Formula1 Season 2007

[Dhruv]

You never know. The amount they seem to like each other anything is possible .  Atleast we can be sure that some the crazy moves that Hamilton tried to pull earlier in the year will probably result in accidents if he tries that with the top 3 again in this race.

[vkd_1717]

it would be so awesme if alonso and lewis take each other out, giving the title to Kimi 

hopefully we will not see anything like that ... after all the politics surrounding this season i really hope the drivers can show each other enough respect on the track not making every bit of the season a complete farce

anyway,  i really hope fernando wins the drivers championship... who do you want to see win it?

[jaydeep]

Ron Dennis is making unrequired statements and adding more speculation of conspiracy within the team against Alonso ...

Dennis adds fire to conspiracy theory

“The problem was rain and his [Hamilton’s] tyres were in the worst condition,” Dennis said to a group of British journalists in the paddock at the circuit. “But we weren’t at all fazed about Kimi. We weren’t racing Kimi, we were basically racing Fernando.”

In large parts of the motor-racing world, it is regarded as gospel that Alonso is battling against not only Hamilton but also the whole McLaren team for his third consecutive drivers’ championship.

The saddest part about the affair is that Alonso will have made history himself if he does prevail in Brazil. He will have become the first driver since Juan Manuel Fangio to win consecutive titles with different constructors, but the team who gave him the car to do it will barely, if at all, share in his joy. 

[vkd_1717]

According to a German newspaper, Alonso has agreed to join Renault next year till 2010 if McLaren agree to release him without causing him too much problems. With the current situation i think that Ron Dennis will be relieved to have Alonso off his team and will try to attract Kubica to Mclaren. Fisi is the one who will be making room for Alonso because of Flavio's great admiration of Kovalainen.

Hopefully we will see this deal go through without Alonso and Dennis making too many comments to the media after parting and F1 will stop appearing on the back pages as a farce but as a sport.

[kallu]

no surprises there .....i wonder who will take the mclaren seat, because they will have to be in the shadow of Lewis. Me thinks RD also likes to get rosberg, but Frank williams made it clear he wont be selling him !..

[jaydeep]

In recent development Ferrari have extended Brazilian Felipe Massa's contract by two more years to the end of the 2010 season.

[jaydeep]

At FORMULA 1™ Grande Prêmio do Brasil 2007 - (Qualifying)

Pos  Driver              Team            Q1      Q2      Q3  
1  Felipe Massa        Ferrari          1:12.303 1:12.374 1:11.931
2  Lewis Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes  1:13.033 1:12.296 1:12.082
3  Kimi Räikkönen      Ferrari          1:13.016 1:12.161 1:12.322
4  Fernando Alonso      McLaren-Mercedes  1:12.895 1:12.637 1:12.356
5  Mark Webber          Red Bull-Renault  1:13.081 1:12.683 1:12.928 
6  Nick Heidfeld        BMW              1:13.472 1:12.888 1:13.081
7  Robert Kubica        BMW              1:13.085 1:12.641 1:13.129
8  Jarno Trulli        Toyota            1:13.470 1:12.832 1:13.195
9  David Coulthard      Red Bull-Renault  1:13.264 1:12.846 1:13.272 
10 Nico Rosberg        Williams-Toyota  1:13.707 1:12.752 1:13.477 
11 Rubens Barrichello  Honda            1:13.661 1:12.932 
12 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault          1:13.482 1:12.968 
13 Sebastian Vettel    STR-Ferrari      1:13.853 1:13.058 
14 Vitantonio Liuzzi    STR-Ferrari      1:13.607 1:13.251 
15 Ralf Schumacher      Toyota            1:13.767 1:13.315 
16 Jenson Button        Honda            1:14.054 1:13.469 
17 Heikki Kovalainen    Renault          1:14.078   
18 Takuma Sato          Super Aguri-Honda 1:14.098   
19 Kazuki Nakajima      Williams-Toyota  1:14.417 
20 Anthony Davidson    Super Aguri-Honda 1:14.596 
21 Adrian Sutil        Spyker-Ferrari    1:15.217   
22 Sakon Yamamoto      Spyker-Ferrari    1:15.487

So in this title deciding Brazilian race after qualifying Hamilton having advantage over his 2 rivals Räikköne and Alonso.

[ssp]

Lewis finished 7th!! Raikonnen is world champion.
McLaren threw away Lewis's hopes by 3 stopping him for no reason....just stupidity.
McLaren have simply hopeless in their decisions with tyres, strategy all season. Time for heads to roll.

[shibi]

Interesting final race of the season with Hamilton on 107 points, Alonso on 103 and Raikkonen on 100. 71 laps to go.

Lap 6- Massa is in the lead, Raikkonen is second, Alonso is third and Hamilton is sixth.
Lap 8- Hamilton slows down due to some problem with his car and is now at the back of the field.
Lap 16- Hamilton is up to 12th.
Lap 23- Hamilton pits.
Lap 28- All top 8 have now pitted. Hamilton is now 13th.
Lap 37- Hamilton is again on the pits. He is on a three-stop strategy.
Lap 46- Hamilton is now 8th and on points.
Lap 53- Raikkonen take the lead, Massa second and Alonso third. They have all taken their second pit stop. Hamilton is still at 8th.
Lap 60- No change in the positions of the leading three and Hamilton. If Raikkonen wins, Hamilton has to manage better than 6th position to take the title.
Lap 67- Still no change. Team Ferrari is having a great race. It looks like Raikkonen will take the championship.
Lap 71- End of the race. Raikkonen wins and takes the championship. Massa is second, Alonso third and Hamilton 7th. What heartbreak for the McLaren team!

Final Championship Points:
Raikkonen- 110
Alonso- 109
Hamilton- 109

Though I wanted Ferrari to win, my heart goes out to Hamilton. What a miss in the last two races. He takes the second place on countback over Alonso, if that is any consolation.

[kallu]

Bravo Kimi Bravo.... he does it against the odds.. 
hamilton made mistake at the start but the real turning point is the Lap 8 !.. Strange that mclaren ddnt come out with anything this season as they seemed so dominant !

[jaydeep]

At FORMULA 1™ Grande Prêmio do Brasil 2007 - Final Result
Pos    Driver                Team        Laps  Time/Retired  
1  Kimi Räikkönen      Ferrari          71  1:28:15.270
2  Felipe Massa        Ferrari          71  +1.4 secs 
3  Fernando Alonso      McLaren-Mercedes  71  +57.0 secs
4  Nico Rosberg        Williams-Toyota  71  +62.8 secs
5  Robert Kubica        BMW              71  +70.9 secs
6  Nick Heidfeld        BMW              71  +71.3 secs
7  Lewis Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes  70  +1 Lap
8  Jarno Trulli        Toyota            70  +1 Lap
9  David Coulthard      Red Bull-Renault  70  +1 Lap
10  Kazuki Nakajima      Williams-Toyota  70  +1 Lap 
11  Ralf Schumacher      Toyota            70  +1 Lap 
12  Takuma Sato          Super Aguri-Honda 69  +2 Laps 
13  Vitantonio Liuzzi    STR-Ferrari      69  +2 Laps 
14  Anthony Davidson    Super Aguri-Honda 68  +3 Laps
Ret Adrian Sutil        Spyker-Ferrari    43  Brakes 
Ret Rubens Barrichello  Honda            40  Engine 
Ret Heikki Kovalainen    Renault          35  Accident 
Ret Sebastian Vettel    STR-Ferrari      34  Hydraulics 
Ret Jenson Button        Honda            20  Engine
Ret Mark Webber          Red Bull-Renault  14  Transmission 
Ret Sakon Yamamoto      Spyker-Ferrari    2  Collision 
Ret Giancarlo Fisichella Renault            2  Collision

Yes, what a race!!! And Kimi truly did what very few people/fans were expecting ... Superb racing & tactics by team Ferrari and superb driving & response from both drivers ( Kimi and Felipe ) ... Truly champion stuff in this final race by Team Ferrari ..

Hamilton needed to hold his position but he made mistake in the begining ... Still he had chance as difference of points were huge ( 4 pts on Alonso and 7 pts on Kimi) but then a gearbox problem when the system momentarily stuck in neutral on the eighth lap screwed up his chances and then what little hope he had to achieve top 6 finish ended by McLaren's 3 pit-stops strategy ... That was surprising decision, first short pit-stop was understandable as Hamilton needed to back inside top 8 so with light car he can attack ... But again short next pit-stop really killed Hamilton chances and opened up a faulty strategy of McLaren.

This is Kimi's first title and he is Finland's third World Champion.

[jaydeep]

Quotes from Kimi and Hamilton -

Kimi Raikkonen - "We were not in the strongest position but we always believed that we could recover and do a better job than the others, and even with the hard times everyone was sticking together and we did not give up.
“I was not really 100 percent sure if someone would stop but there were people who needed to finish and we did not know 100 percent and it took a long time to hear that we had finally won it. It has been a good finish of the season and I am really happy. An amazing day!”

"It is very difficult for me to explain in words what I am feeling at the moment: it is an incredible emotion. I want to thank the team for everything they have done this year. Even when we went through some difficult times and it looked as though there was no way to fight back, we never gave up and this work produced its reward today. Thanks also to my parents, to my wife Jenni and everyone who believed in me. I have achieved what I have been after for a long time. Now everything else will be an extra. Today, Felipe's help was vital and he was amazing. We had to get a one-two and then see what the others did. This time, things went our way and the unexpected did happen. This has been a very nice year for me during which I have enjoyed Formula One like never before. In Ferrari, I have found a great family and I am proud to have won the title with them."

Lewis Hamilton -“It’s been a crazy year, but I can’t really say that I’m gutted or that I feel I was robbed,” he said after losing by a single point. “It was just unfortunate. We’ve all of us had some bad luck this year; it’s just a shame that mine seemed to come all at the end of it."
“All along I said to myself that, whatever happens today, who would ever have thought that I would lead the world championship? It’s been a great feeling, having the possibility to win it. The team have done a fantastic job for me all season, and of course I wanted to win. But I guess it wasn’t our turn after all this year. But I will come back next year stronger, for sure."

“The start wasn’t that great and I got boxed in behind Kimi, then Fernando came past me and I locked up a bit behind him and lost some ground. But I knew that we had the pace to get that back. But then when I was downshifting for Turn Four the gearbox just went into neutral. And I coasted for an awful long time. I still don’t know how but I managed to coax it back into operation and get going again, but I had to be careful to manage the engine because the revs were very low."

“When that was happening, coming so soon after China, I just found myself thinking that for sure somebody didn’t want me to win the championship!"
“Even after that, though, I refused to believe that it was over. The first time I thought that was when I saw the chequered flag. I never stopped thinking it was still possible."
“Our pace wasn’t bad today. Not quite the same as Ferrari’s, but we could have been a little bit quicker with more luck."

“After my mistake in China it was tough to have this luck here, but that’s racing. I’ve gone from GP2 to being ranked second in the world and I have every confidence that in 2008 I will come back even stronger, do an even better job and win. I’ll be better prepared and I have the experience of the whole thing."
“At the end of the day I’m second in the world championship, and I beat my team mate who is a double world champion. That’s a great result. I said I would be a winner, whatever happened today."
“I think that, apart from the start, I drove one of my best ever races today, so that’s why I say I don’t think I was robbed.”

Fernando Alonso - “The result today is of course disappointing but we already knew that it would be difficult starting from fourth to win the race and the championship today. I predicted at the start of the season that it was going to be very close and that it would come down to the race here in Brazil, I just hoped that it would have been in my favour, but that is not the case and I just have to accept that for this year. It was a difficult race for me. During the first laps, I thought I was able to match the Ferraris’ speed; however, when they began pushing they were just too fast. Our car was fast and competitive throughout the year and I won four races. I am still satisfied with this season.”

Felipe Massa - "Today is a great day for the team and for Kimi, who has won the drivers' title. Of course I would have liked to have won my home race again this year, but I am happy to have helped my team mate, who was the only one of us still in with a chance of taking the title. I am proud to have done it for Ferrari who believed in me even when I was not in Formula One. It is thanks to the people in Maranello that I am here and it is with them that I have grown as a driver and as a man. After everything that has happened this year, both on and off the track, today it is great to be able to celebrate two world titles. Today I had a fantastic car and I could have gone even quicker on track than I did. I also want to thank all our partners for all their support."

[jaydeep]

Season 2007 remain as most controversial season as now McLaren Mercedes-Benz team is going to appeal a stewards decision of not to punish the BMW Sauber and Williams teams for using allegedly irregular fuel during Sunday's race at the Brazilian Grand Prix .. That means if the FIA's International Court of Appeal overturns the stewards' decision and importantly disqualifies the Williams and BMW Sauber drivers, then McLaren's Lewis Hamilton will be elevated from seventh to fourth and giving him enough points to beat Raikkonen for the world championship.

Hamilton's dream hinches on appeal

Other hand Fernando Alonso say Kimi deserves to succeed him as the title holder and he would be 'embarrassed' if the crown went to Lewis Hamilton on appeal ...

Alonso backs Raikkonen as champion

[jaydeep]

Controversy remains ‘forte’ of season 2007 … Still Driver Championship issue is pending and new serious spying controversy crop up … Now Renault are accused of being in unauthorised possession of the layout and critical dimensions of the McLaren car as well as details of McLaren's fuelling system, gear assembly, hydraulic control system and suspension belonging to McLaren between September 2006 and last month … The charge faced by Renault r the same faced by McLaren earlier in the year.

The hearing will be in Monaco on December 6.

[jaydeep]

And now Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen was officially confirmed as Formula One world champion when FIA turned down  McLaren-Mercedes appeal against the result of the Brazilian Grand Prix.

"Having heard the evidence, they (the race stewards) decided not to impose a penalty as they had sufficient doubt as to both the temperature of the fuel on board the car and to the true ambient temperature."

"Having heard the explanations of both parties and having examined various documents and other evidences, the court decided that the appeal lodged by Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is inadmissible."

"Today, a final and desperate attempt to change the result obtained on the track was rejected," said Ferrari chief executive Jean Todt ...