An exciting and unpredictable race - or was it? As a
tifosi and Raikkonen fan I was nevertheless a bit skeptical of Hamilton's gearbox problem on Lap 7? that essentially lost the championship for him. Sure, stranger things have happened, but not many. Even the boys from Speed Channel were adding their own modifiers to
unbelievable; as in
beyond unbelievable.
All Hamilton had to do was cruise around all day in fourth or fifth to secure his place in history. Instead he's running off the course fighting for position and then mysteriously slowing to drop 12 places before resuming "at speed" for the remainder of the race. One can only wonder.
At any rate, Hamilton's misfortune certainly saved F1 a tainted champion by eliminating the McLaren points leader. Already stripped of their constructors points for espionage (having posession of Ferrari construction secrets) and possibly benefiting from outright sabotage at Monaco, how would it look if a McLaren driver became World Champion? I remember Machiavelli 'er, Bernie Ecclestone opining before the court verdicts were handed down to McLaren that he wished the incident would just be forgotten. Then his name came up later as a party in securing further review on Ferrari's behalf. In F1, shenanigans like this are as predictable as the sun coming up. Alonso finishing third to give Kimi a fantastic 1 point victory was high drama. It couldn't have been any better if it had been scripted.
Anyway, conspiracy theories aside, it was a terrific race despite Massa's predictable whining allusions to his relegation to second place being the result of team orders. Duh. Alonso was gracious in defeat and Kimi, overcome by emotion, was fun to watch at he press conference as he prattled on for almost 6 sentences with effusive Finnish hyperbole like: "Yeah, well da' team did a great job," and "I'm going to enjoy today and probably the next month." That Kimi, always wearing his heart on his sleeve.
Great race, excellent season, fantastic finale, deserving champion.
