F1-Blog

McLaren Mistake?

Lewis Hamilton will not walk away from the Chinese GP with the world championship. It seems that his rear right tyre delaminated, and in a strange twist of fate it seems that either the tyre gave up as he entered the pit lane, or Lewis just plane overcooked his entry. Either way Lewis finished up in the gravel trap just in front of the pit lane.

With his race ended Alonso will catch up to his younger team mate with one race to go.

We will have to wait to see where Alonso finishes, at the time of writing he was running in second behind Kimi, and ahead of Filipe.

If it ends in the current way then Fernando will be four points behind Lewis. This means Lewis will have to finish third to take the championship at Interlagos.

Looks like the FIA/FOM will get their last race showdown between the two McLaren drivers.

Another ‘Lewis Lap’

Lewis Hamilton has for the second time in a row, pulled a marvelous lap out of the bag in the dying minutes of qualifying.

Lewis looked every bit fourth fastest all the way through the 3 sessions, then managed to hook a near perfect lap up in the last moments of Q3 to take the pole spot.

Kimi Raikkonen took the second place, with the Ferrari looking sorted in sectors 2 and 3, but a little out of sorts in the tight sector 1.

Massa sit’s his Ferrari in third spot, with Fernando popping the second McLaren into fourth.

Behind the top four is where the interest starts however. David Coulthard put’s his Red Bull on the fifth spot, and after announcing he wont be driving for Toyota in 2008, Ralf Schumacher put’s his car sixth.

The second Red Bull of Mark Webber is in seventh, followed by the two BMW cars (Heidfeld/Kubica) who’s cars just did not look their usual hooked up self.

The race of the season so far

Well done to all those that watched the race live. I will do a full race report later (after a nap), but for now I would like to say well done to all of the drivers, and a special thank’s to Charlie Whiting for letting the drivers race.

The championship too a big turn in the favour of Lewis Hamilton, Lewis won the race with a sublime drive, and Fernando Alonso had an accident and did not finish.

That leaves Lewis 12 points ahead of his team mate. Fernando can still win the championship, however the result makes it more difficult for Fernando to take a third title.

Mathematicaly Fernando can still win, however he needs to win the next race, and hope that Lewis does not score points.

More later after I have had a chance to have another watch of the whole race.

Italian GP

The Italian GP was quite a standard affair this year, one of the few races this season that did not live up to it’s possibilities.

Fernando Alonso lead from the first corner all the way to the end of the race, making it look easy. Lewis Hamilton followed him home, for a 1-2 for McLaren.

The best race on the track was with Honda and Williams battling it out between Button and Rosberg in the first part of the GP.

Lewis showed his steel by overtaking Kimi Raikkonen after he was relegated to third when he exited from his second pit stop. The move took part at the first chicane, and was one of his best moves of the season. He braked massively late, and took Kimi on the inside into the chicane.

This was because the Finn only pitted the once during the race, and during the second stint of his race, Lewis Hamilton just could not match the pace of his team leader.

Turkish GP

Massa made it two in a row at Turkey this weekend, by beating both of the McLaren’s and his team mate.

He actually made it look fairly easy in the end, Kimi got close a couple of times, but really didn’t seem to have the edge over his Brazilian team mate.

The race was quite a boring one as a result, with the only real action taking part on lap 43 with Hamilton’s front right tyre exploding, and him having to nurse the car back to the pits for a change. He did a good job and did not damage too much of his car, and still finished 5th.

The Turkish people did not turn out in the numbers that they have in previous years either, perhaps they thought F1 was dead now there is no Schumi to go and watch?

Kimi drove a decent race, managing to get into second spot before the first corner, as it seemed the Ferrari’s were capable of running the softer tyres on the longer stints, giving both of the scarlet cars a slight advantage off the start line.