-- Thank Glock!?

YEAH YEAH YEAH!!! Hamilton brought it home!!! And he's the youngest driver to win the Formula One World Drivers' Championship!!!

[Two edits done to this post after initial post]





Seeing the Ferrari pit crew celebrating thinking Massa won was a big LOL!!! Poor mechanic had to break the news to them.


[grabbed from a forum ]

Why did they? Cause it was REALLY CRAZILY intense during the last moments...

• Everything looked fine for Hamilton to bring it home in the last 5 laps until the stupid ****ing rain came down. (he's in 4th place, while 5th place is all he need to win)
  
• Then came the decision to change to wet tyres or not.
• The front runners switch to wet... except Timo Glock (who was at 7th or 8th, i forgot), which put him in 4th and made him mixed in with the front runners.

• Hamilton's position became 5th with Sebastian Vettel very very close behind.
• Hamilton can't find the grip in his car and Vettel passed him!!!!! (shit moment for me)
  [based on this report >> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/formula_1/article5069249.ece, it was the team that actually asked Hamilton to let Vettel through, as they had predicted that Glock would slow down, WHAT A GAMBLE!!]
  
• And everything came to an end for McLaren fans with 2 more laps to go... (NOT!)

• Massa passed the finish line in 1st place and with the WDC in his hands... for a moment.
  
• Timo Glock was slipping around with dry tyres in wet conditons.
  
• Hamilton and Vettel passed through Glock at the last corner.
• Hamilton wins the WDC in 5th place!!!!

The championship switched hands in the last few seconds... OMG. My heart was seriously pounding.

Catch all the action through this video, which is right after the pits with Hamilton still in front of Vettel... (Ferrari pit crew and Massa's family celebration included)
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkdvj42Ss54

And the funny thing is...

• Sebastian Vettel didn't know his position when he was passing Hamilton... and the consequences ofcoz.
• Hamilton didn't know he won the WDC when he passed the finish line.

And to point things out further

• Glock didn't do Hamilton a favor, but his "stay-out-in-dry-tyres" strategy gave some last hopes of Massa winning actually.
  
• Glock would be the next to last person that would help Hamilton. Think Alonso-Hamilton's relationship... Alonso being the last person to help Hamilton..
  

And right at the end, Hamilton lined up behind Jensen Button's Honda which was catching fire but no one came to put it out... what a finale... lol.



Oh ya. I woke my mom up at about 3am with the shouting...

-- F1 Singapore Grand Prix preview

The most anticipated race of the 2008 calendar (for me), Singapore GP!!

I know i'm no expert, but since it's a street circuit, there's a lot of edgy corners from normal road junctions meant for normal cars.

The Raffles Boulevard (along Marina Square and Ritz Carlton) will be the fastest part of the circuit, heading into 3 continuous sharp turns. And the other straight, part of it being on a bridge, heading towards Esplanade will provide some nice scenery indeed.

[full size on click]

Let's see how team Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is preparing the car to face the night... (i swear to you, it's a joke.... lol)

Straight faced all the way... lol.

The weird thing about this race is the race time ofcoz. Normally, drivers (and basically the whole team) work and race in the day. But for this, it's night time, which is a problem itself as our human bodies would naturally adjust to the daytime/night-time of the country.

And so, the drivers and teams will maintain the UK time (body-wise), and wake up late in the afternoon, and work late past midnight, and with the help of the hotels, like blacking out a section to give an impression of nighttime.

Alright... some sexy night shots of parts of the circuit.


If still pictures are not enough, how about a 3D simulation, driving around the circuit by Torro Rosso? narrated by Mark Webber.


And here's some comments by Mark Webber on the Singapore GP and circuit twist and turns whilst driving on the road itself.


If you're wondering, the floodlights are put up high, along the side of the circuit... all, the, way. So i'm sure you can imagine just how many floodlights were used... *pengsan*

Looks freaking costly!! I can't imagine the Malaysian GP one turning like that.

-- F1 Belgian Grand Prix controversy

The announcement of the F1 stewards' decision to penalize Hamilton 25 seconds - dropping him to 3rd place, and moving Massa to 1st place, has become one of the most controversial decisions ever... which is what prompt me to write a post on F1 again.

Below is a photo of the (start of the) incident that the stewards investigated - Hamilton cutting through the Bus Stop chicane (that's the name) and gaining an advantage on Raikkonen.



Ofcoz, one still picture is not enough to look at the whole thing. Courtesy of Speed TV and the user that uploaded, let take a look at the video right before the incident with only a few laps left.



Really really exciting racing near the end as you can see, but now marred by the stewards' decision. Anyway, a rehease on what happened:

At the chicane,

• LH and KR side by side into the chicane,
• LH and KR touched (as mentioned by commentator),
  
• LH cutting into the chicane to avoid, coming out in front of KR (which is illegal)

At the straight,

• KR and LH about side by side
• LH ease off a bit to let KR pass through (by the rules, for the above incident)
  
• with KR slightly at the front, LH swipes to the left and then on the inside into the 1st corner,

At the 1st corner,

• KR and LH touched again, but LH still leading
  

After the rain comes down,

• KR going wide, using the outer road
• KR squeezes LH into the grass (at the incident with a Williams car)
  
• KR spins, giving lead to LH
  
• KR crashing out at last

Then let's take a look at a slow motion analysis by someone from YouTube.



To me, at the core of the controversy is
1) whether cutting into the chicane gave Hamilton enough momentum out of the chicane for an advantage against Raikkonen at the straight or
2) did Hamilton eased off enough, as a compensate for cutting through the chicane.

Point 1, is what the race stewards punished Hamilton for, i believe. But in official documents, Hamilton was punished not bcoz of the advantage, but for leaving the track.

Point 2, is what i believe.

From top down videos, it looks like Hamilton did not ease off enough - which would make me agree with the Stewards slightly. But the onboard-cam video below showed that Hamilton DID let Raikkonen's whole car through.

This would mean, Raikkonen was faster than Hamilton at the straight and Hamilton outbraked Raikkonen into the 1st corner, fair and square. Even official timing showed they crossed the start/finish line with 6km/h difference.

Normally, in other cases, if the "offended" car was let through after an unfair cut, there would be no problem at all. And anything afterwards would be a fair fight (which is the fight down the straight for LH and KR).

Here's the onboard-cam video below of Hamilton and Raikkonen, from before the incident to Raikkonen's crash. A skip to 3.25 would be advisable, which is right before the chicane incident.



My verdict, the stewards overreacted once again.

I'd hate to accuse the stewards for being unfair, but this is for real. There are countless incidents involving Ferrari that might put Ferrari in the wrong (like releasing their cars RIGHT IN FRONT of other cars in the pit lane, which is dangerous, or otherwise lose some time waiting), but no action was taken. And since this incident is beneficial to Ferrari, they took action.

*Edit*

After gathering more intel, looks like Raikkonen broke a rule too.

At the part where a Williams (with Rosberg in the car) was suddenly in front of Hamilton and Raikkonen took the chance to squeeze in between them and Hamilton ended up in the grass, YELLOW FLAGS was being waved.

Waving yellow flag means CAUTION. And cars are supposed to slow down and not allowed to pass each other. Yet Raikkonen did. Oh well...

---

Comments are welcomed and encouraged (especially Ferrari fans *nudge Jo*, Ferrari fan wannabes and anti-McLaren/Lewis fans).

-- F1 Monaco Grand Prix

Pos	No	Driver	Team	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Pts
1	22	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	76	2:00:42.742	3	10
2	4	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	76	+3.0 secs	5	8
3	2	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	76	+4.8 secs	1	6
4	10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	76	+19.2 secs	9	5
5	15	Sebastian Vettel	STR-Ferrari	76	+24.6 secs	19	4
6	17	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	76	+28.4 secs	14	3
7	8	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	76	+30.1 secs	13	2
8	23	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	76	+33.1 secs	4	1
9	1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	76	+33.7 secs	2
10	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	75	+1 Lap	7
11	16	Jenson Button	Honda	75	+1 Lap	11
12	12	Timo Glock	Toyota	75	+1 Lap	10
13	11	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	75	+1 Lap	8
14	3	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	72	+4 Laps	12
Ret	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	67	Accident damage	18
Ret	7	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	59	Accident	6
Ret	6	Nelsinho Piquet	Renault	47	Accident	17
Ret	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	36	Gearbox	20
Ret	9	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	7	Accident	15
Ret	14	Sebastien Bourdais	STR-Ferrari	7	Accident	16

This must be one of the most exciting Monaco Grand Prix ever! Not because of Hamilton winning but because it started off with wet conditions right from the starting grid, and then even heavier rain during early middle stint.

The rain actually slowed down the cars so much that this race hit the 2hour limit, . Luckily, rain also usually means an eventful race...



And if it's a street circuit like Monaco, just a little slip will fling the car to the barrier wall or cause a crash with another car.

But guess what, a slip by Hamilton during the early laps causing a slight bump with the barrier wall, which forced him to make an unscheduled pit-stop, may have indirectly won him the race.

With the forced pit-stop to change the punctured tyre, McLaren was also forced to change Hamilton to one-stop strategy, which somehow played out beautifully for him. But ofcoz, his great middle stint (lots of fastest laps) also helped him a lot, extending the lead from Massa to 30secs... but unfortunately loses all of them when the safety car came out during the last few laps.

---

Now, what about Raikkonen? He slipped during the last few laps (but seems like it's reported as braking problem), taking out Adrian Sutil of Force India (formerly Spyker-Midland-Jordan), who was in 4th place!!



A 4th place is like a miracle to back markers like Force India!! sigh... I can't help but feel a little frustrated at it (not at Raikkonen, as it wasn't really his fault), as Sutil did well to keep out of trouble during the whole race, and push as hard as a Force India car could.



The above pic is Kimi bumping into Sutil. Kimi was quite a distance away when he started sliding, but as Sutil was approaching a braking point, Kimi can't help but bump into him.

---

Looking at the brighter side of things... Monaco grand prix photos are always much nicer



Being a street circuit, photographers can take better close-up shots with slower shutter speed (since the cars are generally slower), together with lively backgrounds... aaah.

Can Singapore live up to this?