Strategy-wise

Remember last week ? Nurburgring ?

Michael had more fuel in his car which meant he was not on pole. Alonso compromised his race strategy by going for pole. Renault seem to have the same strategy this weekend too. They seem to have fuelled both cars light, and the idea must be to have Fisi hold back Schumi while Alonso pulls away from the field, making the most of his light fuel load. If it works, this situation will lead to Alonso pulling out enough of a gap that he can manage for the rest of the race, for Schumi will surely get ahead of Fisi in the first round of stops.

However, this strategy has the following problems :
a) Fisi is a championship contender too. He is not around to help Alonso, and he will be desperate to prove himself after a couple of bad races. So he is going to be pushing Alonso hard, though the team will tell him to hold back Michael.
b) Ferrari's straight line speed advantage + the long straight => if Schumi gets close to Fisi, this blockup will last no more than a couple of laps.
c) Finally, this strategy will fall flat on its face when Schumi just gets past Fisi at the start itself. Then, it will be a repeat of the 'ring, and while it is a lot lot closer here, in a straight fight between the two, MS is going to come up trumps.

The key question really is how long will MS get bottled up behind Fisi ??