After negotiating 67 laps of extremely tricky situations under heavy rain (including a minor collision with Robert Kubica), Hamilton will be pleased to bring home a hard earned 10 points. With Fernando Alonso crashing out, Hamilton also extended his lead in the standings by 12 points with two races remaining. The young rookie has massively strengthened his chances of winning the Formula 1 title in his first attempt since Nino Farina accomplished the feat during F1’s inaugural season in 1950.
Heikki Kovalainen will be pleased with his first career podium as he finished in second place whilst keeping a fired up Kimi Raikkonen at bay. This race marked the first podium for Renault since the 2006 Brazilian GP.
Scuderia Ferrari should be satisfied with Kimi Raikkonen’s effort to finish third. The team had both their drivers start in wet tires rather than extreme wet tires as instructed by race control. Hence, both Raikkonen and Massa were forced to enter the pits behind the safety car during the start of the race. As a result, the two Ferrari’s dropped behind the pack. The dire odds seemed to have no effect on Raikkonen as he snatched the last podium spot. Felipe Massa also had a spectacular fight back running third at one point. Unfortunately for the Brazilian, being one of the earliest stoppers, he had to make one last splash and dash in the closing stages of the race and dropped to ninth. Massa however kept his pace to climb back up the order to finish sixth after an epic last lap wheel-banging battle with Robert Kubica.
David Coulthard finished a respectable fourth in a race he dedicated to his late friend and rally legend Colin McRae. Unfortunately, Coulthard’s drive would be little consolation for the Red Bull Renault team which at one point had Mark Webber running in second place just a few seconds behind Lewis Hamilton. However, after Alonso’s shunt that deployed the safety car a second time, Sebastian Vettel, running an astonishing third at that time, crashed his Toro Rosso into the back of Webber’s car prematurely ending both their races.
Giancarlo Fisichella crossed the line in a solitary fifth place for the second of the Renaults.
After four consecutive races with at least one of their drivers finishing fifth or better, the BMW Sauber would be disappointed with today’s result. Nick Heidfeld was running sixth when his engine started to misfire on the penultimate lap forcing the German to retire for the day. Teammate Robert Kubica, on the other hand, could only manage seventh place after a very eventful race. Kubica’s strategy was ruined after being issued a drive-through penalty for colliding with Hamilton.
Vitantonio Liuzzi took the final points scoring position in eighth for Toro Rosso. Adrian Sutil and Rubens Barichello rounded up the top ten finishing ninth and tenth respectively.
