After them,
Renault, Williams and
Toyota filled the remaining points places, although the
regie looked a shadow of its former self. How much is due to losing Alonso and how much is due to having to switch from Michelin to
Bridgestone tyres is the big question but, whatever the answer, it definitely needs to pull its socks up if it is to get anywhere near to achieving what it has done over the last two years.
It is difficult to see that happening though and, with rookie
Heikki Kovalainen getting a bit of a public dressing down courtesy of team boss Flavio Briatore, it isn’t going to help matters. They need to pull together.
Williams and Toyota surprised me too, not because, as with Renault, I expected a bit more, but because I actually expected a bit less, especially where Toyota was concerned. Instead, they were very solid and so too was
Nico Rosberg for
Williams, who finished seventh, followed by
Ralf Schumacher and
Jarno Trulli.
Staying with surprises, I think it is only right to mention
Super Aguri. I don’t want to get into the politics of whether it is their chassis or not and whether the team can be classed as a constructor – that’s for the powers that be to decide and for Spyker to dispute, as it seems to be – but, on track, I struggle to recall a time, at least in the last 10 years, when a team made such a leap forward from one year to the next. It really is a case of night and day, black and white, and that’s great news for
Takuma Sato, who of course got through to Q3, and for ‘rookie’
Anthony Davidson.
