realistic right now. (Unless Hamilton takes out Kimi.)

Replay of Bourdais in the pits. He can't get out because the board guy holds him in while there is a bit of a problem with the fueler. Bourdais (being Bourdais) gives the board guy a little wave of his hand like "why I oughta." Machett says you don't diss the pit guy. Not good.

Kubica with Alonso all up in his business. Radio -- let him go if you have to. I guess Alonso has yet to pit or is a lap down something.

Alonso around! Lost it. Still fired he creeps to a safe spot. We're thinking gearbox here. View back from Kubica at Alonso. Gets up on the curbs and then goes ass around.

Kaz Nakajima has a wing off. What the? Whose idea? A surprise de-winging? That's it; you're all coming back to my place. Replay. Bashes into Jenson Button and nose comes off. Stuck under his car so he can't turn. Bam, hits the wall.

22 to go. Pitting. Kubica. In and out. Can he beat Heidfeld out? CAN HE DO IT? F1 does this incredibly well. One camera angle shows pit out and the approach to pit out on the track. So you can watch one car come out and see the other car approaching on the track. Awesome. Kubica is out in front of Heidfeld. That means he'll win barring air strike. No more stops and he's P1.

Kubica's radio: "Position 1! Position 1! Bring it home!

Many small, old Polish men around the world fall to the floor and weep. Kubica the Pole will win baring major brain fade.

Video of last year's Canadian Grand Prix with Kubica's BMW going flipping down the track near turn 10 like a freshly beheaded chicken. Total yard sale of an accident. Parts flying, Kubica's head if flopping around inside the cockpit. Nasty. Came out if with just some bruises.

Back to the 2008 Canadian GP. Massa goes under TWO cars in the hairpin. WTF? Passing inside ONE is psychotic enough but he goes under TWO. The Ferrari-red crowd freaks out over it. Overhead view. How do you say "Balls of steel" in Portuguese?

18 to go. Fisichella around. We got smoke. More brake smoke. Your attention please, NO SMOKING on the race course. Thank you.

Fiscichella is BLOWN UP, sir. Safety car? Both guys salivate. Will the Safety Car come out. If it does, will Machett actually pee himself?

Massa dives into the pits. Machett -- may be pitting in anticipation of the Safety Car.

No Safety Car. Local yellow only. F1 is amazingly thrifty with the full-course yellow. It takes big debris or a car sideways in the middle of the track. Here we got the track saftey workers giving Fisichella's car the hook while other cars are going by pretty fast. Cajones mas grande!

13 to go. Coulthard is in third. Seriously. Earth loses all gravity. Scientists report a giant black hole appears below the moon sucking in all sense of reason and decorum. Red Bull and Coulthard is THIRD, BMW is 1-2 and there's not a red car in sight. W.T.F?

Vettel and Rosberg are fighthing for 8th, the last points-paying spot in F1.

Coulthard gets more air. Major air for him. No longer Dead Bull Racing, at least not in Canada.

Varsha says next year F1 goes back to slick tires. Now they have grooved tires for dry weather. Been that way for a decade. Back to slicks in 2009.

10 to go. Overhead as Rosberg tries to go around Vettel. NO.

Massa INHALES Barrichello. Racing through the back markers after his final pit stop.

Machett goes insane for marbles. Rolled up bits of rubber all over the track. He's on fie about them. Pointing them out. Almost Safety Car-level excitement here.

Trulli dirt tracks it. 8 to go. Kubica, Heidfeld, Coulthard, Glock, Trulli, Massa, Barrichello.

7 to go. Varsha says the Safety Car came out earlier just in time to benefit Coulthard and let him do it on one stop. Coulthard's radio: "Look after the engine and brakes."

Four to to. Coulthard still in third. Satan puts a down payment on central heating. Shot of the crew in their little holding area ... NOTHING. Could have been a wax museum shot.

Kovalainen goes outside Vettel for 8th. Holy shit. Overhead. Nasty move. Vettel cuts the chicane and keeps his position. Don't think that will fly.

Massa is freaking out. Passes Trulli and Glock.

3 to go. Machett -- Ferrari wants to show well in Canada.

Replay (I think)> Glock throws a block party for Trulli. They are teammates, after all. Massa takes advantage of it and passes Trulli. Team boss may be pissed.

White flag. Machett says BMW has done a stellar job developing its car. Very slow and conservative approach is paying off. 1982 first BMW win as an engine supplier, today first win as a constructor.

Machett -- FAN-tastic. FAN-tastic. Well done, boys. Well done.

Kubica wins. Teammate Heidfeld is second. Coulthard is third. Kubica's radio: "Robert. Bravo. Bravisimo. That's a historical win, Robert. You are leading the championship now." Kubica: "thank you."

Cars park. They park them three in a row in F1. Kubica out. Polish flags in effect. Air horns. Much fist pumping.

Hobbs -- Here's David Coulthard running down the pit lane. An old codger like him shouldn't be running. You'll give yourself a heart attack."

Checkered: Kubica, Heidfeld, Coulthard, Glock, Massa, Trulli, Barrichello, Vettel, Heidfeld, Rosberg, Button, Webber, Bourdais, Fisichella, Nakajima, Alonso, Piquet, Kimi, Lewis, Sutil.

Driver points: Kubica leads, Hamilton (-4), Massa, (-4), Kimi (-7), Heidfeld (-17).

Constructors: Ferrari, BMW (-3), McLaren Mercedes (-20).

Podium. Polish anthem. Air horns. Cheering. During the anthem. Have some respect.

Kubica said he tried to stay calm when Lewis rear-ended Kimi. Focused on the light. Last laps he tried to stay calm, not push, "it was very very difficult."

Machett declares it a fantastic race. "It encapsulates what F1 is supposed to be about, a new team coming to the fore."

We're out of here. Check out my F1 widget on the right side pod. Striking. Tune in to FOX at 8 a.m. Eastern June 22 for the Grand Prix de FRAAAAHHHHHHNCE (France).

Comments

[Jerry]

Steve Varsha? Maybe Bob's twin.

Somehow those guys could make watching paint dry interesting, but Canada is a fun race as it always seems to bring out the unexpected. Nice job Kubica and BMW.

[pressdog]

Ha. Ha. Steve. Thanks, I fixed it. The F1 guys are awesome in the booth.

[Steve]

Your F1 recaps are fun. I'm glad you are posting these. I was a mainly a CART fan 'back in the day' and then got into F1 as CHAMP cart started to wane, but unification got me excited about the whole shebang again and am watching most of the IRL races this season which lead me here.

I am enjoying seeing your reactions to F1 and all of the differences -- I loved the part about Machett wetting himself at the safety car.

I do love the Speed crew. A couple years ago the Fox races had different announcers -- Derek Daly and some other guy -- I almost had to watch the race with mute on because it was so bad.

The Speed guys just seem able to give you good info and insight without all the fake melodrama.

Anyway, keep up the good work on all your coverage.

[pressdog]

Thanks for reading, Steve. This is my first year paying much attention to F1 but I'm digging it. I think as they take more of the automatic stuff off the car (traction control, launch control) the racing becomes better.

[Sam]

Thanks for the wrap up. Just a minor correction: the engines rev to 19,000 RPM, not 9,000!

[pressdog]

Whoops. I corrected it. Thanks.

[oddlycalm]

You're right about them dumbing down the race for the Fox audience. I was waiting for Matchett to tell us the tires are round and black...

After Hamilton's epic brain fade Kimi calmly pointing out the pit out lights in front of all the team personnel on pit lane said it all in a way that a helmet throwing tantrum never would. Sometimes less is more.