Formula 1 BLOG

After some of the most exciting closing laps I’ve seen in F1 lately the Belgian GP has now been ruined for me by yet another questionable call by the race officials.  By giving Lewis a 25 second penalty and dropping him from 1st to 3rd place they have once again managed to make it more about the regulations than the racing.

I was watching the race, I saw Lewis shortcut the chicane in the rain slick conditions but I also saw him back off and give Kimi the place back again, thus gaining no advantage from his off track excursion and then the two excellent drivers continued to race.   The rules are clear that you cannot gain an advantage by such means and that if a driver does gain position he must immediately give up that gain.  In the race I was watching that is exactly what Lewis did and in a championship this close, especially after last years foolishness to take away that victory after some of the most fun to watch racing we’ve seen this year is just a stupid move on the part of the F1 officials.

The biggest complaint I hear about F1 is, it’s boring, there is no passing, nothing exciting happens.  Well, when it does and that results in some fantastic racing it’s a shame the officials have to taint the experience.

That’s just my opinion, I could be wrong and welcome your comments.

In a close qualification round at SPA Lewis Hamilton is on pole, sharing the front row with Massa.  Lewis had an inspired final lap in quali and puts his car and the McLaren team on pole.  Weather may be a factor tomorrow but It’s looking like it will be a very interesting race.  Lewis says the softer tire is better on this track but will it handle the very long laps of SPA?  With Massa out qualifying Kimi again the question remains who should be the number one driver at Ferrari?

Tomorrow we will see how things shake out in the race and what the effect on the championship will be.

After completing the first round of testing in the new 2008 F1 Car, the MP4-23, Lewis seems very positive about the new car. With this season removing some driver aids like traction control it will be interesting to see if Lewis has the raw talent to keep up his amazing performance.

Ron Dennis of McLaren has confirmed that he and Fernando Alonso are not speaking. It looks like it all stems from a heated discussion where Alonso said he had info that could hurt McLaren and if he didn’t get treated as the top driver then maybe he would use it to hurt the team.

Ron says that Alonso later retracted this threat but from what I can see in the end it was the Alonso emails that cost the McLaren team all it’s points this year and also cost them $100 Million dollars.

It’s looking more and more to me like Fernando Alonso can’t quite deal with the fact that his team mate Lewis Hamilton may be new to F1 but has a level of skill so high that McLaren can’t legitimately put one driver before the other.

If Alonso can’t deal with both drivers being treated equally and has to resort to childish tantrums then perhaps he needs to go join a team like spyker where he can be clearly the number one driver.

Speculation and rumors are flying that Alonso may leave McLaren at the end of the season. After this weekend’s events and reports that Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso are not speaking to each other it is clear that Alonso is really not happy.

Alonso is under contract until 2008 with McLaren but tensions in the McLaren team are clearly running very high at this point. When asked by the Spanish media if he would be staying with the team until the end of his contract Alonso’s reply was simply “I don’t know”.

When the question was put to McLaren team boss Ron Dennis he stated that this sort of speculation is inevitable but that McLaren will honour its contracts with the drivers and he hopes that the drivers would do the same.

The Renault team has said they would love to have the world champion Alonso back. I think Fernando would be unlikely to return to Renault with their current level of performance and I hope that both Lewis and Fernando can work through their differences and get on with making McLaren the best team it can be.