Britain 2007

Even though both Ferraris had dominated the practice sessions all weekend they were given quite a shock when Lewis being cheered on by his home fans managed to put his car on pole position for the race on Sunday. If this wasn’t bad enough for Ferrari, Felipe Massa (originally starting from forth on the grid) stalled his engine and was forced to start his race from the pit-lane. In a start that was reminiscent of a certain Mr Schumacher Lewis knew what he was doing as soon as the red lights faded. He cut straight across to the inside to block Raikkonen who was starting in second and managed to hold onto the lead going into Stowe. All drivers managed to navigate their way through the first lap chaos, even Massa who managed to get up to 19th by the end of the first lap and by the end of lap five had dispatched Antony Davidson, Jenson Button, Rubens Barrichello, Vitantontio Liuzzi, Alexander Wurz and Scott Speed into 13th. He found a bit more trouble waiting when he attempted to get passed Nico Rosberg and David Coulthard. The Williams driver had been hounding down the Scot for a number of laps. Going down into Vale, Rosberg tried to outbreak Coulthard on the outside but instead ran straight across the grass nearly collecting Massa with him. The Ferrari driver then had a bit of trouble dispatching Coulthard but got him on the following lap.

Whilst the Brazilian was setting fastest lap after fastest lap in the mid-field his team-mate was not letting Hamilton scamper away. Throughout the entire first stint no matter how much Hamilton tried he was not able to escape the sights of the Finn behind him. So by the time it got to the first pit-stop window he was under real pressure to get away as quick as possible. It may have been this pressure that got to Hamilton that similarly got to Albers the previous week. Hamilton reacted to the lollipop being turned over rather than being lifted and tried to leave the pit-lane. Thankfully all fuel was able to make it into the car but Hamilton’s mistake cost him at least two seconds. Raikkonen took advantage of the two laps extra fuel he had on board and managed too exit the pit lane with a few seconds to spare in front of Hamilton. However, Alonso had another two laps extra fuel on Raikkonen and he was able to leap-frog both his team-mate and his Finn to take the overall lead. Before his first pit-stop Massa managed to get as high as second but after the stop he rejoined in seventh behind the three front runners, both BMWs and the Renault of Giancarlo Fisichella.
It was a race with a high number of retirements which is understandable considering most of the driver were on their second race with their engines. Mark Webber was the first to drop out with yet another Red Bull mechanical failure. Adrian Sutil’s engine spectacularly let go on lap 16 forcing him to retire in a cloud of smoke. Ralf Schumacher pitted twice with wheel problems with the second pit-stop being his final action of the race. Trulli completed a miserable afternoon for Toyota retiring on lap 43. Scott Speed tried to overtake the Williams of Wurz but found the Austrian to be just as aggressive in trying to keep hold of 15th place, the Austrian was launched over the Toro Rosso of Speed, however, it was Scott who was forced to retire with severe suspension damage. The only home retirement was that of Super Aguri driver Antony Davidson. Davidson actually retired twice during the race as the team tried to repair damage from an earlier incident but more mechanical woes put an end to Davidson’s race.
It became clear that at the second round of pit-stops that Raikkonen was going to do the exact same as Alonso did to him earlier in the race. Throughout the second section of the race Kimi was determined not to let the reigning champ out of his sights. Alonso pitted on lap 37 followed by his team-mate on lap 38. Raikkonen had a gap of about three and a half seconds to try and close on the Spaniard but a longer first stop then showed its benefit. The Finn got an additional four laps on Alonso and was able to monopolise his light fuel load and leap-frog his rival. The race order remained in the Status Quo from this point through to the chequered flag. Raikkonen managed to pull away from Alonso and led the two McLarens over the line. Behind them there was the BMW of Robert Kubica and Massa’s out of sync Ferrari. For the final 15 laps of the race the Brazilian hounded Robert for all it was worth but the Pole showed experience beyond his years and held on to a very respectable forth. Hiedfeld was behind them in an unusual off weekend for the German and the two Renaults completed the top eight. Behind them were the two remaining battling Brits. Button managed to just hold of Coulthard to a top ten place with the Scot having to settle for 11th.
After what appeared to be a lull with his new team for the first half of the season Kimi Raikkonen now appears to have found his form and it is now well and truly a four-horse race for the title. Massa drove very well to come back and salvage some points from the weekend and if it wasn’t for his stall at the start he would have undoubtedly have been challenging for the win. Even though Hamilton has a 16 point lead from the nearest Ferrari and his McLaren team has a 25 point lead from Ferrari it’s fair to say that Woking-based team need to keep on par with Ferrari to maintain these strong leads. However, the British Grand Prix was not by any means a ‘disaster’ for Lewis Hamilton which if you paid any attention to the British media then you may have though otherwise. This is only the young guy’s ninth Grand Prix and he has still managed to finish to finish on the podium for a ninth time. This is entirely unprecedented. He maybe fats but he is still very young and believe it or not he is still learning the trade. He will still make more mistakes and his car will at some point break down. I just have one plea to the press and that is to stop expecting too much. He like Sutil and Kovaleinen is still a rookie and still has a lot more to learn about Formula One.