F1-Blog

Will fuel decide the title?

And more to the point, should it?

This season has had it’s fair share of FIA judgments that have impacted the sport in a negative way, will the fuel irregularity be the last sting in the tail for the 2007 season?

I’m actually glad that Kimi took the title (as it currently stands), he drove well for the second half of the season, and after all the title is well overdue for the ‘Ice Man’. Yes it would have been nice to see the young Brit Hamilton triumph over the more illustrious competition, but it seemed it was not to be.

However both of the BMW’s and the Williams of Nico showed irregularities, the fuel on board the car at the stop’s was deemed to be outside of regulation 6.5.5, where the fuel has to be within 10 degrees C of the ambient track temperature. It seems however that the stewards of the course could not positively say what the ambient temperature actually was.

Kimi takes both top spots

Kimi Raikkonen is tonight crowned as the new world champion of the F1 world. He takes the title that Fernando Alonso held last year.

The race was not all that interesting from the Ferrari point of view, the two Ferrari’s where by and away the fastest cars on the track.

No all of the interesting things that happened, happened behind the two scarlet machines. First Alonso managed to get past Lewis in the Senna S’s, Lewis obviously did not like that, and tried to get back passed in the next corner, however he ran wide and lost a lot of time.

Then on lap 7, Lewis’s McLaren decided to select neutral in his gearbox, and it took him and his engineers over 30 seconds to get the car to select a gear. Eventually the car did find a gear and Lewis was on his way again, however he was now in 18th position.

Kimi get’s 2 in a row

Lewis Hamilton could not manage to convert his Pole position into a win today. Kimi Raikkonen however did show that the Ferrari was at least half a second quicker than the two McLaren’s in race conditions.

Lewis blocked Kimi into the first corner, and then lead the field into his first stop, however Kimi pressured Lewis all the way.

The Ferrari had two laps more fuel than the Lewis McLaren, and made that count while Lewis was pitting (where he made his first race mistake, when he preempted the lollypop man. Well done to the fuel rig guy, keeping the fuel flowing eve with the car moving), coming out in the lead after his stop. The surprise however was that Fernando Alonso stayed out longer than either of the two cars in front of him, and in the second stint he ran in first, however he only took on a short load of fuel in his stop.

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.