Notes Taken during the 2008 F1 German Grand Prix

Notes taken during the pre-race show on SPEED and the race broadcast on FOX of the FORMULA 1 GROSSER PREIS SANTANDER VON DEUTSCHLAND (German Grand Prix) 2008 at Hockenheim ring.

Pre-race on SPEED, which I recorded just to see pit dude Pete Windsor work the grid. Hockenheim has been in use since 1929. Used to be bigger with a huge straight that went out into the woods, it a hair pin and came back. That was chopped off in 2002 (possibly 2005). Morning warm up highlights. British Grand Prix recap. Lewis Hamilton bitchslapped everyone. Won by more than a minute. Felipe Massa drove like a clown and spun roughly 29 times in the rain. Everyone was all up in his business over it. Roughly 25% of starters are from Germany.

Peter Windsor on the grid with the unseen Jon Mee-shell -- Five Germans in the field and a three-way tie atop the drivers' points battle. Expectation and electricity are in the air.

German feature. Talks about Mercedes being run by zah Gerrrrrmans during WWII to show off the master race's mechanical prowess. Seven years after the war Mercedes was back on the track, minus the Reichsführer. Bob Varsha, announcer stallion gives Sam Posey a shoutout for his German package.

Speaking of German, pressdog's beer of the race is Ayinger Altbairisch Dunkel, Munich Dunkel Lager style beer from Privatbrauerei Franz Inselkammer KG / Brauerei Aying in Aying, Germany. My father's side of the family is almost 100% German so all this sprechen makes me want to sing "Deutschland, Deutschland über alles." Umlauts for everyone!

Qualification highlights. If you don't watch the F1 qualification shows, I'd encourage checking them out. You get some great unscripted commentary from the three amigos in the booth (Varsha, former driver and current color man David Hobbs and former mechanic and current techno-geek analyst Steve Matchett). I usually DVR the practice and qualifications just to hear the three guys bust off. Hobbs favored us with some pig German this time. Outstanding.

Anyway, as with all F1 qualifying, the format is everyone on the track, then the top 15 advance to the second round of qualifying. The top 10 of those qualify for the the final round wherein the pole is awarded. The last round, Q3, is 10 minutes long and everyone basically holds off until the last minute to do maybe two fast laps. So the last minute is NUTTY with people trying to be on track on their last run as the session ends.

The fuel you qualify with is the fuel you start the race with.

At Germany as the clock ran out Lewis Hamilton laid down killer lap and got the pole.

Racing Per Matchett: This week Steve gives us an intimate look at the starter gun of an F1 car. Starter motor is on the gun, heavy cables, kind of hard to get into the hole, but the upside is that you don't have to have all that weight on your car.

Windsor on the grid. Taking us on a tour. Awesome. Nico Rosberg gets air. Windsor with Mark Webber of Red Bull -- Windsor asks Webber to confess he's heavy on fuel to start. Webber says he's happy with the fuel. Track is difficult. Thinks Fernando Alonso will be in around lap 18 or 19.

Windsor exclaims "it's nice to be on the grid again." Let's talk to Mansour Ojjeh, co-owner of McLaren Mercedes. Chatting. Down toward David Colthard in Red Bull. There's Timo Glock! Just a word, Timo -- Very good fun. Hope it will be good on points. Bernie Ecclestone, F1 Kingpin, with his Warholian look, gets air. Pete never talks to Bernie. I think he's been warned. Snipers may open up on him and Jon Mee-shell if they try to just have a word.

Dr. Mario Theissen, Team Principal of BMW Sauber gets some air. Pete says he doesn't see Jensen Button (as if we were all asking ourselves, "I wonder where Jensen is?") Pete --- He tries to hide and right now he's probably doing that in the loo, which is English for restroom.

Back up to Hobbs who takes us around the Hock onboard with Hamilton. That's it for the pre-race, pop over to Fox for the race-race.

Welcome to Fox and Germany. Intro. Four contend for title. Tied at 48 points are Hamilton, Massa, Kimi Räikkönen. Robert Kubica is two points back. Varsha -- nine races down, nine to go. Welcome to Hockenheim. Let's go to our story lines:

David Hobbs -- Lewis Hamilton on pole today. Got major mo. Fastest through every sector in qualifying. Laid down bitchslap at Great Britain.

Varsha -- three-way tie. Rarely this tight this deep into the season.

Matchett -- BMW and Robert Kubica are struggling here at Hock and two weeks ago in Britain. Video of Bob going off in practice. Crazy stuff.

Gridded. Off on recon lap. Starting lineup: Hamilton, Massa, Heikki Kovalainen, Jarno Trulli, Alonso, Räikkönen, Kubica, Webber, Sebastian Vettel, David Coulthard, Timo Glock, Nick Heidfeld, Nico Rosberg, Jensen Button, Sebastein Bourdais, Kazuki Nakajima, Nelson Piquet, Rubens Barrichello, Adrian Sutil, Giancarlo Fisichella.

Gridded. Standing start. Let's light die Kerze ... five lights, red red red red red ... dark means GREEN. Turn one. Cars into the runoff. No circus moments though. Onboard with Räikkönen. Hamilton, Massa, Kubica, Trulli out of the start. Räikkönen gets shuffled. Hamilton immediately has two seconds on Massa. He's stretching out. turning 1:17.9 laps.

Replay of start. Alonso going insane. Räikkönen is P6.

Lap 4 -- Hamilton is now three seconds up on Massa. Clearly has the wings back in the delta and is supersonic. Now he's up four seconds. "Danger Zone" the theme from Top Gun blares over the loudspeaker system.

Windsor says he talked to Alonso and he gave his Renault 7 out of 10.

60 laps to go. Coulthard working on Button in the hairpin ... NO.

Lap 8. (My lap counts are nutty since my big-screen HD TV cuts off the top of the non-HD Fox picture). Varsha says Button in his pig Honda beginning to "pull a train" (!!) now. Right on TV? (He means there are many cars stacked up behind him.) Coulthard trying to make Jensen make a mistake. All over him.

Hamilton is now up by SEVEN seconds.

56 laps to go. Coulthard is around Button and is pulling away. Varsha laments some glitches in timing and scoring that have Kovalainen 11th and then 3rd in a matter of seconds.

Matchett -- soft tires are coming alive. Graining issues may be over. (Note: in F1 you have two sets of tires, hard and soft, for each race. You have to use each type of tires at least once. It's supposed to increase passing, add strategy wrinkles. The knock on the soft(er) tires is that they "grain" which means they tend to get little grains-of-rice-sized bits of rubber on them after a few laps and that causes a loss of traction. Here ends the F1 lesson.)

Lap 14 -- Got some open seats in the stands. Not a HUGE MASSIVE SELL OUT like Britain and Spain. Zah Germans aren't as into it or the place is just ultra massive, not sure which.

Hamilton is locking up the left front a lot. Doesn't care, apparently, since he's about a day ahead of everyone.

Pit window opens. Lewis pits. Kubica pits. Massa leads. Hamilton is out in third. Hamilton is out behind a Toyota. That won't last long.

Lap 19 -- Trulli pits from third. Hamilton is off to the races. Massa pits and soft tires go on. Matchett -- When will Räikkönen come in? If he qualified heavy that would explain his relatively crap qualifying.

Kovalainen pits. Heidfeld tries Kovalainen after he gets back out. NO. Hobbs -- a bit of a hip check there from Kovalainen. Blocking is legal in F1 (aka Prison Rules Racing) so no big deal on the hip checkage.

Räikkönen pits. Matchett reminds us that the fuel hose delivers 12 liters per second. Pit crews up and down pit lane bust out the binoculars and stop watches to see how much fuel rivals get.

Lewis, Massa, Kovalainen, Kubica, Räikkönen, Trulli, Vettel, Glock.

Onboard with Hamilton. Looking to lap people. Rubens Barichello is in his sights. Rubens used major tire strategy to get third at Great Britain even though he was only five seconds from being lapped by Hamilton, that's how much bitchslap was laid down.

Now both Hondas are lapped. Rubens gets out of Hamilton's way. Class.

Massa is 11.5 back in second.

Yellow yellow yellow. Timo block throws a Festival of Carbon Fiber yard sale. Nasty smash ass-first into the wall and then we got carbon fiber everywhere. Replays -- rear suspension busted coming out of a corner and he was ass around. Right rear. Skidding. Varsha - didn't hit it square, luckily. Glancing blow. Safety car is out! Big event in F1. Safety car driver and shotgun gets air.

Timo is out and holding his back. Varsha incredulous that they didn't get him on a back board instead of walking him out. I'm with ya, Bob.

On board with Glock. SNAP -- ass around. Glancing blow. Varsha -- better take those hands off the steering wheel so you don't damage the thumbs or wrists. Yes. Always let go of the wheel cause you're just a passenger at that point!

OMG, Piquet was pitting just as Timo rolled it. Major huge luck for him here. He'll move WAY up as everyone else pits.

Pits are open. Matchett calculates 7.5 seconds of fuel will get you the rest of the way.

In F1, the goofy rule is when the pits are closed you can come in for repairs but NOT fuel. If you are about to run out of fuel, you can come in for some but will be penalized. WTF? You should just run out on the track, I guess.

Here they all come. Ferraris pit together. One parks in back of the other. They service the first one, then the next one pulls in. Insane. They only have one crew per team here, so that's how you do it.

We got engine smoke coming off of Webber's car. May soon be BLOWN up, SIR! Mike Schumacher gets air. Millions of Germans hit the floor, face down, in reaction to the image of the German God of Racing.

Lapped traffic gets a wave around. Webber stays on track spewing smoke and God knows what else.

Lewis didn't pit? WTF? Much incredulity all around. Everyone else behind him pitted. Too late now because we're GREEN.

Hamilton, Heidfeld, Piquet (!), Massa, Kubica.

Varsha -- Hamilton has to gap the field if he wants to pit and still lead. This is going to be interesting.

Matchett recounts Piquet's extreme luck for pitting as the safety car came out. Fell perfectly for him.

GREEN. Alonso behind Rosberg. Rosberg says Welcome to the Block Party. Perfectly legal in F1, because fans LOVE to watch cars block on the track!

Renault boss FLAVIO gets air.

Räikkönen is charging. Hamilton adding 1.8 seconds per lap to his lead. Up to 10 seconds now. But he needs about 25 seconds to pit and come out in the lead. He's +14 now. Matchett -- If he can take one second per lap on Massa he may make it.

Coulthard and Barrichello get together. Barrichello is noseless. Hobbs says Coulthard didn't give him any room and cut right in front of Barrichello, de-winging him. SHOCKER --> Coulthard didn't give someone room.

Hamilton pits from the lead. Didn't have enough of a lead to come out in first again. Comes out behind teammate Kovalainen. Hobbs -- virtually no way Hamilton can win this race. That was a really really really weird move (keeping him out when others pitted during the safety car).

Heidfeld leads. Lewis gets under Kovalainen. Varsha -- that looked pretty easy. (Pretty sure we had some team orders there.) Heidfeld pits from the lead. 5.9 seconds. Hamilton goes ripping by. Nelson Piquet inherits the lead. Surface temperature of the sun: 75 degrees. Massa second. Hamilton. CUE THE EPIC WAR MUSIC. Hamilton about to work on Massa.

12 to go. Hamilton is supersonic. Onboard with Massa looking back at Hamilton. Here he comes. Radio: "Roger Ripper 5, you are go to engage the target. Weapons are hot. Permission to fire." Hamilton: "I'm engaging ... I'm engaging the target."

IT IS ON, Hamilton engages from the rear. Down the inside of the hairpin. BALLS OF STEEL move inside Massa, Hamilton throws a hip check! He's got him. Hamilton is by Massa. Booth guys are screaming, hooting, grunting and frothing. Mercedes fans stand en mass and freak out.

Massa back on the outside. Running in there. Stuffing it in on the outside of a turn. People screaming "balls of steel" in Italian. NO. Hamilton hips him out of the way. No sir. Just like a dog fight, it's over in a minute. Hamilton extends and escapes. He's clear of Massa and GONE. Props to both drivers, especially Massa, for fighting fair and not spearing, pinching, Coutharding Hamilton. A few bumps, but they gave each other some room. F1 at its finest right there.

McLaren crew shot. Fist pumping. Major animation. Viewing enhanced.

Hobbs says Hamilton made "a bit of a ju-dicious move out to the edge of the track there." Aerial replays make me pee my pants. That was straight up KILLER.

Hamilton is all over Piquet now with 8 to go. Only a matter of time now. Hamilton smells the blood. He's en fuego.

Inside the hairpin again. Hamilton under gain. Tires touch. Hip out. CLEAR. P1. Hamilton puts on a monstrous charge around Massa and then under the rookie for the lead. (Props also to Nelson for keeping it clean in the hairpin.)  IN-SANE. Hamilton is a major stallion. Could have sat behind Piquet and settled for second ahead of points rival Massa, but F that, baby. We're here to win.

Hobbs -- I thought those wheels would get tangled and we'd see something flip up into the air.

Räikkönen under Kubicsa for 6th. Shitty day for Räikkönen. Replays: onboard with Hamilton into the hairpin where he dives under Piquet. Now replay onboard with Räikkönen as he makes a balls-of-steel pass UNDER Kubica as they go into a 175 mph kink corner. Sha. That's a beer-spewer move right there.

Ferrari team shot -- nothing. We got nothing there. They might be manikins.

Six to go. Say buh-bye to Hamilton. Stretching out. Will win barring air strike and brain fade.

Four to go. Hamilton, Piquet, Massa, Heidfled, Kovalainen, Räikkönen, Kubica, Vettel.

White ... Checkered. Hamilton wins by 5.5. Piquet second. HUGE. FLAVIO is in the whiskey!

Lap 67 (checkered) -- Lewis Hamilton, Nelsinho (official reports on the F1 site also spell it "Nelsinho") Piquet, Felipe Massa, Nick Heidfeld, Heikki Kovalainen, Kimi Räikkönen, Robert Kubica, Sebastian Vettel, Jarno Trulli, Nico Rosberg, Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Bourdais, David Coulthard, Kazuki Nakajima, Adrian Sutil, Giancarlo Fisichella, Jenson Button (-1), Rubens Barrichello (DNF), Mark Webber (DNF), Timo Glock (DNF).

Podium shots. God Save the Queen anthem. Nelson grinning. Massa third. No so thrilled. Perks up when he get his trophy. Massa only 4 points back from Hamilton now in championship race.

Hamilton -- Didn't plan on it being this exciting. Team opted for him to stay out. Couldn't pull a big enough gap. Props to teammate Heikki for not putting up a huge fight. Had good tires to make the charge. Exciting for fans. Exciting for me too.

Points roundup -- Hamilton, Massa (-4), Räikkönen (-7), Kubica (-10), Heidfeld (-17).

Constructors -- Ferrari 105, BMW 89, McLaren Mercedes 86, Toyota 25.

Ferrari must be in a grand mal rage right now, so better tune in Sunday, August 3 7:30 a.m. Eastern on SPEED for the Hungarian GP. Prancing ponies will be PISSED.

Comments

[PatW]

Just some odd notes on the notes, hope this isn't too long..

When I started reading your F1 notes earlier this year I thought you were fairly new to F1... this week's edition looks like it was written by a fan of many years. Nice job.

Attendance at the German races has fallen since Schumacher retired, so much that their 2nd race was canned. Both German events were sellouts in the Schumi era, Hock atmosphere was electric.

Not sure if you're aware... Only Quali3 has the fuel locked in for the top ten cars, the first two sessions are fuel-light. Whoever is in Q3 must lock in their fuel (even if they get a penalty before the race), everyone else can pick and choose on race day.

Massa moved left when he could have held the line and forced Hamilton out wide, our ITV1 coverage questioned that.. but in my opinion Lewis would have got the switchback anyway.

Cool race. Close racing throughout the field. Unfortunately we've got Hungary next and that'll be more like Mid-Ohio, worse actually. Twisty and dusty. (F1 people call it Monaco without the walls, glamour, scenery... zzzz). In fairness it has been better since they changed the first corner so they can throw one up the inside and hope it works.

After that there is a brand new event in Valencia, Spain, which I'm really looking forward to.

[pressdog]

Thanks for the notes on the notes. F1 qualifications are interested and, like F1 itself, complex. I'll be interested to see if Hungary is as snorefest as you say. Hard to be the IRL's Mid-Ohio snoozer, though.