Chinese GP 2007 post-race discussion, comments

You have to remember Hamilton was struggling badly on his ruined tyres and was therefore quite unpredictable.

The one thing that does look, or perhaps sounds is a better term, somewhat odd is that Raikkonen isn't able to overtake Lewis when he runs wide coming up to start-finish.

He didn't do anything wrong per se, I meant that it was just behaviour I didn't expect from him - being the kind of driver that he is.

Originally posted by Tigershark

The one thing that does look, or perhaps sounds is a better term, somewhat odd is that Raikkonen isn't able to overtake Lewis when he runs wide coming up to start-finish.

On the 1:45 mark?
He obviously lifts, he doesn't want to overtake him yet.

Originally posted by vitivati
On the 1:45 mark?
He obviously lifts, he doesn't want to overtake him yet.

Most probably, perhaps Kimi thought Lewis still carried enough speed to create a difficult situation going in to an already tricky turn 1 and chose to wait for a better opportunity.

Originally posted by vitivati


On the 1:45 mark?
He obviously lifts, he doesn't want to overtake him yet.

because Kimi was still busy with foreplay ;)

At 1:45 it sounds to me like he put in a gear too early by mistake and lost acceleration because of that. "Didn't want to overtake"?

Thanks for the video, I hadn't realised the battle had been anywhere near this exciting. But I don't see anything out of ordinary with Kimi's behaviour.

I just read on the comment section on youtube that there were yellow flags on the main straight, that's why he lifted then. (1:45)

Originally posted by vitivati


On the 1:45 mark?
He obviously lifts, he doesn't want to overtake him yet.

He didn't overtake LH at that moment because of the yellow flag there!!!

Originally posted by vitivati
I'm not sure this has been discussed yet, but I stumbled on this video on youtube.
It's an onboard with KR chasing down Lewis.

I was slightly surprised to see Kimi driving like this, trying to get his rival to make a mistake and dnf?

I've sort of always maintained Kimi as a "levelheaded" bloke who wouldn't resort to things like this, well maybe he knew that was his only chance to get back on the WDC fight.

Umm, I don't see anything out of the ordinary with KR's driving. If anything he could have been more aggressive, but I guess he knew he didn't need to be and just waited for the right time to overtake.

The most striking thing from that video is how well the Mac accelerates even with shod rear tyres. This is EXACTLY like Renault in Monaco 2005, even though that was in dry weather. I've said before that Mac 07 is a carbon copy of the Renault 05 in terms of car characteristics. (Mac engineers aren't dumb, they probably started to take good note of that Renault very quickly and it showed in 07 - remember that McL had just a little earlier also switched to a two-year cycle in car design regarding the design teams, also influenced by Renault!) That means excellent traction and overall balance more than anything else. This is what made both these cars so good in slow tracks like Monaco and Hungary, and in wet races as well, especially flattering its drivers in the wet with great mechanical grip and balance being the things to have in those conditions. I had one debate over this with Arrow in the past. If your still around, just look at this video, it's excellent proof of what I've been saying. And since it isn't FA at the wheel, you can't even argue that it is just down to him rather than the car.

Yep, I remember KR mentioning the yellow flags.

After the pit stop I saw that he could not pull away anymore and I was catching him little by little, and with a little rain my car was pretty good. One time I went to pass him but there were too many yellow flags and I backed off, but in the end I could pass him and quite easily pull away.

What you can see there is Lewis Hamilton completely overdriving everywhere, braking too late for his tyres' condition at every corner. It's amazing he actually doesn't go out of the track at any moment.

You can barely see the "driver behind closes on driver in front" effect, because Hamilton is braking at the same moment Kimi does, not earlier (like he should, given he is ahead). Instead of that, you see Kimi closing A LOT in the middle of the corners, because Ham had to slow down much more than him.

All of this is specially visible at the end of the back straight.

This is NOT a Lewis Hamilton bashing post. It's more a "why the hell was Hamilton driving that hard?" Honestly I can't understand why he was trying to go so quick through the corners. He was like a robot, he wasn't paying attention to his car, he just tried to take the corners as he had been doing all the race, in spite of the fact he was having trouble to keep that speed. That's why he shot his tyres in a way Kimi or Fernando didn't.

It's funny, Peter Windsor pointed to China as an example of Lewis outdriving Kimi on a 'Ferrari day'.

Actually, he did outdrive Kimi, it's true. And that's why he annihilated his tyres and lost the championship.

Kimi drove outstanding that day, I love they way you see him hacking away at the wheel in the wet and turbulence. It was the same in Silverstone.

He has utterly amazing car control.

Lewis does too actually, but just those two races cemented for me why Kimi is my favourite driver of the current generation.

Same for me. Lewis will learn about this in time, it's just a matter of experience but in that particular race while Lewis was lapping faster than everyone else on a drying track I knew it wasn't over, as many times before, those with superior control will win.

In that particular race, Kimi drove within the limits while Lewis went over them.

I think lewis had too little traction control or something... maybe too high pressure in the tyres maybe, he wore them out rather than blistered them (dont remmber seeing any blisters), normaly if you overwork the tyres they will blister, or coldsheer (but thats rare). he also cooled the tyres more than the others... maybe he was sliding more than the others and just scrubbed them down. didnt kimi say he couldnt keep up with hami at the begining?

I think tyre management was the main issue. Wet tyres "melt" on dry/drying track. Räikkönen preserved his tyres better and once Hamilton started having problems, upped the pace and made the pass.

Originally posted by pingu666
I think lewis had too little traction control or something... maybe too high pressure in the tyres maybe, he wore them out rather than blistered them (dont remmber seeing any blisters), normaly if you overwork the tyres they will blister, or coldsheer (but thats rare). he also cooled the tyres more than the others... maybe he was sliding more than the others and just scrubbed them down. didnt kimi say he couldnt keep up with hami at the begining?

He couldn't no. The Ferrari though, particularly in the hands of Raikkonen, was much kinder to its tyres. As the track dried up Lewis who was putting plenty of heat into his and reaping the benefits on the wet track started paying the price for that exuberance.

It was a fantastic race actually, much like the previous year was where the same thing happened between Alonso and Schumacher.

i dont think it was heat tbh, as no blisters, plus he cooled them more, something made them wear down excessivly :

I wonder what the result would have been if he pitted a few laps earlier?

Anyway, rather than drag the old argument up again, lets just hope Lewis and McLaren learn from that experience if nothing else.