F1-Blog

Hamilton on top at home

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.

Kimi comes back

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.

Ferrari goes pop, Alonso goes Top

The 20th and for the forseable future, last Japanese grand prix at the Suzuka circuit threw out a doozy.

The Michelin tyres really did not perform well in qualifying on Saturday, with the Bridgestone tyres showing a 1 second advantage in the final grid layout.

However Sunday brought lower track temperatures, and a more rubbered in track. This brought the Michelin tyres up to the race pace of the Bridgestone runners.

Alonso made a good move from the start to elevate himself from fifth to fourth after the second corner. Alonso however struggled then to pass the obviously slower Toyota of Ralph Schumacher, with Massa and Michael Schumacher after he took the lead on lap 3.

The Toyotas where the first cars to stop, with Massa coming in shortly after due to a puncture, this put Massa out of position after the stop, coming out behind the BMW of Heidfeld. This tied Massa up, and allowed Alonso to stop and come out ahead after his stop.

Alonso, the Renault and the Michelin tyres started to come good, and he started to make inroads into the lead that Michael had gained.

Albers Spyker car, of which he has been complaining of vibrations, rear end explodes. It seems that a drive shaft has broken and the force has destroyed the back end of his car. Fortunately there is not too much debris on the track, and the safety car is not brought out.

Alonso managed to get within 4 seconds of Michael, but it seemed the Ferrari and Bridgestone had started to equalise the gap. Alonso it seemed could not catch the Ferrari.

However it turned out that he did not need to catch Michael, only keep his car on the road. This is because the unthinkable happened, Michael's Ferrari engine had it's first failure in a race since 2001.  The engine failure happens not long after Michael's second stop, it seems that the new Ferrari engine may not be as bullet proof as before. This is however the engines second outing, and Ross Brawn openly states that they run them a little closer to the limit's towards the end of the season.

 Alonso went on to win the race, followed by Massa and Fisichella with Button coming in fourth and Raikkonen driving a good solid race to come in sixth.

The Toyota cars faded badly after the stops and only managed sixth (Trulli) and seventh (Ralph), it seemed that after the tyre changes the cars where just not as balanced as before.

The outcome of the race leaves Alonso only requiring one point in the final race in two weeks time to take the championship, and Renault are nine point ahead in the constructors championship.

Some may say it was about time that Alonso had some luck go his way, and with this race it seems he got it all in one lump.

So it is a sad farewell to one of the last remaining drivers circuits on the grid. Let's just hope that the final race in Brazil is a great final race for Schumi.

Massa makes the top step

A good afternoon's racing for another first time winner, Filipe Massa.

"It's like a dream come true," he said. "I've worked so hard during my career for this moment. It's amazing. Looking back to everything I'd done in my life to get here, there are lots of emotions.

"I did a very good start and had a very good first lap. The car was well balanced during whole race.

"Every single part of the race the car was responding in a fantastic way and I could just keep the gap and not drive too aggressive."

The surprise however is not that Massa won, but how Michael Schumacher made a mistake and ended up third.

The problems started for Schumi Saturday in qualifying, he made a mistake on his first flying lap at the first corner, and had to put a banker lap in on his second and last run, forcing him to start behind the Brazilian.

This was then impacted early on in the race when a safety car was brought out when Tonio Liuzzi spun at corner 1, the teams all decided to pit, with the two Ferrari's lining up behind each other, this allowed Alonso to get out ahead of the seven times world champion.

The start of the race was an untidy affair as well, with Giancarlo Fisichella spining so to avoid Alonso at the first corner, and in the process taking out some of the field, Heidfeld and Fisi needed new nose cones, and Kimi Raikkonen was forced to retire after the incident due to damage caused to the car after a rear tyre deflated.

Alonso managed to gain enough space behind him to Schumacher, this allowed him to  come out ahead of the Ferrari after the pit stops, even though the Ferrari was carrying more fuel and ran longer, it was however close, and Michael was now right on the tail of the Spaniard.

Schumacher tried all he could to overtake the Renault, that seemed to be struggling in the slow corners with blistered rear tyres, however critically, Michael's aero package through the mighty turn 8 has not been good all weekend, and today was no different, all the time he made up in the first part of the lap, was lost in that one section of corners, and Michael could then not get close enough to Alonso to put a move on him.

Whilst this was going on, Filipe was holding his distance in front of the dueling pair, just in case his team leader managed to overtake Alonso, as if he did then there would obviously be some form of issue with his car that allowed Michael to overtake.

Luckily for him though, the Renault ace drove a great final few laps, holding of the Ferrari allowing Massa to take his first win.

Jenson drove what he described as a 'boring' race finishing fourth, the car just not pacey enough to keep up with the Renault and Ferrari's, Pedro de la Rossa finished in a great fifth place, after battling hard all race.

One of the best drives though was Giancarlo Fisichella, clawing back from the rear of the back to finish in 6th, with the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher coming in seventh, and Barrichelo finishing in the last points place.

The result gives Alonso the edge on the championship. He is now 12 point's ahead of Michael, with four races remaining.

It's going to be a great end to the season, especially with the next race at Ferrari's home track, and Ferrari announcing next years line-up.

It's going to be a cracking end to the season.

Alonso lost before he starts?

Fernando has penalised himself before qualifying has even started, by picking up a 2 second penalty for dangerous driving.

Fernando and Robert Doornbos (Red Bull test driver) where involved in an incident during free practice. Fernando blocked Doornbos after he believed that he had impeded one of Fernando's runs. 

The 2 seconds will come off Fernando's fastest lap, so that means that he will have to do two very quick laps to hold any chance of a position on the grid.

All this after Renault released a statement saying the Spaniard was 'laid back' and feeling no pressure from Michael Schumacher who is 11 points behind him in the championship.