Monday March 21, 2005

The Malaysian F1 race

A quick review of Sundays race at Sepang. A surprising grid with Ferrari on a back foot again. Trulli on P2 but would he fall asleep again? Red Bull also showed the way with excellent qualifying from both drivers.

A clean start and no dramas on the first lap. It was soon clear however that Button was in trouble and soon spun on his own oil. He then retired. Davidson standing in for a feverish Sato also found his engine failing and the team ended up with nothing even after swapping their engines for more reliable ones. Button was clearly annoyed as he had a decent race pace. Kimi was doing well until a rear tyre failure saw him Robin Reliant style driving back to the pits for a replacement tyre. He then recovered well only to be denied points by Klein. Someone needs to start finding and waving blue flags in Sepang, there was worrying lack of them when the Jordan was in the way. Villneuve fell off the track and admitted the car was causing him some problems. Sauber seem to be on the verge of asking their money back on their star driver. There followed an excellent ding dong between a struggling Fisichella, Webber and his teamate Heidfeld. Heidfeld benefited after the other two took each other out. His second career podium was his just reward. Schumi senior finally got his championship points tally started with two points and Trulli did stay awake to keep second. Alonso drove well to turn his pole position into P1 in the race.

Teams that overperformed

Red Bull again with DC leading the way. Justice for those folks who work for the team who are ex Jaguar.

Toyota. Finally after all that money spent their first podium. Ralf with P5 made it even better.

Teams who did as well as expected

Renault a strong performance; they need two finishers to help them claim the contructors championship on a regular basis however.

Mclaren, Tyre failure ruined Kimi's race, but the monster only bagged a decent points haul by virtue of others failing to finish.

Teams that underperformed

BAR again a disaster. The suspect engine swapping not doing them any good. Having their arch rivals on the podium must have irked them even more.

Ferrari, again a poor performance. Even Schumi appears dispondent now. Other stuff

The stormy relationship between BMW and Williams rumbles on. Ferrari will have to work hard and get their 2005 car ready soon, it will be interesting to see how well it fares on its first outing. At least Stodders kept quiet this weekend. Coultard has now the biggest points tally for a British driver having overhauled Mansell. Bahrain next !

Visit to Wisley and the allotment

Visited Wisley yesterday. I was hoping a few more things would be out but the late spring has delayed things a bit. Above is an Azalea on the hill that overlooks the busy A3. In less than a month it will be accompanied by many more which will add a large splash of colour to this area of the garden. Below is a small alpine in the greenhouse where they move in specimen plants when they are in flower. Some of these alpines are very delicate and beautiful.

Finally in the large greenhouse which the RHS have an appeal to replace there was some lovely orchids but these flowers below I thought were a wonderful display.

I think Wisley is worth a visit at any time of the year and we can look forward too much more as late spring, summer and then autumn unfold.

On returning home I popped up the allotment and planted my onion sets, found the garlic is now visible above ground level and the shallots have good roots on them now. The onions will no doubt be pulled up by birds thinking they would make good nesting material. (until they realise on the end of the onion top is a marble size bulb) I pulled some of the tops off to discourage this. The leeks are doing well in the seed trays in the greenhouse - they won't be set in the ground until much later.