LEWIS WINS IN CHINA BUT TITLE RACE GOES TO THE WIRE
The Chinese Grand Prix is one of the newer events on the calender and initially the locals were so ignorant about F1, they thought that Michael Schumacher wore red overalls because he thought it brought him luck! Now they seem to have a better idea about what's going on which is a good thing given that the races at Shanghai can often have a major effect on the championship. Last time around, it was Lewis's first visit to China and he messed it up. This time around the title was on the line again and again it was Lewis's to lose. Massa was on his heels, as was Kubica to a lesser extent but if Lewis finished in the top three and Massa outside the top four, Britain would have a new world champion.
Q1 got messy for the Brits as it involved both Jenson and DC going out. They would have to start P18 and P16 respectively. Lewis survived Q2 pretty smoothly though but the same couldn't be said of Kubica and the Pole's title challenge pretty much died at that point. Vettel and Trulli were the first drivers to set times in Q3 but those were quickly beaten by Raikonen before Kovalainen topped the time sheets! Kimi replied during his final run only for Lewis, who hadn't been a serious factor untill this point, to blitz through and grab his second pole position in a row. So far so good even if Massa wasn't far behind him in P3. Lewis would need some luck to win the title here.
Well in the race itself, Jenson had a pretty good start, making his way up to 15th and then found himself engaged in a battle with DC. Sooner or later though he was going to have to enter the pits and when he did so he found himself back in 18th. Kovalainen having a puncture did him a favour but but overall a mixture of dodgy tyres and running into one stoppers early on compromised his race so that he wound up settling for finishing in 16th. Yet another ugly and fairly uneventful race for the one-time Grand Prix winner. Ross Brawn still has big ideas of getting one Honda or another into the points in Brazil. At this point I'll believe it when I see it.
DC, being fat with fuel, wasn't expected to do much and admitted that he was trying to avoid dueling with the two stoppers but he still had to hold Jenson off from 14th but really his game plan was to wait for the two stoppers to pit. After the batttle with Jenson though, there wasn't much reason for anyone to pay attention to him. So he was lefft to quietly cruise past a load of two stoppers and found himself in the top ten before having to pit himself, before later waiting for the two stoppers to pit again, allowing him to come home in 10th place. Not that bad a result from the Scot who thinks that it was as good as he could have done from where he was starting on a heavy fuel load.
Lewis though had no issues whatsoever. The start was smooth as anything and he soon raced of into the distance. It was up to the Ferraris to catch him and Raikonen looked to be the main man there, unfortunately he couldn't get the job done before both drivers went into the pits. That forced Lewis to give up the lead briefly but again, the red cars were still behind him so he was doing the business. After the mess ups in Japan Lewis needed a smooth race and he certainly got one, allowing him to grab his fifth win of the season. However, though he did all he could, he still needed an extra bit of luck to win the championship and that didn't happen. Massa finished in 2nd, the title remains unclaimed.
So, Lewis still leads the championship with 94 points with his lead having increased to seven points. He is garanteed to match his 2nd place from '07, becoming the first Brit since Damon Hill in 1995-6 to finish in the top two in the championship two years in a row. Further down, DC remains in 16th with 8 points while even further down Jenson remains in 18th with 3 points.
There is only one thing left for Lewis to do now. Even if he has to do it on Massa's turf.
Comments go here
Click here to return to sports homepage
Click here to return to Matt G's homepage