I’m here again with a short review of European Grand Prix 2007. The race in Britain was strategically the best race of the season so far. However, it has to be said that this year’s European Grand Prix was undoubtedly the better one purely from entertainment aspect. If I may add, even better than the chaotic race we witnessed in Canada. Incidentally, this was also the first time this season when rain played spoilsport. If you’re an optimist, you’d like to believe it raised the entertainment quotient a tad higher than expected. It was a win-win situation for the spectators.

The rain appeared soon after the start of the race and took most teams by surprise. Markus Winkelhock of Spyker who was making his F1 debut was the only driver to start with wet weather tires. The rest of the pack came round for pit stops at the end of the 1st lap. Ridiculously and much to his embarrassment, the leader of the pack, Kimi Raikkonen missed the pit entry and had to do one more lap on his dry tires. He came in for a change at the end of the 2nd lap. By that time, Markus Winkelhock was leading the race.

If anyone thought that was it, they were in for some bigger surprises. The track had become so slippery by the end of lap 2 that as many as five drivers including Lewis Hamilton slid off the track and on to the gravel trap. He, however, kept his engine going while being picked up by the crane and was able to rejoin the race. Earlier, during qualifying, Hamilton luckily escaped a serious accident due to a wheel failure in his McLaren. He started the race from 10th on the grid. Kimi started the race from pole position, his first since Australia. Alonso started from 2nd and Massa from 3rd place on the grid.

As the rain started to intensify, it became impossible to race. The FIA decided to stop the race and deploy the safety car. The race resumed some 20 minutes later with Winkelhock in the lead. He was soon passed by Massa and Alonso. Kimi, in the meantime, recovered from his first lap blunder and was able to rejoin them in 3rd place. He was fast and was catching Alonso at the rate of knots. All of a sudden, his Nurburgring jinx returned and he had to retire due to a hydraulic failure. Now it was all Massa versus Alonso.

Massa lead Alonso for almost the entire length of the race and another Ferrari win looked inevitable when the rain returned. Both Massa and Alonso came into pits for a change to wet weather tires. Immediately, Alonso seemed to have an edge over Massa as he was doing one fast lap after another while Massa continued to struggle. Five laps from the finish and after a fantastic duel between the two, Alonso was able to overtake Massa on track. It was an excellent move and can easily be described as the best overtaking move of the season.

The whole of Ferrari and Massa were left disappointed as he took the checkered flag in 2nd place 8 seconds behind the McLaren of Alonso. Mark Webber of Red Bull drove an excellent race to finish in 3rd place while Alexander Wurz and David Coulthard finished 4th and 5th respectively. Hamilton finished in 9th place, just out of points. This means Alonso with 68 now trails Lewis by just 2 points while both Massa and Kimi, in particular, have a much tougher battle in hand. The complete result from the last race are as follows -

1 – Fernando Alonso – McLaren-Mercedes – 60 – 2:06:26.358
2 – Felipe Massa – Ferrari – 60 – +8.1 secs
3 – Mark Webber – Red Bull-Renault – 60 – +65.6 secs
4 – Alexander Wurz – Williams-Toyota – 60 – +65.9 secs
5 – David Coulthard – Red Bull-Renault – 60 – +73.6 secs
6 – Nick Heidfeld – BMW – 60 – +80.2 secs
7 – Robert Kubica – BMW – 60 – +82.4 secs
8 – 4 – Heikki Kovalainen – Renault – 59 – +1 Lap

9 – Lewis Hamilton – McLaren-Mercedes – 59 – +1 Lap
10 – Giancarlo Fisichella – Renault – 59 – +1 Lap
11 – Rubens Barrichello – Honda – 59 – +1 Lap
12 – Anthony Davidson – Super Aguri-Honda – 59 – +1 Lap
13 – Jarno Trulli – Toyota – 59 – +1 Lap

Ret – Kimi Räikkönen – Ferrari – 34 – Hydraulics
Ret – Takuma Sato – Super Aguri-Honda – 19 – Hydraulics
Ret – Ralf Schumacher – Toyota – 18 – Accident
Ret – Markus Winkelhock – Spyker-Ferrari – 13 – Hydraulics
Ret – Jenson Button – Honda – 2 – Spin
Ret – Adrian Sutil – Spyker-Ferrari – 2 – Spin
Ret – Nico Rosberg – Williams-Toyota – 2 – Spin
Ret – Scott Speed – STR-Ferrari – 2 – Spin
Ret – Vitantonio Liuzzi – STR-Ferrari – 2 – Spin