Ferrari definitely had their best weekend in a long time with Fernando Alonso
taking the victory as well as having both of their drivers finish with podium positions. From the first few laps of practice on Friday it was clear that Ferrari were going to dominate the weekend. The fans were behind them as they sat on home turf and the overall energy was highly positive in their favour. Alonso sat on pole and needed to get a good start to pull away from Jenson Button who was in 2nd position, unfortunately being in pole position put him in a sticky situation for the first corner, which enabled Button to slip by on the inside after the chicane and take the lead. Further back in the field Hamilton, who started in 5th, needed to pull away a few places in the first chicane due to his fears that his car’s set-up wasn’t sufficient for making considerable ground for overtaking during the race and that he’d struggle to get a decent place. This led him to making a decision that would leave him in the gravel and out of the race. As he went to squeeze in a miniscule gap between the track edge and Massa, his wheel collided with Massa’s car snapping his steering and leaving him unable to turn. Button managed to hold onto the lead for the majority of the race but at all times followed closely by Alonso and Massa, eventually the two front runners started pulling away from Massa but he did well to keep pace. On lap 36 Button makes the decision to pit and get some new tyres on, not the best pit stop by the team, taking around 4.2 seconds. Alonso the proceeds to make his pit on the following lap, however the Ferrari pit stop team make a much quicker job of it, finishing in just under 3.4 seconds. The question was could Alonso manage to get out of the pits ahead of Button? He did and from there he manages to seal the race win, Button doesn’t have the means to pass Alonso and can only hold onto second for some valuable points. Elsewhere Vettel had engine troubles through an early stage of the race but it managed to get sorted out and he goes onto preform exceptionally, considering his starting position of 6th, by finishing fourth. Webber now leads the Drivers’ Championship, only by a handful of points, which he should have really capitalised on given Hamilton’s retirement but now 4 drivers are within reach of grasping some title hope and it’s really starting to heat up. The Brazil Grand Prix is in two weeks’ time but if you can’t wait that long to keep your racing adrenaline pumped then come down to Team-Sport and have a blast Karting.