Victory!!!

With his win in the Grand Prix of Brazil, Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen has won the Formula 1 Championship. The man once described by Red Bull driver David Coulthard as "dead from the feet up as far as personality" is the World Driving Championship. I am so excited that I cannot sufficiently express it. So let me just tell you how it happened.

Coming into the race, there were three drivers who had a mathematical shot at the title: Lewis Hamilton (Team McLaren Mercedes), Fernando Alonso (also Team McLaren Mercedes), and Kimi Raikkonen (Ferrari). Hamilton was is the lead and it was basically his championship to lose. He basically had to finish 5th or better and it was his. When you are in a McLaren Mercedes, you have no excuses. It and the Ferrari are far and away better than any other car. Fernando and Kimi were basically in the position that they had to win no matter what if their hopes were to be kept alive.

At the start of the race, Felipe Massa in the other Ferrari made sure that he gave his team mate Raikkonen the advantage. By the first turn it was Ferrari 1-2. This was the way the rest of the race went. Raikkonen got by Massa on the second pit stop to take the victory. Fernando (pictured below on the right) did his best but could not match the Ferraris' pace.


As I said, it was Hamilton's race to lose and lose it he did. Here he is being consoled by McLaren team principal Ron Dennis.
Right from the start Hamilton fought others where he didn't have to and ran off the track a couple of times. Then Hamilton suddenly he started to slow. I felt elation as an apparent clutch problem put him back to 18th. He fiddled with the electronics and eventually got it going again. He drove well and fought back hard but finished in 7th handing Raikkonen the championship.

It has been an amazing Formula 1 season: a down to the wire championship fight between 3 of the worlds' greatest drivers, a spying scandal that ended up in a $100 million fine against McLaren, and the dream season for the new Super Aguri team or as they are informally known, Super Best Friends.

While I was unable to jet down to Brazil for the weekend, I did go to the American Le Mans Series race in Monterey. It was incredibly exciting and the driving team of Allan McNish and Rinaldo (Dindo) Capello won the race. Even through 4 hours of racing the Audi R10 Diesel beat the Porsche RS Spyder driven by Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard by a margin of .41 seconds.


Here is a small video I shot with my digital camera. Here, Dumas is chasing Capello as the sun gets low in the sky.