The Year that was-Formula 1 2007
Race to the finish, that’s what you can call the gripping season of Formula 1 this year when the world champion was decided, no not at the chequered flag for the winner, but when we had to wait for the seventh driver Lewis Hamilton to finish the race in the last and final Brazilian GP. All this was because three amazing drivers had the chance to become world champion before the start of Interlogos Circuit and as many ten permutations and combinations were drafted with all the ifs and buts possible.
End of the day, it was the team which remained a united team that won and end of the day; it was the team that played spoil sport that didn’t. Victory is not just talent and it is not just amazing skills and it is not just ruthless arrogance. Time and again we have seen the likes of Ice cool King and Queen Roger Federer and Justin Henin scaling great peaks in tennis and this time, it was the turn of Ice man and the flying fin(not the great middle distance runner Paavo Nurmi) Kimi Raikonnen who propelled two fantastic races to close the season just one point ahead of the arch rivals Lewis Hamilton and **Fernando Alonso.
This is how the teams and the drivers fared in this year’s Formula 1 racing.
Ferrari-Team spirit of Go Kimi Go & Magnanimous Massa
If you have watched the Brazialian GP closely, it was a combination of fiery Ferrari, Brilliant Raiki and wonderful team spirit that lead to Kimi’s world title. It was the start immaculately planned by Ferrari. Massa was in Grid 1 with his pole position and he just drove sideways closing grid 2 of Hamilton thus impacting Lewis initial thrust totally and allowing Kimi to surge ahead in front in straight line in Grid 3.It was brilliant tactical move and shear magnanimity from Massa who was racing in front of his home crowd.
Massa is one of those drivers who can come up with outstanding race driving(Bahrain, Malaysia and Turkey) and still go in obscurity at the bottom of the pack and race through them and come up all on his own(Australian and Santander)
*Massa-Magnificent and Team driving(94 points)
Kimi on the other hand drives with ice cool and is in super control on the Ferrari unlike the unreliable Mclaren the previous years and came up all triumphs when it mattered most( Chinese and Brazilian) He set the car rolling in the very first race, but came back strongly in the second leg with six wins this year and become a deserving World champion*
Kimi-Flying Fin(110 points)
Mclaren- Spoilsport, in fighting and poor strategy*
It had already lost its Constructors championship for spying and paid heavy penalties. All Ron Dennis needed was simple planning to make it a 1 -2 Mclaren driver finish this year and they messed it all up in just battling outside the track in the war of egos between Alonso, Ron and Lewis. The strategy should have been one champion driver and one support driver. To their surprise, Lewis was just amazing the whole year and they found that there were two champion drivers fighting with each other more than the other teams.
Alonso** just could not accept a rookie taking centre stage being the frail Spaniard like Nadal and he went on in a spree of audaciousness on and off the track. The way he pushed Hamilton off the track in Spa, Belgium was desperate and outrageous and could have well got Lewis crashed. The double world champion just does not want to lose like Nadal and he tried to take advantage yet again in Interlogos when Lewis was hampered by Massa.
Racing against Mclaren instead of for, he won four races.
*Alonso-Outrageous and outnumbered(109 points)
Lewis Hamilton** had a dream run for most part of the season being a rookie and centre staged himself as a great champion material by consecutively making it to the podium and even leading the championship for most part of the season. He was brilliant in passing maneuvers and cool & comfortable until the pressure of the champion mounted. Bad luck in Turkey and China and couple of blunders cost him the championship. The first was when his tyre got worn out in China, the team erred in calling him into pits one lap late and he braked late to get caught in gravel before pitting. The second blunder was in Interlogos, Brazil that he lost his cool with Alonso pippin him(when he got stuck behind Massa) and tried to outpost him and lost control. He lost four places and his gear box failed. What he failed to realize was that championship was at stake and he had 60 laps to consolidate.
What a way to lose world championship in split second.
*Lewis-Wonderful and Future champion(109 points)
BMW Sauber-The best bet to the top two*
BMW had an exciting year and finished second in the table. The amazing thing with the team was remarkable consistency of the car that finished with points in each and every race thanks to both its drivers Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica. Heidfield was more consistant of the two while Kubica was more aggressive,
*Nick Heildfeld- level headed racing(61 pomts)
Kubica –daring(39 points)
Renault-Going down
With no Alonso and totally different cars in 2007, Renault was just not able to compete and the only saving grace was Heikki Kovalainen who took the podium in Japan. He did drive a superb race in Canada. Fisichella **might lose his position with Ranault next year, a clear under performer.
Williams Toyota & Others-also made the race
*Nico Rosberg came up with some hard performances until the last race when Nakajima pit crashed two support guys.
David Coulthard proved that he is still an old war horse while Webber was as inconsistent as ever for Red Bull.
Honda got bundled and was all at sea this year and it has to come up with a really good car to survive next year.
Sebastian Vettel looks the most promising new driver for Torro Rosso though he was involved in couple of poor maneuvers on his team mate Liuzzi.
It is time for Rubens Barichello to say good bye to F1 as he finished without points for the first time in 15 years.
Vijay Mallya’s spyker is all set for 2008 as Force India car and let us hope Narain or Chandok or may be both make it an Indian racing dream in F1.
No schumi and an awesome glamorous scandalous year with all the thrills and frills has made F1 a cracking treat for Racing buffs and let us hope 2008 brings a new Champion and new drivers in different cars to the fore.
In F1, the Cars, the crew and the race strategy plays more significant role in winning than just the driving which sometimes robs the joy of one to one racing because of few extremely well engineered fast Cars.
Thanks for reading.