September 30th, 2007
Okay conspiracy theorists, put on your tin hats and start writing nasty emails to me (which I do read by the way) about how the FIA gave the constructor's championship to Ferrari in Paris, but the stewards in Japan didn't like the result and made sure that the red cars lost the race by not sending out an email on time stating which tires they could start the race on. Someone pinch me, the only thing left from this sport turning into NASCAR (or worse, a really bad soap opera) are debris cautions. No wait, that happened in this race. Oh God, we have watched the death of F1. Rednecks of the world, unite!
At least it is coming to the end of the season and I think all of the faithful followers of the sport just want it to be over so that we can start with a clean sheet of paper next year. This is starting to be like baseball. I wonder if who ever wins the championship this year will have the number 1* on the front of the car next year. And no, that's not a typo.
Enough rambling, at least until we go over what happened at Fuji this week. In a word, the rain made it suck. It reminded me of climbing Mt. Fuji earlier this year; it was a great time until the rain came. I didn't have a safety car to follow down the mountain, but being out of shape and over weight, I also had no concerns about being able to set any lap records. The willing blackmailer, I mean Alonso, had a rare failure in the race after playing bumper cars with half the field and retired after crashing out while running in fourth. Cue the conspiracy theorists that drive Mercedes. Did one of the mechanics loosen something on the car, knowing that they may not have a job next year?
The Finns
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With Alonso out of the race, Lewis Hamilton did his best to navigate the field and win the race, putting him solidly in the lead of the driver's championship with just a maximum of 20 more individual points left to be awarded.
Ferrari feels like they did get the short end of the stick being forced to change tires at the beginning of the race. More telling than the frustration of the fans were cryptic wordings from Luca di Montezemolo regarding Todt's decision not to protest. Regardless of how successful the Frenchman has been at the team, he's missing one thing, a family heritage with the name Agnelli in it. The clock has started ticking on the time he has left at the team...
Oh, this is going to be interesting!!
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The good thing when these races get in a wet mess is that some of the never-on-the-podium drivers do get a chance to actually make it. This race was no different and Renault had their best finish of the year with Kovalainen finishing in second. Flavio was happy, and he hasn't been happy in a while with the team's performance. Kimi Raikkonen finished in third, so he was able to bring some hardware home.
David Coulthard showed that he has learned how to drive in the rain and finished in fourth, it would have been something to see Red Bull finish on the podium. The Scot didn't hurt his chances of being asked back next year with this result.
Massa and Kubica were fighting it out for sixth place, but the Brazilian was able to keep the pole behind him. BMW did miss a good chance to finish better than they normally do, but it wasn't to be this weekend.
Nicolas Todt, Felipe Massa and Rob Smedley
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And the classic moment of the day is that Spyker got their first championship point (with another asterisk attached) when Liuzzi was penalized for passing under a yellow. So, McLaren really is all by themselves at the bottom of the heap.
In a word, the last few weeks have been a mess. The sport isn't much fun if you have to read pages of legalese just to figure out why the championship tables are the way they are. 2007 will be one of those years that some will talk about, but most will want to forget. My guess is that Michael Schumacher is happy that he's not in the middle of all of this. I think most of the rest of us wish that we weren't.
The new Fiat 500 with Scuderia Ferrari livery. Erik wants one. Actually, he'd rather have the white one in the background...
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Usually this time of year, I'm looking forward to the final race to the end, especially if it is close.
This year, I'd rather get up early on Sunday mornings and watch Series A soccer instead...
Race Results
