Wow Iceman! You seem to be covering this pretty hardcore!

Sam Dalton wrote:

That sounds like an obvious double standard to me, and I think we hate double standards quite a lot, don't we Iceman?

That is what I'm thinking. Double standards suck big time.

It gives me great displeasure to announce that there will be no Grands Prix in North America at all in 2009. The United States hasn't been part of Formula One since last year and won't be for at least a few years yet, and now Canada is being dropped for 2009.

Here's what the 2009 schedule looks like:


source for above chart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Formula_One_season

No update? Isn't there a race this weekend?

Well, it was an interesting round of qualifying for Sunday's race. Timo Glock started out doing very well, in fact setting the fastest lap in Q1. He continued to do well enough to make it into Q3, where he ultimately finished with a time locking him in eighth on the starting grid.

The two Ferraris and the two McLarens dominated the whole thing, and into Q3 Kimi Räikkönen sprang to life and took first, with Felipe Massa in second to make for an all-Ferrari front row, with Lewis Hamilton in third and then Heikki Kovalainen in fourth. However, right before the end of Q3, Hamilton leaped to first, not only jumping ahead of rival Massa but putting Räikkönen between them, making Räikkönen actually work against his teammate by potentially taking points away from Massa to further broaden the gap behind Hamilton. During the final minutes of Q3, Heikki Kovalainen moved ahead of Massa, broadening the gap still, and Fernando Alonso further demoted Massa to fifth, serving to help former teammate Hamilton build even more of a lead over Massa.

Anything can happen in this sport, but if the race on Sunday was to finish exactly where the drivers are starting, Hamilton would gain ten points for a total of 94, Räikkönen would gain eight for a total of 65 which wouldn't be anywhere near enough to threaten Lewis, Kovalainen would gain six for a total of 57, Alonso would gain five for a total of 43, and Massa would gain four for a total of 81, fully thirteen behind Hamilton. These would bring McLaren's total points to 151 in the constructors' championship, and would bring Ferrari to 146, taking them from just one point behind McLaren to five points behind. Again, this is if the race was to end with drivers exactly where they started, but anything can happen.

Well, I said anything can happen, and it sure did in Japan just a while ago.

Lewis Hamilton had a promising starting position on pole and several positions ahead of nearest rival Felipe Massa, but right off the starting grid Kimi Räikkönen got around Hamilton who fought back for position but too aggressively, running both off track at turn one of lap one. They recovered a few positions back, behind Massa, and two other drivers went off into ruin. In lap two, Hamilton was fighting Massa for position and eventually got around him, only for Massa to dig into his side and spin him around completely backwards. Hamilton had to wait for every single car to pass him before he could recover in 18th.

Massa really bent Hamilton over and he never really recovered from it. Hamilton was later penalized with a "drive through" for running Räikkönen off in turn one at the start of the race. Massa was also penalized in the same way for his collision with Hamilton, but it didn't quite make them even considering the huge amount of time Hamilton lost between 1) having to sit and wait to recover from the spin and 2) having to dart into pit lane for a fresh set of tires to replace the ones that had been damaged. Hamilton's teammate Heikki Kovalainen suffered an engine failure and ended up out of the race completely, out from a position near the front of the pack. Massa later had a bit of a collision with another driver (I forget which one) as the other driver was exiting pit lane, and that incident is to be investigated after the race, which may mean a ten-starting-position penalty going into China this coming weekend.

Hamilton ultimately finished in twelfth, earning zero points, but Massa managed to make it back up to eighth, scoring a single point, closing him to within six points behind Hamilton for the season. Kimi Räikkönen finished third and scored six points, but it isn't enough for him to have any chance at being this season's champion. McLaren scored zero points in Japan while Ferrari scored seven, putting Ferrari back on top, 141 to 135.

Oh, for Christ's sake. It was Sébastien Bourdais that had the collision with Felipe Massa later on, and Bourdais was slapped with a 25-second time penalty, demoting him from high original sixth-place finish down to tenth, which promoted Massa from eighth to seventh, earning Massa an additional point to close the gap behind Lewis Hamilton to just five points, and which put Ferrari one more point ahead of McLaren for a lead of seven points, 142 to 135.

Things are looking good for Lewis Hamilton so far in Shanghai, but not so much for Ferrari. During round two of Friday practice, Lewis Hamilton set the fastest lap and remained fastest for the entire hour and a half. Felipe Massa spent a bunch of time down around eighth and finally worked his way up to like fifth-fastest, but Hamilton simply outperformed both Ferraris by quite a bit. I'm just afraid Hamilton is going to try something ballsy and end up throwing the championship out the door as a result.

Alright, we have Lewis Hamilton on pole going into the race in Shanghai, but right behind him are Kimi Räikkönen and Felipe Massa, and then in fourth on the grid is Fernando Alonso who has openly declared that he will do whatever he can to help Massa win the championship.

Lewis Hamilton started on pole today and dominated the entire race, constantly keeping several seconds between him and the two Ferraris and ultimately winning the race. Unfortunately, teammate Heikki Kovalainen suffered a tire failure and didn't finish. Interesting was that Kimi Räikkönen spent the entire race several seconds ahead of Felipe Massa, and then predictably near the end he surrendered his position to Massa so as to not steal points from Massa who needs them for the championship. This is interesting because team orders that effect the outcome of the race are strictly forbidden by the rules.

Because of how terrible things have went during the past several weeks, I've failed to update on Formula One's 2008 season.

On November 2, the final race of the 2008 season was held at Autódromo José Carlos Pace (still commonly known as "Interlagos"), at São Paulo, Brazil. Going into the GP, Lewis Hamilton led Felipe Massa by seven points and even if Massa were to win the event Hamilton would only need to place fifth or better to win the championship. Hamilton is a top driver that we can count on to finish on the podium, if not in first place, but in Brazil he performed awful conservatively, holding fourth or fifth throughout the event rather than driving more aggressively and potentially risking the car/engine and consequently blowing the race and the championship.

The race was delayed by ten minutes for a sudden downpour and consequential tire change, but rain again arrived near the end of the race with just a handful of laps to go. All of the front-runners pitted for wet tires except for Timo Glock who opted to remain out on his old tires. This caused Lewis Hamilton to rejoin the race in sixth, with only a few laps remaining and his hopes of winning the championship basically gone. During the final laps Hamilton was unable to gain any positions and Felipe Massa crossed the finish line in first place, and it appeared that the championship was his, as even though he and Hamilton would have been tied in the points Massa would have had a greater number of victories for the season as the tie-breaker. However, Timo Glock's final lap was hurt by several seconds on account of running on the wrong tires for the wet conditions, and to the amazement of all Lewis Hamilton passed Glock in the final corner of the final lap of the final race of the season, moving back up to fifth and gaining the necessary point to put him ahead of Massa and thusly snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. Felipe Massa won the race, but Lewis Hamilton won the championship.

Congratulations to Lewis Hamilton on becoming 2008's World Drivers' Champion, on becoming the youngest World Drivers' Champion, and also on becoming the first black World Drivers' Champion. It was just a shame that he didn't accomplish these feats during his debut season in 2007, which he lost by a single point.

On a side note, this was David Coulthard's final Grand Prix of his Formula One career. All the teams okayed him to drive with a special "Wings for Life" livery for this final race, as Coulthard is an ambassador for Wings for Life, a research charity for spinal cord injuries. Sadly, after more than a decade as a Formula One driver, while driving his final race and with a special livery for a charity, Coulthard was wrecked out of the event at the beginning.

Congrats on your boy winning! I'm sure you're happy about that!