F1 season ends in controversy, Hendrick teams roll on.
Monday, October 22nd, 2007By: Drew Hierwarter
Kimi Raikkonen is the Formula 1 World Champion, maybe. More on that in a minute. Going in to Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix in Sao Paulo the championship was Lewis Hamilton’s to lose. And that’s exactly what happened. He tried a much too aggressive pass on teammate Fernando Alonzo going into the second turn on the opening lap. A pass that was not necessary at all for the points situation, especially that early. The result was Hamilton running off course and dropping to eighth. He eventually recovered to the point where he was in the championship lead once again when some sort of electronic glitch shifted his car to neutral. It took nearly thirty seconds before the problem cleared up and Hamilton was up to speed again, but by then he was 18th and out of contention. The two race leading Ferraris were long gone by then with Raikkonen the eventual race winner.
The win catapulted Raikkonen from third past both Alonzo and Hamilton and into the World Championship by one point. That is, pending the appeal of the decision of the FIA to not penalize the BMW Sauber, and Williams teams for cooling their fuel more than specified. Formula 1 teams are allowed to cool the fuel down to ten degrees below ambient temperature. The Brazilian race stewards found both teams to be out of compliance by as much as three degrees. However, due to some disagreement on which of three different measurements of ambient temperature should be used, the FIA decided not to penalize either team. McLaren filed a protest almost immediately because, if the finishing positions of these two teams are disallowed, Lewis Hamilton will then have a high enough finish to be crowned champion. As of this writing, no decision has been made on McLaren’s protest, so we send a hearty, but tentative, congratulations to Kimi Raikkonen on his first ever World Championship.
Drew Hierwarter photo
The sun shone on Hendrick Motorsports after the NASCAR Nextel Cup “Subway 500” at Martinsville on Sunday. It hasn’t always been so. The half mile flat oval in Southern Virginia has been the scene of great triumph for the team and one of great tragedy. The tragedy came in 2004 when an airplane carrying 11 members of the Hendrick family and team crashed just a few miles from the Blue Ridge airport killing all on board. You could still see the pain of that terrible day on the faces of Jimmie Johnson, crew chief Chad Knaus, and team owner Rick Hendrick in victory lane on Sunday, but you could also see the joy after a strong performance that further cemented the chances of either Johnson or Jeff Gordon to win the 2007 Nextel Cup. It will be the 11th championship of a major NASCAR series to go to the Concord based super team.
In a race that was dominated by a record number of caution flags, Jeff Gordon and Johnson showed that if anyone else is planning to win the championship this year, they are really going to have to step it up. Several other drivers lead briefly throughout the day including Dale Earnhardt, Jr., and even Juan Pablo Montoya, but the duo of Gordon and Johnson clearly had the field covered. For everyone else it was a case of get what you can and make the best of a difficult situation. Clint Bowyer, who remains third in points but has now slipped to 115 behind leader Gordon, still has a shot at his first championship. But he cannot control that shot because he needs bad luck to befall both Johnson and Gordon otherwise he can do nothing to overcome their lead. And everybody from fourth place Tony Stewart on back is pretty much out of the championship picture for 2007.
Joey Logano. Remember that name. Logano won the Toyota All-Star Showdown at Irwindale Speedway near Los Angeles before a national TV audience on Saturday night. Peyton Sellars was second in the 250 lap event that was plagued by many caution flags and a red flag period that extended the race late into the night. “We just had a great race,” Logano said. “I’ve just got a lot of confidence. And there’s a great team behind me.” Logano is under contract with Joe Gibbs racing as a development driver and qualified for this event by winning the Busch East championship in his rookie year. In addition to being fast on the track, he is polished and confident on television. Something that is just as important. He is articulate and well spoken, and he gets all of his sponsors into the interviews like a veteran. Joey Logano is only 17 years old. Remember his name because you will surely be seeing him again.