Japan Grand Prix: Alonso Wins Second Consecutive Race, Hamilton Has a Bad Day
With just 3 races remaining in the world championship, and Hamilton 7 points clear at the top, there was all to play for in Japan early this morning.
With Hamilton on pole following his near perfect qualifying lap on Saturday, he was more than favourite to extend his lead over Massa in the drivers’ championship.
Unfortunately for the Brit - in his second F1 season - started terribly, allowing Raikonnen to take the lead. All hell let loose in an eventful, and somewhat controversial first lap.
As Hamilton attempted to take the lead back on the approach to the first corner, he only succeeded in pushing Raikonnen and himself wide, and off the racing track. This allowed Alonso and Kubica through - with the McLaren of Hamilton pushed back into 7th place.
Hamilton was soon to be controversially punished for the incident with Raikonnen, but Massa would be joining him.
On turn 10 Hamilton out-braked Massa’s Ferrari and got his nose in front, taking the racing line and squeezing Massa onto the grass. Massa, though, was not about to let his championship rival take the position away from him.
With Hamilton seemingly in front, Massa came off the grass and collided with the McLaren, resulting in Hamilton spinning and having to wait for the entire field to pass him before he could turn his car around and resume racing.
Disaster for Hamilton who now had it all to do from the back of the field.
Both Lewis and Felipe were punished with drive-through penalties, despite Massa’s collision with Hamilton being (arguably) much worse than Lewis’ incident with Raikonnen.
Alonso it was though, who for the second consecutive race stayed out of trouble to take the win. Kubica managed to keep Raikonnen behind him to take second place and Nelson Piquet showed some great pace to finish in 4th place.
Massa did manage to grab himself a world championship point finishing in 8th place (originally - more on that later), with Hamilton out of the points in 12th.
After the race, an investigation into a collision between Massa and Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais on lap 51 resulted in the latter being penalised 25 seconds, demoting him to 12th - resulting in Massa being awarded 7th place, and more importantly, 2 world championship points.
It was a bad day for Hamilton, and he was lucky it didn’t turn out to be worse. If Massa had won in Japan today he would have leap-frogged Hamilton in the driver’s standings, and would be strong favourite to take the title.
It’s fair to say that Massa’s actions were unsporting, and against the rules, but the truth of the matter is, Hamilton should never have put himself in that position in the first place. What we need to see now is a calm, and collective Lewis for the remainder of the season. The Brit does NOT have to win every race to take the championship title, and he needs to fight the natural ‘racer’ in him and approach the races in China and Brazil with his mature head on…..
Come on Lewis, we are all behind you. But, please don’t throw it away again! Two races left, and leading Massa by just 5 points now. Keep calm, and you will be champion. Lose your head, and it’ll be 2007 all over again.
