Albers shows what he's worth

The Turkish GP was, quite literally, an exciting race from start to finish: with a first-lap accident shaking up the order, and Michael Schumacher battling Fernando Alonso all the way to the flag for second, it offered up all the thrills any racing fan could hope for.

In all the excitement, it was perhaps easy to overlook another strong performance from MF1 Racing, as Christijan Albers showed once again that the M16 has made huge progress in recent weeks. In the end, he set a fastest lap time that was just 0.06s off that of Nick Heidfeld’s battered BMW Sauber, but also within four-tenths of the best times of Red Bull’s Christian Klien and David Coulthard, Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, and the Williams duo of Nico Rosberg and Mark Webber. Had luck gone his way, Christijan might have even recorded a good top 10 finish...

Alas, things started to go awry even before qualifying, when an engine problem meant that for the third race in a row, the team was forced to change his powerplant and suffer another 10-place grid penalty. Despite that blow, his crew pushed on and did a good job to get him through to the second round of qualifying, squeezing out Coulthard in the process. While Christijan Albers had the pace to qualify 16th, he was nevertheless destined to start from the back of the grid.

“It’s disappointing, for sure,” he says. “But it doesn’t make sense to make too many comments about that, because we’re a team, and we have to work with each other. Sometimes you just have bad luck. Kimi Raikkonen had it a year ago, and now I’ve had it three times in a row. It was just a shame for qualifying, because clearly we had the pace.”

If there was a silver lining to starting at he back, it was that he had time to dodge the chaos unfolding at the first corner. Tiago Monteiro, who started 19th, wasn’t so lucky: for the umpteenth time this year, one of the Super Aguris speared his car (although to be fair, Takuma Sato was wrong-footed by a Toyota as it tried to pull away from the accident).

“I had a reasonable start, and I was able to pull alongside Ti ago on the front straight. When I came to the first corner, I just took the ideal line and I was able to come out of it OK. It was a little bit strange that we didn’t have a safety car at the beginning of the race, because there was such a mess there!”

Tiago was out on the spot, but Christijan made it through the carnage in one piece. Having to take evasive action dropped him to last of the undamaged cars, but at least he was able to stay out on track, putting him ahead of those who had to pit for repairs.

But what really caught the attention of astute observers was that far from dropping back from the pack, he was able to catch some of the cars ahead by lapping at a very respectable pace. He was running just behind Vitantonio Liuzzi’s Toro Rosso when the Italian spun and brought out the safety car. Although he still carried a lot of fuel on board, Christijan pitted because he didn’t have a lot to lose in terms of overall position, although stopping did allow the previously delayed Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella and the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher to get past him.

On the restart, he kept those two in sight for a few laps, while also battling gamely with Heidfeld. He then latched on to the tail of Webber, and had no trouble han ging on to the Williams man for a number of laps. He pitted for a second time on lap 38, losing a lot of time as the crew struggled to overcome a refuelling problem.

Not long afterward, he had a spin that saw him clip the barrier. It was a disappointing end to the day, but the point had been made: he'd shown some good speed and a willingness to challenge cars that should have been out of his reach. And despite the retirement, his mood – and that of the team – was upbeat.

“I think we were quite competitive in Turkey. The car was a little bit closer to the front, and I was able to show my talent a little bit, as well as where we can go. I think the team did a great job, and we were really strong. I had a big shunt at the end, when I was just pushing just a little bit too hard. We also took on too much fuel in the end because we had a problem, so the last stint was not so good.

“But the rest of the race was fantastic. I was fighting with everybody, and I could keep up with Fisichella, I could keep up with Webber, and Heidfeld was actually in the way! We were as competitive as we’ve ever been, so it was a shame that I lost the car and went into the guardrail. But we had a pretty good qualifying session, and also really good race pace. The performance was there. I was driving in traffic the entire time, and I still managed a 1m30.4s lap time. Had I not been driving in traffic, I’m pretty sure I could have set even quicker times.”

Christijan says that the progress demonstrated in Turkey has given him real encouragement for the last four races of the season.

“We have to try even harder, because now I have a taste for what it feels like to be racing with our rivals. We’re fighting for positions, and it feels great! I’m happy that we did a good job. We’ll try the same in Mo nza. That might be tough for us, because our top speed is not as good as the other cars, but that won’t stop us from pushing as hard as we can. And then we’ll go for it again in China, Japan and Brazil – right to the end. People think that we’ve already pulled the plug on development, but we are still improving every time. Watch and see.”