I know I only posted a few minutes ago, but it’s hard to contain my excitement at the qualifying results. Hamilton starts in pole, Raikkonen 2nd, Massa 3rd, and Alonso in 4th.
If Hamilton finishes the race ahead of Alonso tomorrow, Hamilton will be World Champion. These qualifying results are almost as good as a win for Hamilton.
Raikkonen (Ferrari) mathematically can still win the Championship, but only if he wins and the McLarens of Hamilton and Alonso fail to get many points from the last two races. With that in mind, Massa’s job will be to keep Alonso from passing him and threatening Raikkonen’s 2nd place. Ferrari will also be hoping that Hamilton will crash out.
With Ferrari’s ongoing dirty tricks campaign, it wouldn’t surprise me if Massa crashes into Alonso to take him out of the race, leaving Raikkonen to try to push Hamilton hard.
The dirty tricks I talk of are the spying scandal where a Ferrari employee leaked their technical specifications to a McLaren employee, then Ferrari complained about McLaren’s possession of the specs and court battles ensued. Despite there being absolutely no evidence that the leaked information had been used on McLaren’s cars, the FIA disqualified McLaren from the Constructors’ Championship which McLaren were sure to win. The result was that Ferrari were given the Championship.
Further, Ferrari supply engines to the Red Bull and Toro Rosso teams. Following the incident last week where Toro Rosso driver Vettel crashed into the back of Webber’s car while everyone was following the safety car, those Ferrari-powered teams tried to convince the FIA that Hamilton was to blame, with the obvious intention to get Hamilton penalised to affect his Driver Championship winning position. The FIA decided not to penalise Hamilton, rightly so. As Hamilton said “I’m not driving the other cars”.
So, imagine the situation: Raikkonen is chasing Hamilton during the race. Hamilton is lapping cars and approaches Toro Rosso or Red Bull cars to lap them. No doubt the Ferrari powered cars will block Hamilton as much as they’re allowed, but let Raikkonen through easily. Wouldn’t it be convenient if a Toro Rosso or Red Bull car crashed into Hamilton as he tries to lap them, allowing Raikkonen to take full advantage of any points on offer. Frankly, I think Coulthard is above that sort of thing, and so is Webber under normal circumstances, but Webber is probably still upset at losing a points finish in the crash last week; a crash he blames on Hamilton. We’ll have to wait and see.
What I really want is a fair race, with no retirements or mechanical failures, and no excuse for any more politics.
Go Lewis!
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