Motoring
NEW
The cars pull away at the start.
Tom
Wet and Wild Run
Round Nine: Britain: 6th July 2008
Firstly, my hugest apologies. I missed covering the French Grand Prix previous due to several reasons. I will write a report but if you want to read it, you will have to e-mail me using tom@i-mag.org.uk and tell me. I can then send you a copy in PDF format and Jack hopefully won't kill me for it.
Formula One returned to Great Britain to the home of the World Championship. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Grand Prix at Silverstone. To celebrate, Martin Brundle has driven a car from each decade from the 60s onwards around the famous circuit, giving an insight into the skill required to drive the cars.
Lewis was once again on home turf, along with Jenson Button and David Coulthard who announced his retirement just before the race. After last year's disappointment here, Hamilton wanted a home win.
In a surprising Qualification day, the order of the grid was what nobody expected. Heikki Kovalainen got his maiden pole position. A huge shock, however, was Mark Webber in second for Red Bull Racing Renault, giving them their best Quali result of their brief history in Formula One! Lewis was to be fourth on the grid behind rival Raikkonen.
Rain had been expected for Sunday and so it came. The drivers got their wettest ever on the driver's parade! This made the track tricky to drive and slippery, especially without Traction Control.
Just before the start, it had stopped raining but the track was very wet still. Many drivers were having to do several reconnaissance laps before getting to the grid to find out what the conditions were really like.
So, as Hamilton has already proved, he can be brilliant in wet conditions and had a better advantage as the Ferraris were unbalanced aerodynamically in the previous day's qualification runs. He only reinforced this point at the start when he blasted straight past those in front by the first corner, just to be overtaken by Kovalainen.
After the first few turns, Mark Webber span, putting him behind after doing well in Qualifying. He had to wait until it was safe to turn round, which put him last. Nakijima then went for a ride in the grass a while later on the lap. Then, a Ferrari was caught out and was sent into a spin. It was Massa, one of the Championship leaders who had lost it.
A while later, Hamilton passed his team-mate to gain the lead. Heikki then spun a few laps later, letting Kimi Raikkonen go through.
Nothing of any interest happened for a long time until Kovalainen tried to make a move on fellow Finn Kimi around Woodcote corner before the pit straight. He went through, not aware of Nick Heidfeld sneaking past them both in a fantastic manoeuvre.
Ferrari made huge errors at the first set of pit stops, leaving both red cars on old, worn tyres, hoping it would rain again in the next few minutes. It didn't, meaning the tyres were running out of grip fast and causing yet more spins from both cars.
Torrential rain then came, making Lewis and Kubica come off the track for a while, luckily not too long for Hamilton. Many cars by this point had retired after getting stuck in the wet gravel by the sides of the track. Kubica was then to suffer this fate.
Rubens Barrichello was having a great time, opting for extreme wet tyres, meaning he had more grip than anyone else on Intermediates. He was so fast, his lap times were significantly faster than Lewis Hamilton's!
Lewis had his chance to make up for the past few races where his performances were not so good. He proved his critics wrong by winning his home Grand Prix in style. He truly is a master in wet weather! His overtake of Heikki Kovalainen during the race was compared to the master himself, Ayrton Senna. He has a lot of potential to become even greater.
However, there is one very important lesson I learnt from that legend, Michael Daines', uncle recently and that is 'Remember, there is always going to be someone better than you, however good you are and you think you are. You are going to be learning new things all the time.' It certainly put my flying skills into prospective and the same can be applied with Lewis, he is beatable. He just has to fight. Now, after all that thinking, my brain hurts so I will stop before it explodes. Bye for now.
To find out more about Formula One and get the latest news visit formula1.com.
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Hamilton enjoying a good challenge.
Comments? Questions about anything on Formula One? Contact Me on the Forum. Or, alternatively, email me at tom@i-mag.org.uk
Reporter Profile
Webber did not have such a good time after qualifying second.
Tom is a great enjoyer of Formula One and wishes he could at least have a go at driving one of the cars. He swears to this day that, if he can fly a plane, surely he can drive a car. Unfortunately, nobody trusts him enough to prove this theory. In the meantime, he shouts 'That's Numberwang!' or humms to Queen's 'Don't Stop Me Now'. This obviously is a good choice as he enjoys things that go too fast too much. Who wants to argue with a plane going 400 km/h? He also considers himself to be good at image manipulation, as his motoring themed banners suggest (see right). He is a big fan of Red Bull Racing, David Coulthard and Lewis Hamilton.
Next Race Starts In...
Racing Across the World
British GP, Silverstone
6th July
Spanish GP, Catalunya
27th April
French GP, Magny-Cours
22nd June
Canadian GP, Montreal
8th June
Bahrain GP, Sakhir
6th April
Turkish GP, Istanbul
11th May
Malaysian GP, Kuala Lumpur
23rd March
Listen to the BBC's theme used for their F1 coverage in the 1990's before ITV took over (The song is 'The Chain' by Fleetwood Mac).
Australian GP, Melbourne
16th March
This is the racing map. Here, it will show you race locations for this year. Green locations are races that have happened. Red ones are yet to be contested. If you missed any race coverage or want to read it again, contact me by email (tom@i-mag.org.uk) and let me know. All races marked in green can be requested for but not the red ones as I can't predict the future. You will require Adobe Acrobat reader to view them as they are in PDF format.
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