Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Vicky O’Connor the bright light of Formula Atlantic

For the 36 years that Formula Atlantic has existed, under various names (Toyota Atlantic, Champ Car World Series Atlantic) and owners, there has been one constant: Vicky O’Connor.

Her husband was one of the original drivers in the series and when it faltered in the mid-80s, she took it over. Over the years, she has owned it, and when she hasn’t owned it, she’s run it.

She’s been at the helm through good times and bad. It’s been, over time, one of the best open-wheel development series in the world. Look at the names of the drivers – many of them Canadians – who have raced and dominated in that series:

Bill Brack, Gilles Villeneuve (it was because of his performance in the Atlantic race at Trois-Rivieres in 1976 that Gilles made it to Formula One), his brother Jacques Villeneuve and his son Jacques Villeneuve, Keke Rosberg, Bobby Rahal, Michael Andretti, Scott Goodyear, David Empringham and Patrick Carpentier and the famous names go on and on.

There have been banner years (in fact, in the mid- to late-Eighties there were so many cars that there were U.S. East Coast and West Coast divisions) and not-so-banner years.

But through it all, thick or thin, Vicky O’Connor soldiered on.

The Atlantics are on the American LeMans Series support program this weekend at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in California and although they have a marvelous three-way fight going for the championship (Simona De Silvestro, Jonathan Summerton and John Edwards), great story lines (Simona could become the first woman champion of a major open-wheel series; Edwards – at 18 – could be the youngest champion) and all the other things that have made Atlantics great over the years, you really have to wonder if this is going to be the end of the road.

Yes, Atlantics have re-upped to run mostly with the ALMS again in 2010, and Mazda has confirmed its continuing participation, and ownership is strong (the well-to-do Ben Johnston), not to forget the leadership of O’Connor and her very able staff, but that final race at Laguna Seca this weekend is going to see only seven or eight cars start.

I don’t believe so few cars have ever started an Atlantic race and it doesn’t – on the surface – bode well for the future.

However, they’ve said that before about this series and it’s always managed to keep its head above water and so, when O’Connor was at Mosport in August, I asked her how come?

MCDONALD: What is it about Formula Atlantic that has given it such amazing staying power?

O’CONNOR: It’s the perfect formula. What drivers learn in an Atlantic car, they can take anywhere – sports cars, a higher level of open wheel or they can stay awhile and just enjoy what they’re doing.

The cars are fun to drive, they’re perfectly balanced (the right balance of power to weight), the series has got a great staff that puts it all together – and we’re a family. Part of that is that everyone recognizes Atlantic for what it is. As Brian Till said, it’s the most fun he had in his life and all the drivers make their friends here. The car’s perfect.

MCDONALD: Don Panoz (owner of the American LeMans Series) thinks there are too many development series, that you’re all (Atlantics, Star Mazda, Indy Lights) after the same small pool of talented drivers with money. Is he correct?

O’CONNOR: I think you have to be careful how many (series) there are and you have to separate one from the other by . . . something, whether it’s horsepower (Indy Lights) or road-racing only (Atlantics).

It does get a little confusing. It would be nice if there were less – but there aren’t. And the people who own the series are committed and are doing a good job and they have every right to do what they want.

MCDONALD: You mentioned Indy Lights, what’s the difference?

O’CONNOR: They do ovals, we don’t. It’s a different type of car; it has more horsepower. They’re two different disciplines. You can step out of Indy Lights into Indy cars but you can step out of Atlantics into anything.

It’s the opportunities that are the problem. As I explain to some of the drivers, not everybody becomes an NFL quarterback either. So many things have to fall into  place for a driver to progress, whether he has his own money or whether he’s singled out on talent. There aren’t that many open seats anywhere at the moment so you have to deal with it.

MCDONALD: Atlantics have been up and down and up and down. Here at Mosport, you don’t have many cars. What do you have to do to increase the interest?

O’CONNOR: I think the interest is there. Two things happened – we were orphaned when Champ Car and IRL got together so we were pretty much put out on our own again, so to speak. Then a new owner came in and people are waiting to see our staying power.

The other thing is the U.S. economy, We’re not the only ones (suffering). Other series – Indy Lights had 16 cars at Chicagoland – everybody is down a tad and maybe we’re hurting more than others but it’ll turn around.

This isn’t the first time. 2001 was 12 cars. It goes in cycles.

 

Auto racing shockers: was '82 Indy start crash rigged?

Waking up on a Wednesday morning and finding out:

– That Robert Kubica has signed to drive for Renault in 2010. Gee, didn’t Toyota’s manager John Howett say that Kubica and Kimi Raikkonen were going to drive for them?

Oh, and Toyota driver Jarno Trulli is going to test a NASCAR Sprint Cup car for Michael Waltrip Racing in November. And second driver Timo Glock is free to talk to other teams.

Anybody still think that Toyota will be on the grid in 2010?

– That not only is Nelson Piquet Jr. going to test a NASCAR pickup truck for Red Horse Racing but so is Vitor Meira, the Indy car driver who was injured at the Indianapolis 500.

I know Meira is a fellow Brazilian but, if I was him, I wouldn't be going anywhere near Nelson Piquet Jr. There's an old saying that goes like this: You're known by the company you keep.

Stay away, Vitor.

– Speaking of Foyt, he shocked 60-plus years of naivite out of me last Sunday night when he appeared on the TV show Wind Tunnel.

I’ve always thought car racing was pretty much a pure sport, that 99 per cent of the time things were on the up-and-up. (The other 1 per cent is the team orders thing and I really don’t get too worked up about that.)

So, you can imagine my surprise when it was absolutely proved beyond a shadow of a doubt in recent weeks that three people had actually conspired to fix the results of a Formula One race (Singapore, ’08) and had gotten away with it. For a year, anyway.

So Sunday night, I just about fall off my couch when Foyt tells the following little story. (The quotes are paraphrased.)

INTERVIEWER ROBIN MILLER:"So when Kevin Cogan ran into you before the start at Indy in ’82, you got real mad and called him ‘that damn Coogan.’ "

FOYT: "Well, I was mad because he did damage to my car but also because some friends of mine had some big money bet on me to beat the Penske cars on the first lap. They were betting I would lead the first lap."

Okay, so hold it right there.

1. A.J. Foyt says that big money is bet that he will lead the Penske cars on the first lap of the Indy 500.

2. Kevin Cogan drives for Penske.

3.Coming down to the green flag, Cogan turns sharply right and hits Foyt. Cogan says it isn't his fault. You decide, because the video is right here. Listen particularly to the part where colour commentator Sam Posey suggests Cogan turned right intentionally.

4. Foyt manages to get his car repaired (it wasn’t that badly damaged; the steering was out of whack) and eventually leads the first lap after the restart.

FOYT (paraphrase again): "So it ended okay after all. All my friends made a lot of money."

Translation: somebody also lost (or stood to lose) a lot of money.

Hmmmmm.

In light of what Foyt said Sunday, and what we know today about the Grand Prix of Singapore in 2008, I now think there was something really fishy about what happened at Indianapolis in 1982.

I think I’ll go back to bed now. I have a headache.

 

Young Canadian sprint car star critically injured

In mid-September, a young, vivacious, good-looking and ambitious 21-year-old sprint car driver from Langley, B.C., named Travis Rutz hauled 4,000 kilometres east to race in the fifth annual Canadian Sprint Car Nationals at the Brantford-area Ohsweken Speedway.

Seventy-seven drivers took time and Travis was 45th fastest. To put that in perspective, the quickest time-trialer was Glenn Styres with a time of 14.288 seconds. Travis went around in 15.3 seconds. The slowest “fast” guy was No. 75 on the list, Kyle Fraser, who turned a 16.8.

Travis made the field for the Little Feature but couldn’t transfer into the A-Main and his night was over. But that’s racing.

It’s also life – and life can turn on a dime.

A week ago Sunday – Sept. 27, to be exact – Travis was running an All Star Circuit of Champions tour event at the Action Track in Terre Haute, Ind., when disaster struck.

Powering out of the fourth turn, he was in a side-by-side battle with another driver when they came across a very slow-moving car on the main straight. The ensuing collision (so violent that the race was terminated because of damage to the safety fence and starter’s stand) left Travis with life-threatening injuries and he’s in a coma today at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis.

Tommy Goudge, who handles PR for Ohsweken Speedway and the Southern Ontario Sprints, among other clients, has followed Travis’s career closely.

“I first saw him compete as a 16-year-old at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton in 2004, and he won what was at that time Canada’s most prestigious sprint car event - the Gold Cup - from 11th on the grid. I have followed his career ever since.

“The news of the crash and his injuries has hit a lot of people in the racing community very hard. The medical bills for Travis and his family are going to be astronomical, and the word I got from one of their friends is that their insurance is not going to cover any of it because the crash took place on a race track.

“Nearly 2,000 people have joined the Facebook group set up after the accident and "pass the helmet" donations were held over the weekend at Lawrenceburg, Ind., and Chico, Calif., among other places. We even did one at the Southern Ontario Sprints awards banquet on Saturday night in Brantford.”

Thanks for this, Tommy. Our thoughts and prayers are with Travis and his family. Racing remains a dangerous game. Sometimes, we forget that.

Now more than ever it looks like Toyota's finished with F1

The interesting thing about the Japanese Grand Prix this weekend – other than Sebastien Vettel winning it in dominant fashion and Jenson Button not scoring enough points (again) to wrap up the world championship – was the tap-dancing going on concerning Toyota’s future in Formula One.

Several days ago, I commented on reports from Europe that Toyota was sending signals that its participation in F1 wasn’t guaranteed beyond 2009. This is because the auto industry has been hammered by the recession and other manufacturers – notably Honda and BMW – have already called it a day. Because Renault is also far from certain for 2010 (they’re not selling many cars these days on top of the race-fix scandal they’ve had to endure), it’s not exactly a stretch to suggest that the rumours surrounding Toyota may very well be true.

When F1 got to Japan, however, friends and critics sent me links to stories on the Internet that suggested the stories about Toyota’s possible demise were wrong, that the quotes had been taken out of context and that, in fact, the team was planning to sign both Kimi Raikkonen and Robert Kubica as drivers for 2010.

Now, you can’t blame Toyota F1 president John Howett for calling a news conference as soon as he got to Japan to try to turn the negative PR around 180 degrees. Toyota is in the business of selling cars. The last thing it needs is for people to get the idea it’s in any kind of financial difficulty.

But instead of calming the waters, Howett, in his zeal, raised the ante by suggesting that not only was the team going to be back next year but that it was going to go out and sign Robert Kubica and Kimi Raikkonen to be its drivers.

That’s when I became even more convinced that Toyota’s in trouble because Raikonen’s going to McLaren and Kubica will drive for Renault – if it survives. To suggest that Toyota even has – or had – a chance of landing either driver shows how desperate Howett had become to calm the troubled waters.

Look, I want everybody in Formula One to thrive, never mind survive. But other than statements made by Renaul F1 acting team manager Bob Bell to the effect that he’s sure the team will be on the grid in 2010 (and, like Howett, what’s he supposed to say?), to my knowledge, nobody at Renault corporate headquarters has said much about that team’s future, if anything.

The board of directors of Toyota will not meet until Nov. 15 and, until then, nobody knows what’s going to happen next year.

Nobody.

So the last thing John Howett is in a position to do is offer multi-million-dollar contracts to a world champion driver and/or a potential world champion driver.

To suggest otherwise does nothing for credibility, which F1 needs in large doses these days.

F1 NOTES:

– The Japanese race ended pretty much the way it started with Vettel first for Red Bull, Jarno Trulli second for Toyota and Lewis Hamilton third for McLaren (although Hamilton did pop into second at the start but then had some trouble with the KERS power-boost system that dropped him back to third. KERS is gone for 2010, thank goodness).

– There were a tonne of accidents at Japan this weekend – notably Mark Webber in his Red Bull (his second crash in two races), and Jamie Alguersuari in his Toro Rosso during the race and Timo Glock (Toyota), Sebastien Buemi and Keikki Kovallainen (McLaren) in Saturday qualifying.

Glock, in particular, had a miserable weekend. He missed Friday practice because of a cold (!) – Toyota just happened to have a Japanese driver on hand to stand in for him (!) – and then in Saturday qualifying he crashed and suffered a fairly substantial gash to his left leg that kept him out of the race.

– That F1 pilots are real racers, let there be no doubt. When Buemi crashed in qualifying, Button, Rubens Barrichello, Fernando Alonso and Adrian Sutil were all penalized five starting positions because they ignored a yellow flag and kept the hammer down. None of them would give an inch.

– Vettel had a 10-second lead and was cruising to victory with five laps to go when Alguersuari crashed and the safety car came out. He kept his cool, however, and was pulling away at the checkers for his third win of ‘09.

– Button still leads the championship with 85 points. Barrichello is second with 71 and Vettel is third with 69. Barrichello was seventh in Japan while Button finished eighth. Two races remain – Brazil in two weeks (Oct. 18) and Abu Dhabi Nov. 1.

Say it ain’t so: Speed News reported last night that the disgraced Nelson Piquet Jr. is planning to test a pickup truck for Red Horse Racing in the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series.

For once I have No Comment.

There's something wrong when my pal finds NASCAR boring

I telephoned my friend, ------ -------, yesterday afternoon as I was driving home from Mosport (see post below).

(Oh, I won’t put his name in here because, a) he’d get mad at me for reporting what he said and, b) other people would get mad at him for saying what he did.)

Anyway.

"Whatcha doin?’ I said.

"Falling asleep watching the Crapcar race," he said.

"Boring?" I asked.

"Uh-huh," he replied.

Now, my friend, -------- --------, is a racing fan. He’s also a racing driver. (The late Mosport owner, Harvey Hudes, once paid him the ultimate compliment by saying that -------- -------- "is the most exciting racing driver I’ve ever seen.")

So if ---------- ----------- says a car race is boring, then there’s something seriously wrong.

And yet, it’s kind of the way I’ve felt for some time about NASCAR.

That’s not to say there aren’t moments of excitement in NASCAR races. The starts are always great, the pits stops can be spectacular, the wrecks – well, there is a certain attraction. But after the start, and between the pit stops, it can really be mind-numbing watching those cars go ‘round-and-’round, ‘round-and-‘round, ‘round-and-‘round’ ad nauseum.

F1 races are two hours or less. So are Indy car races except for the Indy 500. NASCAR has three big races (the Daytona 500, the Coca-Cola 600 and the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis) and the remaining 33 are, for the most part, just way too long. They could easily be shortened and still retain everything that makes NASCAR great.

If they cut most of them back to 2 or 2-1/2 hours, I guarantee you that when I next call my friend ------ -------, he’s going to say: "Not now! I’m watching a really exciting NASCAR race."

Well, maybe not that – but you get my drift.

For the record (because I didn’t see the race): Tony Stewart won the Price Chopper 400 presented by Kraft Foods at Kansas Speedway yesterday, with Jeff Gordon second and Greg Biffle third. Nine of the top 10 finishing cars were driven by "Chasers." In the standings, after three of 10 playoff races, Mark Martin still leads, with Jimmie Johnson second and Juan Pablo Montoya third.

The series now goes to California next Sunday for a 500-mile race and I betcha ---------- --------- can hardly wait to fall asleep watching that one.

Interesting: Bruce Martin is reporting on sportsillustrated.cnn.com that Danica Patrick may start her stock car apprenticeship next season with Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s NASCAR Nationwide team. The source? Little E’s Cup boss, Rick Hendrick.

Martin says her first season will likely consist of five races, as her Indy car contract with Michael Andretti restricts the amount of racing she can do elsewhere.

And the winner of the Can-Am Cup race is . . . Shane Jantzi!

They’re going to have to change the name of the eFormulaCarNews.com Can-Up Cup challenge race for Formula Fords to the Shane Jantzi Benefit.

For the fourth time in the four-year history of the special, one-off, take-no-prisoners and for-all-the-marbles sprint (20 minutes plus one lap), Jantzi romped home the winner yet again yesterday afternoon at Mosport during the annual end-of-season CASC-OR Celebration of Motorsport wall-to-wall race weekend.

But it was a typical, close-as-paper-on-the-wall, Can-Am Cup finish. Jantzi, of Ayr, edged second-place finisher Dean Baker of Blackstock by a car-length. Third-place finisher Mikhail Goikhberg of Vaughan wasn’t far behind.

The Can-Up Cup traditionally features numerous lead changes and yesterday’s race didn’t disappoint. Goikhberg led from the pole and Jantzi was in hot pursuit going into turn one but at the end of the first lap Baker was in the lead with Jantzi second and Goikhberg back in third.

On lap five, Jantzi took the lead for the first time but Baker was out in front again on lap six.

Then it was just about all over as Jantzi went back into the lead on lap seven and was never headed after that -- although he had his supporters biting their fingernails. He pulled out a lead of five or six car-lengths and then settled in for a run to the finish.

Baker gave it his all and was closing at the checkers but simply ran out of laps. And Goikhberg, giving it the old college try to catch up to the two leaders, nearly spoiled his chances of a podium finish by going off-course with four laps remaining but he managed to recover in time to hold onto his third-place spot.

The winner revealed in Winner’s Circle that his victory was not as easy as it might have looked.

"I was trying not to focus on Dean but I knew he’d still be coming and I missed a shift with two laps to go (coming out of turn five – Moss Corner) and I lost a lot of momentum and he closed up the distance I’d taken the whole race to build up.

"I think I turned my fastest lap of the race on that last one to hold on for the win. But hey, it was a good race and I'm thrilled I was able to win it again."

Said Baker: "It was a great race and a lot of fun. We had a really good car for this weekend. We got a bad break in traffic early-on that cost us 10 or 12 car lengths and then we spent the last half of the race just catching up.

"Unfortunately, we were a lap short of where we want to be. I think with another lap, we might have been able to change the result."

Goikhberg said his team had expected a shower during the race and had set up the car for "damp" conditions. (It was overcast and rain fell intermittently during the day but the Formula Ford race was dry.)

"The track was dry and the car wasn’t perfect and I knew the race was getting to the end. I wanted to catch them but I overcooked it on the exit (of turn three) and went off. I was able to recover but it’s frustrating because I started on pole and I wanted to win."

Although 20 cars started the feature event, the field was between five and 10 short of the number the  eFormulaCarNews.com organizers had expected.

　

Here are the jokes Joe Gosek didn't tell about Robin Miller

Robin Miller is replacing the very capable Dave Despain on Speed TV’s Wind Tunnel program Sunday night and one of his guests will be A.J. Foyt.

I can hardly wait.

First, Foyt is one of the last of the rough, tough, old-guard sprint car and midget racers who’s, a) still alive and, b) still actively involved in racing (Mario and Pancho Carter are the only two others I can think of off the top).

Second, Foyt once hauled off and punched Miller. According to the press release announcing his replacement role tonight, one of the questions Miller plans to ask Foyt is whether he had more fun punching him or Arie Luyendyk (who he slugged in Victory Lane at Texas Motor Speedway when there was some confusion over who actually won the first IRL race down there).

I’ve admired Miller for years. He’s the best-connected Indy car reporter in the business and he used to be the featured racing columnist on the Indianapolis Star. He also used to race in USAC’s midget division (not for the faint of heart), so he knows the sport from all sides. He’s been out there.

Anyway, in the old days, Miller used to host a bash at the Indianapolis Press Club that honoured the 31^st, 32^nd and 33^rd drivers who made the field for the Indy 500. It was called the "Last Row Party" and sought to give the last three guys in the field a little publicity because once the race started it was highly unlikely they would ever be heard from again.

Although I never attended one (it was discontinued some years ago), I hear it was a "roast" in the true sense of the word.

So in 1995, my friend Joe Gosek makes the field for the 500 and he’s starting on the last row. He’s going to be roasted at the Indy Press Club by none other than Robin Miller.

On the afternoon of the party, I get a call from my friend Bobby Smith, who’s Joe’s best buddy. "Can you write some jokes that Joe could tell tonight?" he asked me. "Robin Miller is going to roast him and we think it would be a great idea if Joe could give it right back to him."

So I rattled off a couple of jokes and read them over the phone to Smitty, who wrote them down and thought they would do the trick.

Now, I don’t know what happened that night. I don’t know if Joe read the jokes and didn’t think they were so funny, or if he got nervous and didn’t think he could tell them properly, or what? But they were never told.

I’ve had them around for years. (I never throw anything out. I even have the jokes I wrote for Paul Anka once when he was on a concert tour and his manager called me up and asked for some "local" humour that Paul could use between songs. Then he got sick and they cancelled the concert and nobody told those jokes either!)

Anyway, here are the jokes I wrote for Joe Gosek to tell about Robin Miller at the Last Row Party at the Indianapolis Press Club in 1995.

"Robin Miller used to drive USAC midgets. He once drove in the Hut Hundred at Terre Haute and he made four pit stops – one for a flat tire and three others for directions."

Actually, that’s kind of funny. But I like this one best.

"Robin Miller was once punched in the nose by A.J. Foyt. Everybody said it was because of something Robin put in the paper but that’s wrong. He was in Foyt’s garage playing blackjack with the crew. Just as A.J, walked in, Miller said ‘hit me.’ So that’s what happened."

Wind Tunnel starts on Speed TV Sunday night at 9 p.m.

Canadian driver, team poised to win Grand Am championships

There must be something in the water we drink up here that gives Canadian drivers a leg up when it comes to racing in the Grand Am KONI Challenge Series.

This is the series where cars right off the showroom floor are featured. The entrants safety them up (roll cages and the like) but otherwise the cars are the same as the ones you see on the Don Valley Parkway every day.

There are two classes – Grand Sport (GS), which features the Porsches, BMWs and Mustangs, and Street Tuner (ST), where you find cars like the the Chevy Cobalt and Mini Cooper S.

As many as 90 cars sometimes start these races, which means things can get a little crowded out there.

In any event, Scott Maxwell of Toronto won the 2008 KONI championship (as he did in 2002). And guess what? This weekend, at Virginia International Raceway, Kenny Wilden of Oakville could very well wrap up the GS championship and Karl Thomson’s Compass360 racing team from Toronto could win the ST class.

Wilden has an 18-point lead in Grand Sport while Thomson’s team is 31 points ahead in ST. Grand-Am PR coordinator, Michael Harker, reports that only 35 points are available for a victory, giving both Wilden and Thomson strong chances to take the titles.

Said Thomson in an email: "I will be sharing the driving duties with championship leader Christian Miller and hope to help him (and our team) to our first series championships.

"We currently lead in all three areas – driver, team and manufacturer (for Honda)."

Speaking of Harker, he sent me some bullet points on both Wilden and Thomson:

– Wilden has never finished outside the top 10 while driving a Mustang for his team, Rehagen Racing

– Wilden has competed in all four classes of Grand-Am’s two series (Grand Sport and Street Tuner in KONI Challenge; Daytona Prototype and GT in Rolex Series)

– The Compass360 Honda Civic Si has seven top fives and nine top 10s in 10 starts in 2009

– The team’s second car, the No. 75 Honda Civic Si, is fourth in point standings and could move to third by the end of Sunday’s race.

TV REMINDER: The Grand Prix of Japan qualifying can be seen on TSN tomorrow morning (Saturday) at 8 a.m. Because of the time difference, the race itself will be on TSN Sunday morning at 12:55 a.m. and then be repeated (hooray!) at 8 a.m.

The NASCAR Price Chopper 400 will come on TSN Sunday at 1 p.m.

Want to watch some real racing? Speed will carry the World of Outlaws’ sprint car race at Williams Grove Speedway in Pennsylvania Saturday night at 8.

Toyota's sending signals it might be next to drop out of F1

The Grand Prix world tour (well, North America excepted) is continuing this weekend in Japan and Toyota is sending signals that it could very well be the next manufacturer to pull out of Formula One.

AP PHOTO

Toyota drivers Timo Glock, left, and Kamui Kobayashi at a press conference ahead of Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix.

(No wonder the FIA suspended Renault’s two-year sentence for cheating because, otherwise, Mercedes and Ferrari might have been the only manufacturers remaining in 2010!)

It was bad enough when Toyota team principal Tadashi Yamashina told reporters that the team couldn’t talk about next year because the decision on budget hadn’t yet been made by the board of directors.

But when Toyota told driver Timo Glock this week that he was free to "look around" and make a deal somewhere else if he wanted, I suggest that team doesn’t have a future.

I mean, Glock has performed very well for Toyota this season. His second-place finish at Singapore last weekend was great stuff. And they’re telling him they don’t mind if he goes somewhere else?

You don't mind if you're closing up shop. . .

Glock, meantime, didn’t drive in the Japanese Grand Prix's first free practice session today – he came down with a "really bad cold and a fever." Toyota took advantage of this great PR opportunity by putting young GP2 driver Kamui Kobayashi in the car.

He didn’t do all that badly, either. Although he was about three seconds off the pace set by McLaren’s Heikki Kovalainen, he wasn’t last on the charts. That honour went to Renault’s Romain Grosjean, the bank teller; Kobayashi was 19^th.

Kazuki Nakajima in the Williams was second fastest today, with Adrian Sutil third in the Force India rocketship. Giancarlo Fisichella seems to have found his sea legs with Ferrari as he set fourth fastest time. His  teammate, the fired world champion Kimi Raikkonen, was eighth.

Is Kimi pouting after being dropped by Ferrari this week in favour of Fernando Alonso for 2010? Or is he just biding his time?

Knowing Kimi, he’d love nothing more than to win the last three Grands Prix and then to give the one-finger salute to his former employer as he trots on down the road to McLaren.