Shanghai 2008

Will this race nail Hamiltons world championship? Or will the next race be the deciding race? Will Kubica spring a surprise? , may be not his pole position is 11 for today’s race. What about Alonso who has been winning the last couple races? Lets wait and watch.

Ferrari run on softer tires, Mclaren on hardsm with 40% chances or rain predicted. Will that determine the race. The cars are on their warm up lap. Wait and watch now.

First lap. It is Hamilton to Raikonnen to Massa. And it stayed that way the whole race through. But for the last few laps, when Raikonnen suddenly lost pace and Mass overtook him to get to second position.

Nothing spectacular to write home about, I say. It was Hamilton from start to finish.

Next race is Brazil. Massa’s home race. To win the world championship, Massa has to win and Hamilton finish less than 5th place or better still, not gain any points at all.

Me being the fervent Ferrari fan, hope that Hamilton does not finish the race!!! Too much to ask for. You never know, you might end up getting what you wanted. So, ask I will. And I have.

Corner Mishaps, Loosing Positions, Gaining Points, Rains!!

Rains, where did that come from, no not on the circuit for people who got to watch the whole race. Rain in Chennai that played spoil sport for me and cut me off watching the race for about 20 mins, that is about 18 laps.

But the first 2 laps were significant enough with Kubica taking the lead, Coulthard crashing his car, Hamilton loosing positions. What an eventful first corner.

2 race incidents and the better for it. Massa was involved in an incident with Hamilton early in the race and both the drivers earned drive through penalty. Massa was also involved with Bourdais as Bourdais was coming out of the pit lane and spun his car. Bourdais was not a happy man as he was handed over a 20/25 sec penalty at the end of the race that moved him from 6th to 10th position and moving Massa one position ahead and giving him 2 points to Hamiltons none, moving him closer to the world championship.

Will Massa make it happen for Ferrai, all us Ferrari fans do hope so. Don't we pray for that?

Weber was leading Massa to take the 8th position, but tire wear in one of his tires (right) made him  loose speed and Massa took lead to earn a championship point, which later increased to 2 as Bourdais received his penalty.

Driving at about 300 kms/hr and near contact of wheels with an opponent seems daily occurenences in these races, we saw Massa overtake Weber in that fashion. Almost gave me an heart attack with a millionth of a sec possibility of Massa crashing out. Nothing was to come his way yesterday, it seems, apart from those 2 incidents from which he recovered so well proving his experience and cool.

All Ferrari Fans, keep your fingers crossed for a week. Pray that it is a Mass-Kimi 1-2. Don't we all want that.

Btb, Alonso won the race with Kubica in second place. How we tend not to see this as Kimi came 3rd and Massa close to the title.

Bravo Ferrai team.