Lewis Hamilton overcame the demons of his past to complete an almost perfect weekend, leading from the pole to the chequered flag. It was complete dominance on his part, and at no point of time were the Ferrari seen as competitive.
Even before the race started, the confidence level in Ferrari paddock was low. Hamilton appeared to be under no such pressure. The reason was to become clear in the next 15 laps. Massa had fueled lightest and yet failed to beat Lewis’s qualifying time ! The writing was on the wall – it would be almost impossible to beat Hamilton unless the rookie driver made a mistake.
But Hamilton drove a great race, zooming ahead from the start. He was pulling away on the harder set of tyres leaving the Ferraris of Massa and Kimi (who were both on the option set of tyres) behind by about 2 tenths a lap.
Kimi had a good, rather uneventful afternoon, in which he made no mistakes and completed the laps without ever challenging Hamilton. However, as was obviousy anticipated, he handed over the second position to Massa in the dying moments of the race to settle for a third place. He now stands fourth in the championship, trailing Kubica by 6 points.
Massa looked tired in his Ferrari. Evidently his car wasn’t handling as well as he would have liked it to. He was off the pace the whole afternoon. Aloso completed the race distance to take a complimentary fourth position. Having had back to back successes, he was content to play the safer game and settle for the fourth place. Renault now sits comfortably at the fourth position in the constructors championship.
Hekki suffered the most when his tyres deflated and later on the damage caused to the car while getting it back to the pits forced him to retire. Thus Ferrari now have a 11 point advantage over McLaren in the constructors championship.
The procession now moves to Brazil for the season finale in two weeks time. Lewis is pretty sure to be crowned champion. For Massa, there is little to fight for. All he can do is try to win, but the ultimate victory will depend on where Lewis finishes. A seven point deficit is too much to feel confident about. Unless somehow miraculously Hamilton commits a grave error and Massa finishes amongst the top two drivers, Hamilton has become the champion. Ferrari were the undoing of themselves. Questionable decisions from the pitwall, and unreliability issues plagued the chances of their drivers successes. I hope to see better performance by the prancing pony team in the next season.
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