Formula 1: Big Talking points at Hockenheim!

Sunday’s German Grand Prix was yet another thrilling installment of a very compelling championship race.

It was great to see plenty of wheel-to-wheel action in dry conditions, and it proved that close racing is possible in F1.

Like many races this season, Hockenheim provided plenty of big talking points, which I will be going through in this article.

Plus, go to the bottom of the page to find out about my brand new feature to be launched this week and how you can take part in it.

Things are going wrong for Ferrari and they are losing their grip on the championship.

Is Raikkonen being too ice-cool?

On today’s performance, is Massa what Ferrari need?

This has been a very difficult weekend for Ferrari. They will be extremely disappointed with their pace and with their driver’s performances.

Throughout the weekend, Kimi Raikkonen struggled badly. He just couldn’t get the setup right, and this cost him at every point of the race weekend. I find it very surprising how he could struggle to get his Ferrari setup on a circuit that is so simple.

In the race, he fought his way past a few cars after the safety car period, but that is the only time he looked in good shape this weekend. He was nowhere near the pace of Hamilton.

This hasn’t been the only weekend where Raikkonen has been under par (Australia, Bahrain, Turkey and Monaco were others). His season overall has been very messy, with mistakes and races where his pace has been average at best.

The driver I am watching doesn’t look like the real Raikkonen.

Is the desire still there at the moment? Or is he being too relaxed, trapped in the security that he came back from a huge points deficit last season (he was 26 points behind after the US Grand Prix last season), and can turn it on when he pleases and still be champion?

He is simply a bit too laid back. No doubt the pace is there when he wants to show it, but he needs to show it more consistently. Otherwise, he risks falling back very quickly in this championship (he is now seven points behind Hamilton).

He has to up his game. The competition is hotter this season and McLaren are getting quicker, and have no politics distracting them. McLaren will be there at the end. Kimi Raikkonen has to win this championship rather than rely on someone else losing it.

One of the main problems is that Kimi doesn’t care if he wins or not. Life goes on as far as he is concerned. If he loses he won’t cry over it, nor will he cry if he wins it.

Hamilton, on the other hand, really wants it. You can tell that from how he is driving and how disappointed and angry he was feeling after Canada and France.

He has the drive to win the championship and that sheer determination makes you work harder and drive faster. Kimi simply doesn’t have this at the moment.

Massa, on the other hand, was fast throughout the weekend but just couldn’t translate it to race pace. Hamilton seemed to jump up to another gear during the race, but Massa didn’t seem to have another gear to flick into.

Massa nevertheless had a great opportunity to win this race regardless, but he failed to take it. He was being caught up by Hamilton much quicker than he was gaining on Piquet Jr.

Hamilton was catching him up by nearly a second per lap, which was quite astonishing. Massa’s defence against Hamilton to be very kind was simply hopeless.

He was doing the job really well by forcing Hamilton to go to the left hand side and then for some reason opened a big gap for Lewis to overtake him. Under big pressure, Massa didn’t seem to handle it too well.

Overall, I have been extremely impressed with Massa this season but the last third of today’s race showed that he isn’t a champion. He lacks that extra something.

Once the Safety car came in, it should have been this race. The weak points he has had over the years still remain. He is a fast driver, but a very poor racer when the pressure is on and big results are at stake.

Massa can only win this championship if his main rivals make more mistakes or strike poor reliability.

I wonder if Ferrari may be having a second think about their driver line-up for next season. Alonso is available and waiting in the wings and he is the sort of driver who in a top car, as the Ferrari is, would have won the race from Massa’s position.

Alonso may have his baggage, but after races like today it may be worth seriously considering. Ferrari’s chairman Luca de Montezemolo was apparently fuming after Silverstone. What will he think after this race?

Ferrari have to sit down and ask themselves “Can Felipe win us a world championship?” They may also ask the same about Kimi, but as he has already won Ferrari a championship, the pressure is off him for the time being. It's definitely on Felipe, who deserves all the stick and threats over how safe his drive is.

How would a Kubica/Alonso lineup have fared this season so far, I wonder? They are both serious challengers now for the Ferrari in the near future.

Ferrari should be running away with this season by now. Not only haven’t they built the points gap, but McLaren are really getting the job done and have overtaken the Ferrari for pace. Ferrari now really have a fight on their hands to weather this McLaren storm.

These next few weeks are really important for Ferrari’s 2008 season. Could they end up losing both championships as cheaply as McLaren lost them in 2007?

Are Ferrari now really missing Ross Brawn, who would be keeping the operation calm and controlled and not letting the team lose their grip?

This new-look Ferrari team faces its biggest challenge yet, but don’t ever rule Ferrari out, they could easily come out fighting and on top in the next race and silence us critics!

It was a classy win for McLaren, but it almost thrown away with a strange tactical decision.

Was there a hint of team orders?

Is Heikki under pressure?

McLaren have made a few major steps forward in the last few weeks, all starting with that test at Silverstone and then further improvements at the Hockenheim test. They are developing far faster than Ferrari at the moment.

Most people expected the Ferrari’s to be a handful in the race, but Hamilton was around three quarters of a second faster per lap over anyone. Before Glock’s crash and the SC deployment, it was looking surprisingly comfortable.

Then McLaren made the call to keep Hamilton out and not bring in him during the SC period. This was definitely a big risk. However, 30 laps on the soft tyre would have been difficult too.

So I suppose from McLaren’s point of view at the time, it seemed like a case of picking the lesser of two evils. The McLaren definitely would have eaten the soft tyres alive after such a long stint. Thirty laps is a long time for a set of F1 soft tyres to last.

Hamilton wasn’t able to open a big enough gap to come back out ahead of Massa (he gave it a very good go ,though!) but as Hockenheim is an overtaking friendly track, Hamilton was able to get close enough and overtake Massa and Piquet Jr. with great finesse.

Although had this been Hungary, Monaco, or Spain, this could have been a different story and Hamilton could well have been stuck. I doubt McLaren would have taken the same risk at those circuits.

In hindsight, McLaren may look back and see that with Massa’s slow pace in the final stint, Hamilton may have survived on the soft tyres for 30 laps but in the end they made the call and they got away with it.

They won the race, which is the main thing, and entertained millions in the process, so everyone is happy and goes home with a smile on their faces.

Hamilton was simply the fastest man out there today. Nobody was near his level; he would have won the race however the team made him do it. He was absolutely on fire.

He seems to have turned a corner now with his driving, and is getting more on terms with this season’s McLaren which he seemed to find difficult to drive and setup in the early part of the season. He is leaving these earlier troubles this season well and truly behind him.

If he can continue to perform at this level and Ferrari and their drivers don’t get their act together fast enough, Hamilton could very well be the first driver to gain an element of control over this see-saw like championship that we have had so far.

I said in my recent mid-season reviews that someone needed to get a stranglehold in this championship, and Hamilton is the one that seems to be starting to do just that.

I remember a quote before 2007 suggesting that Hamilton would shock people in 2007 (which he did) and in 2008 nobody would see him for dust. Maybe this is what we are starting to see.

It’s not a great idea to say that just yet though, after seeing how many twists this championship has already taken. There could yet be more twists, but it's looking good for Lewis at the moment.

Some fans accused McLaren of team orders after the race when Heikki let Lewis past at the hairpin, but everyone could see how much faster Lewis was. In my view Heikki did the sensible thing, rather than hold both him and Lewis up and back themselves into Kubica and Raikkonen.

Trying to continue to keep Hamilton behind him would have been foolish. Did Kovalainen get told to pull over via radio? In my opinion I don’t think he would have been forced to move over.

At a push, Ron Dennis may have made him aware of the situation and told him how much faster Lewis was and from that Heikki would have made the decision. A team boss can’t force a driver to move over for his team mate; that would be against the rules.

If the FIA can see evidence when they listen to the team radio conversations after the race, a punishment would have been given. And if the FIA had found an opportunity to punish McLaren you would think that they would have embraced the opportunity. This statement alone proves that nothing dodgy went on.

Overall, when comparing Heikki and Lewis today, Lewis was far faster. Kovalainen is a decent driver, but races like this show that Lewis is at a higher level than Kovalainen.

I guess Kovalainen may well be disappointed with the outcome today. The difference between the pair was around 0.5 to 0.75 seconds per lap.

If this kind of gap continues over the next part of the season, Heikki’s seat could potentially be under pressure from the likes of Rosberg.

In the first part of the season, he could blame bad luck for a lot of his poor races but in these last two races, he can’t. He was absolutely trounced by Lewis in Silverstone and Hockenheim.

Heikki needs to get some results desperately. One podium so far this season is a poor return. His qualifying pace is decent, but in the races, something is going wrong.

McLaren are definitely on the up, after some tough times in the first half of the season. Momentum is now with Mclaren and they are developing the car very well.

Even better news for them is the next two tracks, Hungary and Valencia, should suit the McLaren so they could win the next two events.

With Hamilton now in the zone, McLaren really could take this championship to Ferrari and nick it off them when really Ferrari should have been over the hill and far away by now and simply conserving their lead. You can tell that McLaren are reveling from this and the hunger is there.

I think a lot of the F1 paddock have been surprised (particularly Ferrari) by McLaren’s character and fightback. The car now seems to be working well at nearly every track.

This is turning into an exceptional championship battle and this race has been another epic chapter.

Lady Luck hands gift to Piquet

There is no doubt that Piquet got an extremely luck break today. Before the safety car came out he had just made his only pit stop and was at the back just in front of the Force Indias.

He didn’t really deserve this break, but when he got it, he made the most of it and set his fastest laps of the race. He was fast enough to stay comfortably ahead of Massa, and despite Hamilton being much faster, he made the position very hard for Hamilton to take.

Sometimes in F1, you need a lucky break and something positive to happen to you after such a wretched time. Piquet won’t care how lucky this result was, he will go home happy and go to Hungary in a more confident mood and hopefully this is the race that turns his season.

Piquet Jr. has had a very difficult debut in F1, but in the last few races he has been finding more speed. In France, he drove a particularly good race and his pace matched Alonso. At Silverstone, he was driving well but Mother Nature was against him that day.

Hungary is another track that Piquet knows well, so I fancy him to be pretty fast around there and continue to show improvements.

Alonso getting frustrated

Today, Alonso seemed to get nothing going for him and again an opportunity to score points passed him by. How many times did he go for an overtaking move and instead ended up losing positions instead?

There was no doubting how hard he was trying, but the frustration is getting very evident. Alonso has such as hunger for success and wants to be winning races and challenging for championships.

When he watches the video of the race back at his home in Switzerland, he may be rubbing his hands together when he sees how poorly Raikkonen and Massa performed and hoping there is an opening for him next season.

Heidfeld puts his season back on track

There were five Germans in the field today, and it was Heidfeld who got the best result for all the German fans who attended the race.

Heidfeld is a very quiet and unspectacular driver, but in dramatic races such as today’s, he seems to sneak in through the back door quietly and get himself a result.

His pace in the latter stages of the race was very impressive, and he even tried to overtake Massa for the last spot on the podium. In fact, he scored the fastest lap of the race too.

Kubica has dominated him for much of this season and has earned all the plaudits, but Heidfeld has still strung together some good results, including three second places.

He is now only seven points behind Kubica in the championship. He could yet actually beat his team mate on points this season, which would end up being a very notable achievement for Nick.

If Heidfeld can finish ahead on points or stay close for the rest of the season then he will able to keep his future at BMW Sauber secure, and stand the chance of getting a very competitive car next season.

Heidfeld certainly can’t afford to start sinking down the grid at this stage of his career, as in the current field it would be very hard for him to get back to a good seat again with the number of young drivers around.

He has to keep performing and keep his place in the BMW team. He is turning his season around and deserves a lot of credit for his last couple of performances after his French nightmare.

Vettel’s star rising

The main news off the track this weekend was that it was confirmed that Vettel would be driving alongside Webber at the main Red Bull team next season. This is definitely a very good choice.

Vettel is in the Red Bull family and he is doing a very good job at Torro Rosso at the moment, so the chance is most definitely deserved.

I think it will be a fascinating partnership next season that will prove how underrated a driver Mark Webber is and whether all the hype surrounding Vettel is justified.

We will find out a lot by both these drivers in their time together. I think it will be one of the most eagerly awaited team mate battles of 2009.

As for this weekend, Vettel did himself no harm at all, qualifying in the top 10 between the Red Bull cars and fighting hard for a point.

This race not only showed that Vettel is a very fast driver but that he is aggressive and resilient too. His battle with Alonso mid-race was one of my highlights of the Grand Prix.

Final Thought

In the title race, the German GP was definitely a turning point. In my recent article looking in-depth at how the Ferrari/McLaren battle would turn out, I said that McLaren would win a few more races, but Ferrari ought to be comfortable in the end.

If Ferrari and their drivers keep on producing races like this, and McLaren keep improving to the extent they have been doing, then this earlier prediction could well be thrown out of the window.

In F1, absolutely anything can happen and this is proving to be the case in this season’s championship battle. You can’t take anything for granted.

Ferrari could well fight back from this recent disappointment and I wouldn’t rule out McLaren getting carried away and cocky and not making the most of this upturn in form. They can’t afford to rest on their laurels, especially as they haven’t won a championship since 1999 with Mika Hakkinen.

Nevertheless, there is no doubt that the pendulum has definitely swung McLaren’s way. Every person in that Ferrari team has some soul-searching today to avoid Ferrari pressing the self-destruct button and to stamp their authority again on this championship again.

Finally, I want to point you in the direction of my brand new feature which I will be launching this week. I will be inviting Bleacher Report readers and users to ask me any questions they want about the 2008 F1 season so far, or anything else relating to F1 that they want to ask.

Examples of things you may want to ask me about:

The season’s title race

Events/incidents in previous races

Off the track news such as DC’s retirement and Donington getting the British GP

The F1 silly season (potential driver moves)

Basically you can throw any question at me you like (as long as it is sensible) and I will answer as many questions as I can. I will publish my questions and responses in an article later on this week.

So to ask me a question all you have to do is either leave the question you want me to answer on my bulletin board in my profile or you can send me an email at [e-mail], make sure you make it clear in your email subject that the email is related to this feature so that I notice it.

Thanks.