ALONSO HAS LAST LAUGH AFTER MADNESS
(Image taken from BBC)
Back in the day, the Nurburgring hosted the German Grand Prix. It was meant to do that this year but TPTB behind Hockenheim had other ideas. Therefore, officially there was no 2007 German Grand Prix. Instead, the Nurburgring wound up hosting the European Grand Prix again, while F1 returns to Hockenhein next year. In the meantime, there were two main headlines going into the race at the Ring. Lewis possibly getting caught up in the Nigel Stepney row(if that happened then it would prove the FIA's stupidity) and the local fans having a 'Team-Deutschland' to cheer for. The bad news for the Germans was that said team was Spyker, with Marcus Winkelhoek moving up from DTM touring cars in place of Albers.
The British drivers though had probably the worst qualifying session collectivly of the season. Jenson's Honda never really got going in Q1 and Red Bull messed up their strategy with DC completely, they started 18th and 20th respectively. Davidson did get as far as Q2 but once again Lewis was the only Brit in Q3 but then things went wrong. Lewis got an early provisional pole but had already been beaten by Massa when he slammed into the tyre wall, writing off the rest of the session and forcing him to start 10th, Raikonen going on to pick up his second pole of the season.
In the race itself, well Jenson did brilliantly to get as far as 9th early on, but that was as good as things got. Then came a sudden deluge of rain, and the Honda driver was the first one to be claimed by the gravel. Not exactly a race Jens will want to remember and the season as a whole is starting to turn into the worst of his F1 career. Time to start looking forward to '08 already for him, it sounds like mistakes made at Honda corporate HQ are to blame here.
Lewis also did brilliantly, making his way up to fourth at the start before going off at the same spot Jenson did. The McLaren man actually made it out of the gravel but by that point he was a lap down. Finally though the red flag was waved for the first time in a few years and Lewis was allowed to unlap himself on the second parade lap...only to go into the pits for dry tyres way too early. Once again he was a lap down and even Lewis isn't quite Ethan Hunt. Helped by both retirements and great laps of his own he got as far as 9th but still, more things went wrong for him in this race than they did in the rest of the season so far!
Like Jenson, DC surged up through the pack and not long after the restart he made it as high as third(including making it past a freefalling Winkelhoek who, of all people had started the restart at the front), Webber then snuck past him though and other than when he was out of sync pit stop wise, he never looked like getting a podium. He did however, always look to get himself a brief spot of minor glory by picking up some points and smoothly made his way to fifth, his second points finish this season.
At the front though, once Winkelhoek's fifteen minutes of fame had ended, it was Massa who took the lead with Alonso his main challenger, Raikoen never a serious factor and not even finishing the race. That seemingly left his Brazilian teammate to pick up the pieces only for Alonso to surge back and with four laps to go, the reigning World Champion took the lead and quickyly build up a gap to take his third win of the season, Massa second, Webber third.
Well Lewis still leads the championship with 70 points, it's just that his lead is now cut down to just two points. Further down, DC moves up to 11th with 8 points(though unlike Webber in 10th, he can't claim any top three finishes this year). Even further down, Jenson is still stuck in 16th with 1 point(though having competed in more than one race).
Comments go here
Click here to return to sports homepage
Click here to return to Matt G's homepage