Walid Ghazal’s Weblog

History repeated itself in a classic Brazilian Grand Prix confrontation yesterday, as outsider Kimi Raikkonen came through to snatch the world championship from McLaren’s grasp in a race when everything went right for Ferrari and everything went wrong for erstwhile series leader Lewis Hamilton.

All weekend the English rookie had borne the stamp of a man ready to embrace his destiny. From his maiden laps of the tricky Interlagos tracks, to the dignified but firm manner in which he dealt with a fractious and partisan journalist, to the way he drove his last race of his polemics-ridden rookie season of Formula One, he had world champion stamped through him.

He dropped the ball in China a fortnight ago, but when the chips were down in Brazil, he seemed ready to deliver in style.

If it was going wrong for Hamilton, there was always a good chance it would happen in the tight first corner, especially as he was starting from the dirtier side of the grid.

And it did.

Felipe Massa made a great start from pole position, to Hamilton’s right, and carved across to protect the inside line. At the same time Kimi Raikkonen boiled up from the second row, on Hamilton’s right. By the first corner the two Ferraris were ahead, and as Hamilton had to back off momentarily to avoid contact with Raikkonen, Alonso snatched his chance to go down the inside of his team-mate. It was touch and go, as they were inches apart, but the Spaniard got the job down. Hamilton’s response, an attempt to go round the outside at the next corner, proved his undoing as he slid wide and dropped to eighth.

At the end of the lap, Raikkonen, running second to Massa, had 108 points. Alonso, third, had 109, Hamilton, eighth, 108. A lap later Hamilton passed Jarno Trulli’s Toyota. Five laps later he pulled a move down the inside of Nick Heidfeld to snatch sixth place in the first corner, appropriately named after the late Ayrton Senna. Now it was Alonso 109, Raikkonen 108, Hamilton 110. But then came disaster on the eighth lap as McLaren number two momentarily slowed to a crawling pace, until Hamilton managed to coax it into life again, now down in 18th place.

There were 63 laps left in which to attempt a salvage operation.

Meanwhile, Alonso backed off, content to run third as the two Ferraris pulled away. There was nothing that the Spaniard could do, if Ferrari engineered a switch between their drivers. Thirteen laps into the race, Massa was 1.7seconds ahead of Raikkonen, with Alonso cruising 8.3seconds further back. Hamilton, up to 16th, was stuck firmly in midfield traffic. He was back up to 11th by the 17th lap, but when both McLaren drivers pitted on the 22nd lap, Hamilton dropped back to 14th. But where the Spaniard’s car was fitted with another set of harder compound tyres, his crew opted for the softer tyres and a light fuel load to try and catapult him past the slower cars immediately ahead.

Meanwhile, Robert Kubica in the BMW Sauber was challenging Alonso for third place, and the Pole moved ahead in Turn One at the start of the 33rd lap. That dropped the champion’s score to 108, while further back Hamilton overtook Vettel and gained another place when Ralf Schumacher pitted. That left the Englishman ninth, just outside the points, on 107 overall. Raikkonen, still second but catching Massa, had 108. Half distance loomed.

Hamilton’s final pit stop, on lap 36, dropped him a lap down on the Ferraris, but he retained ninth place and a chance of points. It wasn’t over just yet.

By lap 40, Kubica’s second pit stop had put Alonso back to third, thus he had 109 points to Raikkonen’s 108 and Hamilton’s 107, but all Ferrari had to do was slow Massa and let Raikkonen lead, and the Finn would have 110 points… Alonso was thus far from safe.

Hamilton came back into the picture as David Coulthard pitted from eighth place on lap 42. Now he was eighth and had another point, and had his sights set on Jarno Trulli’s Toyota. He and Raikkonen now had 108 to Alonso’s 109. But then Massa ran wide in one corner, losing a lot of ground to Raikkonen, on the 44th lap. Ferrari’s end game was unravelling.

Massa pitted for the last time on lap 50, but crucially Raikkonen went three laps longer. This time he kept the lead, and with 10 points in his grasp he now led the title chase with 110, Alonso, who pitted on lap 52, was back to fifth behind Raikkonen, Massa, Rosberg and Kubica, and thus had 107 points. Hamilton, now unlapped in eighth, still had 108. But then Rosberg’s stop on lap 54 moved Alonso back up a place, on to 108 too, and when Hamilton made a third stop on lap 56 he dropped back to ninth behind Coulthard again. Down to 107, but only until the 57th lap when he grabbed eighth back from the Scot. Back to 108, two places needed. But just to complicate things further, Kubica’s third stop on lap 58 moved Alonso back to third, and 109 points. People were starting to get dizzy…

Now Hamilton’s hopes lay in the duelling BMW Saubers and Rosberg’s Williams doing something nasty to one another, for Trulli in seventh was well beyond his reach. On lap 61 Rosberg dived inside Heidfeld, both ran wide, and Trulli closed in as Kubica gratefully jumped back to fourth. But none of it helped Hamilton, until Trulli pitted on lap 63.

Now it was Raikkonen 110, Alonso 109, Hamilton 109.

And, in quite possibly the most dramatic race of the season, and against all the odds, that was how it finished. Raikkonen was Finland’s third world champion, Hamilton was his runner up on results countback. After leading almost all season, he had lost at the last gasp. But he lost with dignity, and he will be back.

England - Premier League
 21:38 October 20 
 
 FT Everton 1 - 2 Liverpool
 
 FT Arsenal 2 - 0 Bolton W.
 
 FT Blackburn R. 4 - 2 Reading
 
 FT Fulham 0 - 0 Derby County
 
 FT Manchester C. 1 - 0 Birmingham C.
 
 FT Middlesbrough 0 - 2 Chelsea
 
 FT Wigan Athletic 0 - 2 Portsmouth
 
 FT Aston Villa 1 - 4 Manchester U.
 
 
 
 Italy - Serie A
 22:38 October 20 
 
 FT AS Roma 4 - 4 Napoli
 
 FT Reggina 0 - 1 Inter Milan
 
 
 
 Spain - Primera Division
 22:38 October 20 
 
 FT Deportivo La Coruna 2 - 4 Valencia
 
 FT Levante 0 - 2 Sevilla
 
 FT Villarreal 3 - 1 Barcelona
 
 
 
 
 Germany - Bundesliga I.
 22:38 October 20 
 
 FT Bayer Leverkusen 2 - 2 Borussia Dortmund
 
 FT Bochum 1 - 2 Bayern Munich
 
 FT Hamburger SV 4 - 1 Stuttgart
 
 FT Hansa Rostock 1 - 1 Schalke
 
 FT Nurnberg 5 - 1 Eintracht Frankfurt
 
 FT Werder Bremen 3 - 2 Hertha BSC
 
 
 
 France - Ligue 1
 22:38 October 20 
 
 FT Auxerre 5 - 3 Lorient
 
 FT Caen 1 - 0 Lille
 
 FT Nice 3 - 1 Metz
 
 FT Rennes 3 - 0 Le Mans
 
 FT Strasbourg 1 - 1 Bordeaux
 
 FT Toulouse 0 - 2 Saint-Etienne
 
 FT Valenciennes 0 - 0 Paris S.G.
 
 FT Lyon 3 - 1 Monaco

FT Japan 4 - 1 Egypt
 
 FT Estonia 0 - 1 Montenegro
 
 FT U.A.E. 0 - 1 Tunisia
 
 FT Poland 0 - 1 Hungary
 
 FT Finland 0 - 0 Spain
 
 FT Austria 3 - 2 Ivory Coast
 
 FT Switzerland 0 - 1 United States
 
 FT Israel 2 - 1 Belarus
 
 FT Italy 2 - 0 South Africa
 
 FT Morocco 2 - 0 Namibia

 FT El Salvador 0 - 0 Trinidad & Tobago
 
 FT Costa Rica 1 - 1 Haiti
 
 FT Mexico 2 - 3 Guatemala

Upcoming games
Wednesday, 17 October 2007
European Championship Qualifying
Albania v Bulgaria, G, 19:45
Azerbaijan v Serbia, A, 17:00
Belgium v Armenia, A, 19:45
Bosnia-Herzegovina v Norway, C, 19:30
Denmark v Latvia, F, 19:00
FYR Macedonia v Andorra, E, 19:00
France v Lithuania, B, 20:00
Georgia v Scotland, B, 18:00
Germany v Czech Republic, D, 19:45
Holland v Slovenia, G, 19:30
Kazakhstan v Portugal, A, 15:00
Liechtenstein v Iceland, F, 19:00
Luxembourg v Romania, G, 19:15
Malta v Moldova, C, 18:30
Rep of Ireland v Cyprus, D, 19:30
Russia v England, E, 16:00
San Marino v Wales, D, 19:15
Sweden v Northern Ireland, F, 19:30
Turkey v Greece, C, 18:30
Ukraine v Faroe Islands, B, 17:00

International Friendlies
Austria v Ivory Coast, 19:30
Estonia v Montenegro, 15:00
Finland v Spain, 18:30
Italy v South Africa, 19:50
Japan v Egypt, 11:30
Morocco v Namibia, 19:00
Poland v Hungary, 17:00
Switzerland v USA, 19:30

South American World Cup Qualifying
Bolivia v Colombia
Chile v Peru
Paraguay v Uruguay
Brazil v Ecuador

African World Cup Qualifying
Sierra Leone v Guinea-Bissau

Oceania World Cup Qualifying
Fiji v New Zealand

Brazil Held 0-0 by Colombia in Soccer World Cup Qualifying
By Dan Baynes

Oct. 14 (Bloomberg) — Brazil started its bid for a record- extending sixth World Cup soccer title with a 0-0 draw away to Colombia on the opening weekend of South American qualifying for the 2010 tournament.

Argentina, Uruguay and Venezuela all won yesterday, while Peru and Paraguay also played to a scoreless draw.

The matches were the first of 18 games for the 10 teams in the region, which failed to produce a semifinalist at last year’s World Cup in Germany. The top four after home-and-away matches advance to the 2010 edition in South Africa with the fifth-placed team playing off against the fourth-ranked nation from the North, Central American and Caribbean Zone.

Juan Roman Riquelme, playing his first match in three months, curled two first-half free-kicks into the top right-hand corner to give Argentina a 2-0 victory over Chile in Buenos Aires. Luis Suarez, Diego Forlan, Sebastian Abreu, Vicente Sanchez and Carlos Bueno all scored as Uruguay routed Bolivia 5- 0 in Montevideo.

In Quito, Jose Manuel Rey got the only goal as Venezuela became the first visiting team to win a World Cup qualifier at Ecuador’s Atahualpa Stadium in more than six years.

Venezuela and Argentina open the next round of matches in two days. The eight other teams play the following day, when Colombia visits Bolivia, Chile hosts Peru, Paraguay plays Uruguay and Brazil faces Ecuador