RAIKONEN WIN KEEPS FERRARI IN THE MIX
(Image taken from BBC)
The Belgian Grand Prix is traditionally one of the classic races of F1 and Spa one of it's classic circuits, but there was no 2006 Belgian Grand Prix and so F1 hasn't been to Spa since '05 and back then, this website was just in development, Fernando Alonso was still on his way to his first world title with Renault, everyone was wondering if Jenson would ever win an F1 race and Lewis was still in F3! They certainly wouldn't have predicted back in '05 that McLaren would have been hit by a £50 million fine and exclusion from the constructors championship and definately not that a certain Spanish double world champion would be a snitch(and possibly even more - it's not that hard to fake emails)! Not like either of the '07 McLaren drivers could worry about that, there was still a title to fight for!
Well the Brits had a good start in qualifying, as all of them made it up to Q2, Barrichello being the biggest name to get knocked out in Q1. However, both DC and Jenson did get knocked out in Q2 and would start in P13 and P14 respectivly. Once again that left Lewis as the only Brit in Q3 but he was well off form, getting the early provisional pole before getting caned by both the Ferraris and Alonso as well as beaten by Kubicaand having to start from P5. Raikonen got his third pole of the season.
There was a minor boost for the Brits though with both Kubica and Fisichella getting ten place panalties for engine changes. That pushed them down to P14 and P22 respectivly. That allowed Lewis to move up to P4 at least(still a dissapointing run) with DC and Jenson moved up to P11 and P12 respectivly, allowing them a much better attacking platform from within the midfield. Still, it was going to be an uphill climb for all three of the Brits.
Well DC stayed in 11th throughout the early stages of the race but wound up having to fend off Sutil of all people, then Kubica, at which point he'd made it up to 10th and he went on to get as high as 7th before pitting himself and dropping down to 13th but not long after that, he had hydralic problems and had to retire. He'd had a decent race before that but the Red Bull hydraulics people are supposed to be good. Bad luck for DC - his team can't complain about his performance.
Jenson didn't have a awesome start either but he stayed in 12th and later on found himself on the back end of the DC vs Kubica battle. He only got as far as 11th before pitting though and came out in 15th. That left him duelling with Sato for 14th, a duel which he lost to the Super Aguri driver, further evidence of the poor quality of the '07 Honda. Mid race though he slowed considerably and a few laps later he had to pull into the bits with hydralics failiure. Another race to write off.
Lewis arguably had his worst race of the season so far. Out muscled by Alonso at the start, his lack of qualified pace crossed over to the race and though he led for a couple of laps he was never seriously in a position for a podium spot. By halfway through it looked pretty obvious that Lewis was going to finish 4th. He didn't seem to have any mechanical problems and made a push late on but wound up having to settle for a non podium spot on this occassion.
Up front, the Ferraris went steaming away at the start with Raikonen leading and other than pitstops, that was pretty much that. Massa never seriously threatened Kimi, Alonso never seriously threatened either Ferrari even though he generally looked secure in third. So that just left Raikonen to pick up his 4th win of the season, Massa cruising into 2nd to complete Ferrari's 3rd 1-2 of the season and given McLaren's disqualification, that was enough to give the tifosi a constructors championship to celebrate. Alonso finishing third.
So Lewis still leads the drivers championship with 97 points but his gap at the top has been cut to two points with three races to go. Further down DC's still in 12th with 8 points and even further down, Jenson remains in 16th with 2 points.
Well that's the European season over - and now we head to the Far East and unknown territory.
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