2007 F1 China
What a stunning race ... and yes, Lewis Hamilton was right in the middle of things yet again ... just laps away from clinching the World Championship ... and then ...
In recent months we have grown so used to seeing Lewis Hamilton driving like a Formula 1 veteran that we have reached a point at which it seems that he simply isn't going to make the kind of mistakes that all Formula 1 rookies make ... but at Shanghai we found out that Hamilton is human and that McLaren's race engineers certainly do make mistakes.
He had the World Championship in the bag ... with his tires fading quickly, or literally disintegrating, he finally got called in for fresh rubber ... but as he came into the pits to switch over to dry tyres, Hamilton somehow managed to find one of the few surviving gravel traps of the modern F1 era ! ... allowing Kimi Raikkonen to go on to win the race .... and just like that, the World Championship went from a phenomenal, historical event to a three-way, wide open contest with just one race remaining!
Wow! This will certainly go down as one of the greatest (and yes, tumultuous) seasons in F1 history.
As always, a very special thanks to Jacques Deschenaux for allowing me to yet again experience F1 up close & personal. Dear friend ... you will be very much missed as of next year ... but as this race showed, nothing is definite until the chequered flag drops!
Read MoreIn recent months we have grown so used to seeing Lewis Hamilton driving like a Formula 1 veteran that we have reached a point at which it seems that he simply isn't going to make the kind of mistakes that all Formula 1 rookies make ... but at Shanghai we found out that Hamilton is human and that McLaren's race engineers certainly do make mistakes.
He had the World Championship in the bag ... with his tires fading quickly, or literally disintegrating, he finally got called in for fresh rubber ... but as he came into the pits to switch over to dry tyres, Hamilton somehow managed to find one of the few surviving gravel traps of the modern F1 era ! ... allowing Kimi Raikkonen to go on to win the race .... and just like that, the World Championship went from a phenomenal, historical event to a three-way, wide open contest with just one race remaining!
Wow! This will certainly go down as one of the greatest (and yes, tumultuous) seasons in F1 history.
As always, a very special thanks to Jacques Deschenaux for allowing me to yet again experience F1 up close & personal. Dear friend ... you will be very much missed as of next year ... but as this race showed, nothing is definite until the chequered flag drops!
