F1-Blog

Lewis makes it 2 in a row

Hot on the heals of his win in Canada, Lewis Hamilton has followed other illustrious British drivers like Damon Hill, and Nigel Mansel to win two in a row after their maiden win.

Lewis qualified on the pole position, and used it to his advantage in the  first stint of the race. Fernando Alonso tried to overtake on the first lap, but could not manage it. Lewis then seemed to be the quicker driver and pulled away from his twice world champion team mate.

After the stops Fernando seemed to be the quicker McLaren, and caught Lewis up. From their he hassled his younger team mate all the way round until the second stop (he ran wide on lap 46, just before the stops).

After the second stop, Lewis managed to hold off his team mate again on the harder tyres, then it seemed with 12 laps to the end, it seemed the team called a halt to the challenge. And that is how the McLaren’s finished the race.

Third on the podium was Filipe Massa again. The Ferrari’s were certainly not as quick as the McLaren’s, however they were not as slow as they were expected to be. Kimi Raikkonen struggled with the hard tyres on his first stint, then came back at Filipe after he switched over to the softer tyres at his first stop. He could not however overtake his junior team mate, and had to settle for fourth.

Heikki Kovalainen brought his improving Renault into the fifth spot, however it is worth noting that the BMW of Nick Heidfeld would have probably taken that spot, but had to retire due to a power steering issue.

The Williams Toyota of Nico Rosberg performed quite well, up until the engine fire caused him to stop on the main straight, although because he was only four laps from the finish he get categorised as 16th.

Jarno Trulli again had a good days racing, bringing the Toyota into sixth, which is a needed result considering that his team mate Ralf Schumacher caused the only multi car accident of the race in the first corner, destroying David Coulthard, and Rubens Barichello’s race as well.

Mark Webber gets the first points for the Red Bull team, bringing his car into seventh, and new boy Sebastien Vettel gets the last point for the BMW Sauber team.

With all the talk of disharmony in the McLaren team at the moment, at least this race showed that both of the McLaren cars are as quick as one another, and unlike last race, Lewis had to work for this win, with Fernando hounding him all the way home. Fernando will still not be happy that he was beaten, but at least he knows that he came second to a deserving winner this race.

When will Lewis make his first mistake? or will he even make one? All drivers tend to make a big mistake in the beginning of their F1 career, and even Michael Schumacher was no exception. The question is, will he be able to pick his cards up, and join the game again after it happens, or will it knock his confidence completely?

Only time will tell, but for now, Lewis is on top of his game, now with a 10 point lead in the drivers championship. However it seems that Fernando is now starting to settle into the new team and tyres, so it’s any ones guess who will be the dominant driver when F1 comes back to Europe.