2007 F1 Season in Review

This is my first motorsports article on here so I thought I would give you my verdict on the 2007 F1 season which I wrote a while ago.

Summary of 2007: 

2007 was an extremely memorable season for both good and bad reasons. Mclaren and Ferrari were the main title threats as Renault and Honda fell badly by the wayside.

All four drivers in these two teams won races and made a bid to win the title, which made for compelling viewing. Lewis Hamilton was the main man for most of the season, breaking rookie records and wowing the world by regularly beating the established talent and showing tremendous race craft.

He was surprisingly consistent and led the championship from round three onward. All four drivers had their ups and downs and it all ended with a memorable three-way title finale, reminiscient of the 1986 classic at Adelaide.

In the end, Lewis couldn’t quite do it and Raikkonen snatched the title from his clutches.

The year had a lot of stories and intrigue including the civil war at Mclaren, which reminded fans of Senna and Prost during their time together. The shift of balance between Mclaren and Ferrari changed throughout the season as both cars suited different tracks.

Stories further down the grid included Heikki Kovalainen and Nico Rosberg’s successes and Toyota and Honda’s dismal efforts, while BMW staked its claim as a potential future championship challenger.

Of course I almost forgot about all the politics—which threatened to de-rail the whole entire show—the main focus being on the happily named spy-gate which took Mclaren out of the constructors championship and contributed to the Alonso era at Mclaren only lasting a single season.

Where the title race was won and lost?  

In the constructor’s title, Mclaren lost that in the courtroom due to the spy scandal.

In a year where things were finally coming together for Mclaren, it ended up throwing it all away again, albeit very differently this time. Interestingly without the spy scandal Ferrari would have ended up over-hauling Mclaren by a single point, in the latter third of the season Ferrari was simply the fastest car at most tracks and was very consistent.

Overall, there were more Ferrari days than Mclaren days. Very often the Ferrari was kinder to its tires over the race distance and this contributed to a lot of its 2007 race victories.

The Ferrari was an edge better than the Mclaren so you can’t really begrudge Ferrari for the constructor’s championship. It’s a shame that its title was confirmed in Belgium thanks to politics as fans will never give credit to Ferrari for winning a championship. However, looking at the results they actually deserved. Ferrari won nine races to Mclaren’s eight.

Ferrari also should have held out at the Nurburgring where it was faster than Mclaren too. The only weak point of the Ferrari was reliability, which is an area where Mclaren excelled and helped them battle with Ferrari in the title race. There were races when Ferrari only got one car to the finish whereas Mclaren hardly had anything go wrong with its cars at all except perhaps that mysterious gear glitch on Lewis’s car in Brazil. Despite this fact I still stand by the assertion that the Ferrari car had the edge over the Mclaren, but both were title challengers which its drivers could realistically win their championship in.

 “A year where things were finally coming together for Mclaren but again they ended up throwing it all away, albeit very differently this time”  

As for the Driver’s championship, any four of the top drivers in the Mclaren and Ferrari could have won it. They each had the machinery over the season and all had the ability. Massa showed that he had improved massively this season but he still wasn’t the perfect driver and his championship was lost by a few silly errors; his move on Lewis at Sepang at turn four was amateurish to say the least and after that ill-fated move he never recovered his race.

Missing the red light at Montreal was a huge gaffe and a very silly way to lose a certain five or six points. It’s those two instances in particular that Massa will look back on with regret and why he still can’t be considered as one of the best drivers.

In the end, the main turning point though was his retirement in Italy. He would have beaten Kimi in that race but instead Kimi leapfrogged him in the standings and that’s when Ferrari started to back Kimi till the end, Massa’s challenge was over.

Alonso’s big turning point was Hungary; he may have been frustrated at Lewis but blocking him in the pit lane didn’t solve anything. Had he not committed that offence he would have at least started on the front row and in a fast Mclaren on race day would have at least got second. That would have been three more points than he actually got, which would have been enough to leapfrog Kimi in the title.

Alonso’s other main error was in Fuji where he aquaplaned in the rain; good points were lost there. Alonso was clearly humbled by the unexpected opposition from Hamilton and the fact he wasn’t clear number. At times he spent too much time making life difficult for mclaren off the track rather than working harder on his weaknesses so he could beat Hamilton on the track.

Hamilton was the most consistent driver this season; everyone says China was where the title was lost for him and indeed it was. If he hadn’t raced so hard for the lead and forced the team to let him pit earlier, then it could have all been so different but his championship loss can also be traced back to the chaotic race at the Nurburgring where he got it completely wrong.

Lewis went off at turn one, but got back onto the track thanks to some assistance. At the re-start the race was perfectly recoverable and a 3^rd place and six points was very realistic, but moving onto the dries far too early when the track was still damp was a suicidal move. He was all over the shot and going off the track, and had lost a lot of time.

He did well to recover from that to finish ninth, but it could have been so much better if he hadn’t been too over-ambitious and thought he could race on a wet track with dry tires (which is nearly impossible). Overconfidence and inexperience of this type of situation really did him in.

A 12-point lead going down to two was quite a big turning point for his championship challenge and it should have been avoided. The factor that both Mclaren drivers can blame for losing the championship was the war with each other; it was incredibly tense and they were constantly taking points on each other as Ferrari started to put all of their energy into Kimi.

Whilst the war of words was going on between Alonso and Hamilton, and Spygate was taking its toll on both Macca drivers reflected on the race track itself at times Kimi kept out of it and concentrated on his racing and got onto a great run. The civil war at Mclaren had let Raikkonen in through the back door. This is as much to blame as Lewis and Alonso’s individual errors.

“The civil war at mclaren had let Raikkonen in through the back door”

Raikkonen had some struggles in the first half of the year particularly with the tyres but he was still getting a good points haul. At the Silverstone test Raikkonen worked really hard and the car started to suit him better and he fought back in the middle of the season with back to back wins at Silverstone and Magny-Cours.

After another setback in Nurburgring with a second DNF of the season Kimi went on a long string of podiums, which stretched until the end of the season including three victories. This great run of Kimi’s coincided with the war at problem and the whole spy-gate saga, whilst the war of words and politics took place at Mclaren the Ferrari was becoming an extension of Kimi’s body and nothing could stop him.

He was still a long way back with two races left but he did what he had to do with no fuss and his victories in China and Brazil were both very assured. Ferrari and Kimi were both very relaxed in what they were doing whilst the mclaren team were tripping over each other. The pressure got to team and drivers and silly points were lost to let an very ice cool Kimi through the door to get the championship he had earnt at last.

Raikkonen wasn’t the most consistent driver of the year, and yes he had problems in the first of the season but he never let this bothered him. Beyond the exterior of a man who looked like he couldn’t be bothered was a very focused and intense man who got on with the job quietly, unphased and reaped the rewards.

 “Beyond the exterior of a man who looked like he couldn’t be bothered was a very focused and intense man who got on with the job quietly, unphased and reaped the rewards.”  How good was a season was 2007?  

The title fight was gripping. The last three races of the season were extremely dramatic and this was as good an end to a season as you are ever likely to see.

Terrible conditions in Fuji where lots of incidents and twists happened, then exactly the same again in Shanghai in wet conditions and the championship then turning on its head setting up an unexpected three-way finale when everyone had just presumed Lewis would do enough to win the championship there and then.

Brazil was then very tense but again Lewis was expected to do enough but as it went wrong for Lewis but right for Raikkonen all of a sudden Raikkonen was a surprise champion. These few weeks of F1 racing were the most instense and gripping I have personally every experienced.

Up till that point there had been other good races in Canada (Lewis’s first win, Kubica’s horror crash), the US (the Mclaren rivals side by side) and at the Nurburgring (Alonso’s pursuit and great move on Massa). Lewis Hamilton provided a breath of fresh air upsetting established talent and showing brilliant race craft, he was one of the most exciting aspects of the 2007 season and he added a lot to this season’s show. All four top drivers were winning and there were a few good battles. But at the same time there were a few too many 0-0 draws so to speak where overtaking was lacking and most of the action was in the pits.

The problem of overtaking and the aero on the cars does need to be looked because as the teams develop the aero even more overtaking will keep on becoming more difficult, however there is work going on and one hopes in the future we see more overtaking to complement the tight championships that a brilliantly talented group of young drivers are now starting to provide us.

Another negative aspect of the season was all the off-track politics, after all the turmoil this season 2008 really needs to be a quiet year politics wise otherwise F1 will find itself in a lot of trouble and fans will really start to question its integrity more so than some already are. Some fans will also say that it was disappointing that only two teams ever looked like competing for wins this year, it was good that there were four drivers competing for the championship but only the two teams won races, as previously as 2003 5 teams won races in one season and one hopes that there will be more teams able to win next season.

So overall a very gripping season at times with a lot of good things going for it but its just a shame that a few of the bad smells created will hang over it. Overall I have to say I enjoyed every minute of it, there were so many stories, surprises and action to follow and constantly huge points to debate it made 2007 very enjoyable, of course as I have already mentioned it was a shame there was too many politics spoiling the broth but luckily as there were so many other things to talk about come the season’s end this rescued the dire scenario that these politics caused.

I say roll on 2008 and hope for another great year, this time minus the politics.

 “Lewis Hamilton provided a breath of fresh air upsetting established talent and showing brilliant race craft, he was one of the most exciting aspects of the 2007 season and he added a lot to this season’s show.” 

The Politics

F1 was full of controversy on and off the track this season, some of it most unwelcome, it all started with the customer car debate. Adrian Newey effectively designed this year’s Torro Rosso and Super Aguri used and developed last year’s Honda car but in their defence they used it to very good effect. However Spyker were not happy about the situation as they were designing their cars without any help and were being beaten by Torro Rosso and Super Aguri.

In this writer’s view the customer car debate went on for far too long. In my personal opinion Torro Rossi and Super Aguri should have had their cars banned as soon as they were first put onto the track in January, customer cars were not allowed in 2007, yes at the time customer cars were to be allowed in 2008(although that has become a very grey area now) but this was 2007! In the end these three teams sharing the FIA prize money was a fair enough compromise but this agreement should have been reached far sooner than it was.

 “In my personal opinion Torro Rossi and Super Aguri should have had their cars banned as soon as they were first put onto the track in January”  

Of course even bigger than controversy was spy-gate, which at times dominated people’s though. Basically it all started with Nigel Stepney, an employee at Ferrari who had been so instrumental in the team’s recent success but was very unhappy and bewildered at the recent reshuffle within the Ferrari team after the departures of Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher.

He started sharing data and information on the Ferrari car with Mike Couglan of Mclaren, this included a document of over 700 pages long. Knowledge has it that this started as early as Melbourne, there is now a very good reason why Mclaren had such good knowledge of Ferrari’s flex floor system which forced the FIA to tighten the rules in this area. In July Mclaren and Ferrari were both summoned to the world motorsport council. Mclaren was found guilty of possession of these documents and information but no proof that they had actually used it.

Weeks later it appeared that there had been key information passed between key members of the Mclaren team, this included emails and text messages, a few of these emails were between Alonso and test driver De La Rosa. After this new evidence Mclaren were docked out of all constructors points for 2007.

In my opinion the drivers were very lucky to still be racing as if this information helped make the car faster then they would have been the ones receiving the benefit and lets not forget that two out of the three drivers in the team were the ones discussing the information and data.

However I am glad they were still involved otherwise a good season would have been utterly destroyed even though that would have been the right punishment. Instead a 100 million dollar fine was in place, although I feel this fine was extremely over the top in my view I am sure Mclaren rather than being removed altogether.

I don’t think we will ever know how much of the Ferrari information Mclaren used but when you have seen pages and pages of information, or more precise over 720 pages of it is inevitably going to influence your thoughts about the development of the car even if you don’t copy the ideas word for word, diagram for diagram. In effect this kind of thing will always go on as mechanics move teams and take knowledge in their brains to their new teams, which can be used, mechanics will look at their rival team’s cars on race weekends but this affair was totally different. Using information given to you directly from a rival team is completely different and much worse misconduct.

 “It is inevitably going to influence your thoughts about the development of the car even if you don’t copy the ideas word for word, diagram for diagram”  

Even worse, Renault nearly got punished for the same type of incident at the end of the season but unlike Mclaren got off scott-free, whether this was right decision is very hard to say. I have to admit it seems very strange that Renault didn’t a punishment of any description. Maybe it was because Ron Dennis isn’t in charge of Renault or that Renault wasn’t a car challenging for wins that year as Mclaren was. However the main thing is that a line is put under this horrible episode.

Something we have learnt from this whole spy affair is that team bosses have far less knowledge of what all of their employees are upto. Teams now hire 100s of people therefore it is much harder to trust and control all of them. As well team bosses spend a lot more time locked in their offices and are putting their trust in the key men that work below them. Ron Dennis was completely oblivious to what some his employees were upto and was denying wrongdoing during the spy saga court cases.

The year almost threatened to end in even more politics as the championship was eventually decided in court. BMW Sauber and Williams were being investigated for having their fuel too cool in Brazil, in the end the Stewards let them off but Mclaren decided to appeal, thank god they didn’t win their appeal and the champion being changed a few weeks after the season finished would have been a huge blow for F1. It would have been a very negative moment for F1.

Lets hope the politics section of the 2008 F1 review isn’t anywhere near as long as this one has been.

On-track controversy

The main piece of on track-controversy was at Hungary where it Alonso intentionally blocked Hamilton after being angry that Hamilton didn’t let Alonso through in the fuel burn phase. This incident showed a side to Alonso, which nobody had ever seen before, Alonso was becoming increasingly frustrated by Hamilton, he was expecting No. 1 status in the team which he didn’t get, Hamilton was leading him in the championship, Alonso certainly didn’t want to be beaten to the world championship by a rookie.

This incident highlighted that Alonso was becoming unhappy at Mclaren. A five-place penalty was fully justified for this incident, however no constructors points for the weekend wasn’t in my opinion. This was an inter-team issue, no need for the FIA to get involved. Of course if Alonso had blocked a rival from another team then that would have been a different matter but this was a mclaren driver blocking a mclaren driver. Dare I ask if the same penalty would have been applied if it had been Ferrari involved? Not is my personal opinion.

Another highly debated on-track incident was the Fuji safety incident. It seemed clear to most at the time that Vettel had misjudged the situation and punted Webber into retirement.

Thanks to Youtube who most thought FOM didn’t want videos to be published on decided to use it this time to their advantage and found evidence that maybe Lewis was to blame for the incident. An investigation was launched but in the end common sense prevailed. Hamilton’s driving behind the safety car wasn’t perfect but it was dreadful conditions but it is not the lead driver’s responsibility to check that the drivers behind are doing.

Vettel simply lost concentration and was in the wrong place, had he followed the pattern correctly he should have been the other side of the track of Webber and then there would have been more contact. It is up the leader of the bunch how he controls the field and its up to the to the rest to react accordingly.

Having said all that it is probably very lucky there weren’t more crunches elsewhere, other drivers were overtaking each other without knowing due to the lack of visibility. Docking Hamilton’s race win in Fuji for this incident would have been completely farcical in my opinion, maybe a slight talking to was needed or at most a warning of future conduct. During my time of keen interest in motor racing I have seen far worse conduct by leader of the snake.

   Final Conclusion  

To conclude my review of the 2007 season I think overall for F1 despite the bad politics it’s been a very successful season. The raise in viewing figures and interest support that opinion. A lot of that is down to Lewis Hamilton but also not only him but the tightest championship F1 has had for many years full of surprises throughout the grid along with some great racing.

Not all of the season was great but it was a very gripping one if not always for the right reasons due to the number and variety of stories and debates the season had. Also I would like to reiterate that Raikkonen was a very deserving champion, he focused on his racing and performed at the right moment when his other title rivals started to lost their heads. He got a lot of criticism at the start of the season but he brilliantly answered the critics wrong.

Coming back from a 26-point deficit after the US grand prix is a stat a lot of people fail to mention, coming from this far back has never been achieved before. This shows Kimi’s fighting spirit and that there is more to him than just a “turn up and drive driver”.