Raikkonen wins second consecutive race

F1 Grand Prix, GP Great Britain, Silverstone Circuit

Kimi Raikkonen has again won a Grand Prix for Ferrari. It is his second consecutive win after France and now totals 3 wins this season, the best of any driver so far as all 3 other title contenders have won two races. Fernando Alonso came in second and is a step higher than Lewis Hamilton. Raikkonen now moved up to 3rd in the driver standings while Alonso regains 2 poins to Hamilton.

This 2007 edition of the British Grand Prix is raced under sunny skies. F1 has really found a gap in the wet weather at Silverstone during the last week.

As early as the warm up lap a problem arose for Massa who consequently started the race from the pitlane. He had apparently stalled on the grid. What follows is a display of performance for Ferrari as Massa can easily overtake at least one driver a lap at the beginning of the race. In front there is no real change as Hamilton can hold off a challenging Kimi Raikkonen. Behind Alonso and Kubica however there is close battle for the positions. Ralf Schumacher made the worst stop there as he lost 3 places allowing both Renaults and Heidfeld to move up a position.

In lap 9 Webber already enters the pitlane for what appears to be another transmission problem. Massa has meanwhile moved up from 22nd to 12 place after close figths with Rosberg and Coulthard.

15 laps in the race Kovalainen allows Fisichella to pass him as he is obviously faster. Massa has meanwhile also set the fastest lap in the race so far while the other Ferrari of Raikkonen is close on the tail of Hamilton. The Briton is on the hard compound while Raikkonen runs on the medium one, marked with a white line along the inner groove. Alonso is also closing in on Hamilton and Raikkonen although the leader is lighter on fuel and enters the pit on lap 16.

Once unleashed with free air ahead of him, Raikkonen puts in the fastest lap at that time only to enter the pitlane one lap later. The first stop is however a succes for Raikkonen as he comes out ahead of Hamilton. Alonso is in after 19 laps and is still in the lead after a stop of 6.3 seconds. Suddenly the order is reversed and for the first time Hamilton loses two places in one pitstop.

Lap 23 marks the end of the race for Ralf Schumacher after slowly completing his final lap towards the pitlane.

Halfway through the race, Alonso is 4.6s ahead of Raikkonen who has a 6.5s advantage over home driver Hamilton. Button, Davidson and Barrichello are the only ones left that have not made a stop yet.

One lap later, Alonso is furious at Speed for blocking him. When he finally passes, Speed and Wurz hit each other. The American is out of the race while Wurz is lucky to be able to continue. Anthony Davidson must also abandon the race with a technical problem. He will however rejoin the race 10 laps later. In this mixture of events, Alonso has lost more than a full second lapping the pack with Speed. Obviously when Raikkonen passed, Speed was already aside of the track while Wurz was still cutting the gras.

Hamilton does not look to function very well on the harder compound as he loses a lot of ground with the two leaders. While both men in front are on the softer compound they are consistently a second faster than Hamilton.

In lap 38 Alonso is in the pitlane, followed one lap later by Hamilton. Both are fitted with the harder tyre compound. Raikkonen is however able to stay out for 5 more laps and is able to retake Fernando Alonso during the second stop. Fernando is only 3 seconds behind but he was 6 seconds up 7 laps earlier.

Just while Trulli abandons the race with a technical failure, Massa and Coulthard enter for their final stops. Massa rejoins the track in between the BMW Sauber cars, effictively being 5th. 3 laps later he is in the slipstream of Kubica.

4 laps from the end Liuzzi is unable to continue, possibly also with a broken Red Bull gearbox.

As the leaders did save their engine and Massa did not get past Kubica, the final ten laps have changed nothing in the points positions.