F1-Blog

Lewis Hamilton has taken the pole position for the British GP with a stunning last minute lap.

The Ferrari’s have looked quick all weekend up until Qualifying where they seemed to be sandbagging a little bit in Q1 and Q2.

Alonso was the first to set a time in the Q3 session, with a 1:20.410 looking like a decent time with fuel on board.

Massa and Raikkonen however came out all guns blazing in Q3, and took the fight to the McLaren’s, Massa siting in second, Raikkonen in third and Hamilton in fourth.

With just seconds to go Alonso raised the bar on the three cars behind him by setting a 1:20.147, next over the line was Massa with a 1:20.265. Raikkonen was then the next man through, setting the fastest time with a great lap of 1:20.099, even if he ran wide in front of the Woodcote stands.

It was however the last of the front runners that set the pole time. Lewis Hamilton came through with a staggering lap. He was behind Kimi in the split times through Sector 1, however Sector 2 and 3 were awesome, Lewis went over the line to set a 1:19.997, the only man in Q3 to break into the 1:19’s.

Special mention to the Toyota boys (especially Ralf Schumacher who put the car on 6th spot).

So then can Lewis take the race tomorrow? It will not be an easy race for any of the teams, both the Ferrari’s look quick, as do the McLaren’s.

With a little luck we can have the first Brit on the top step of the podium since David Coulthard in 2000.

Should be a good race.

Ferrari have announced that Nigel Stepney is no longer employed by the team.

Nigel has been at the heart of an investigation into sabotage allegations around the Monaco GP.

Ferrari confirmed that they were looking into the allegations internally, as well as a Police investigation that is ongoing. Today they announced that they have decided to terminate his contract.

Nigel has maintained his innocence in the allegations, and the thinking around the pit is that it would have been next to impossible for him to have done what is being said (tampered with the fuel, however it was discovered at the factory before the race weekend).

Nigel is currently on holiday in the Philippines, and is expected back towards the end of the week. 

This has implications for the Ferrari team in more than one way, it may disrupt the current engineering teams, as Nigel has been the go to man for a long time. As well as this, he is a long term friend of Ross Brawn, who it is widely believed that Ferrari I trying to groom into becoming the team head.

Other rumors have had Ross talking to Honda and Toyota as well, and now that none of his long term friends and colleges (Nigel, Michael Schumacher and Rory Byrne)

One thing is for sure, Nigel will not be without a job for long, as most of the grid would love to employ him, especially if it would help bring Ross Brawn along.

Kimi Raikkonen has shown that he still has it in him to win a GP by taking a strong win in at the last Magny-Cours race in France.

The win happened because Kimi had more fuel on-board and managed to make it count by overtaking his Ferrari team mate Fillipe Massa during the second round of pit stops.

Third place was taken by the young Brit Lewis Hamilton, who ran a 3 stop strategy, as was his team mate, although Fernando Alonso was switched to a 2 stop race after the first stops. Lewis for the first time, was mugged off the line, and never seemed to be able to make a move on the Ferrari’s at any point in the day. After all 8 podiums from 8 starts is not a bad record.

Race of the day Robert Kubica managed to bring his BMW Sauber in for 4th spot, after a hard race in the second stint with Lewis Hamilton. The second BMW Sauber of Nick Heidfeld made finished in the fifth spot, with a close run battle between Giancarlo Fisichella and Fernando Alonso finishing 6th and 7th.

Jenson Button and the Honda team grabbed their first points of the season, with an 8th place finish for the Brit. The Honda certainly is starting to look better, but still has a way to go to keep up with the front runners.

Besides that there was very little real action, the camera’s followed the Fernando Heidfeld battle for most of the race, as it was the most interesting race on the track. There were a couple of issues at the start, Anthony Davidson ran into the back of Toni Liuzzi and span them both out. There was also an incident at the hairpin, where Jarno Trulli ran into the back of Heikki Kovalainen, ending the race for the Toyota driver, and ruining the day for the Renault one.

The best pass of the day has to go to Fernando whilst overtaking the BMW Sauber of Heidfeld. This was a good pass as Fernando made it somewhere that a pass is not really possible (through one of the quick chicanes).

So Lewis now leads the championship by 14 points from Fernando, and the two Ferrari’s have shown that the new aero changes, along with engine work (to the extent allowed) has brought them back into the challenge.

Silverstone should be a good race.

1 6 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 70 Winner 3 10
2 5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 70 +2.4 secs 1 8
3 2 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 70 +32.1 secs 2 6
4 10 Robert Kubica BMW 70 +41.7 secs 4 5
5 9 Nick Heidfeld BMW 70 +48.8 secs 7 4
6 3 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 70 +52.2 secs 5 3
7 1 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes 70 +56.5 secs 10 2
8 7 Jenson Button Honda 70 +58.8 secs 12 1
9 16 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 70 +68.5 secs 9 
10 11 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 69 +1 Lap 11 
11 8 Rubens Barrichello Honda 69 +1 Lap 13 
12 15 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 69 +1 Lap 14 
13 14 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 69 +1 Lap 16 
14 17 Alexander Wurz Williams-Toyota 69 +1 Lap 18 
15 4 Heikki Kovalainen Renault 69 +1 Lap 6 
16 22 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 68 +2 Laps 22 
17 20 Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari 68 +2 Laps 21 
Ret 19 Scott Speed STR-Ferrari 55 +15 Laps 15 
Ret 21 Christijan Albers Spyker-Ferrari 28 +42 Laps 20 
Ret 23 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 1 +69 Laps 19 
Ret 12 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1 +69 Laps 7 
Ret 18 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Ferrari 0 Accident 17