Formula 1 2007 Discussion Thread

The new Season starts next weekend in Australia. Please put your views and opinions here. Who is your favourite to win the tournament and who do you think will be the surprise.

This year will be the first time since 1991 that Michael Schumaker has not been a part of the circus. This will surely add a new dynamic to Formula One, but will it be for good or bad? I say both, really.

Its a really hard season to judge this year. I've always had my doubts about Raikkonen (who will be racing for Ferrari) to be honest and think he's a bit over-rated. On the other hand Mclaren (who have Alonso and UK rookie Lewis Hamilton) haven't won the championship since 1999 and showed no sign last year that they were even close to being competative. I really have no idea this year, but it'll be exciting to see how 2007 unfolds

My tip is that despite early testing woes Honda and Jenson Button will have a good season. I don't think they will be in a championship winning position, but I do think they will do better than expected - Especially late on. I believe this will be a make or break season to some degree for Button, and if he under-performs I can see that he will start to go backwards in terms of his career sucess.

You can find out more about teams and drivers HERE

No Schumacher (Michael) is great news for the rest of the pack and with the "lead" cars all being similar in terms of competitiveness we could actually end up with a contest and some overtaking for a change.



I may actually watch this year.

Well, i was a Schumacher fan, so i'm really gonna miss the big guy... Never have really understood the vile that alot fo F1 fans have for him. We were all lucky enough to witness one of the finest drivers of all-time there.

I have a feeling that Alonso will dominate, now that Schumie is no longer around. If he hadn't switch teams, i woudld call it a no-brainer. The McLarens haven't been that reliable over the past couple of years, though, so it really does add an element of uncertainty.

I'd like to see Kimi do something for Ferrari.. He has the talent, he just has to mature a bit more as a driver.

I think Fisichella's my darkhorse pick for Champion. I've always thought he was a great driver. Let's see what happens.

Should be an exciting season!

Did anyone see ESPN's Who's #1 Greatest Drivers the other day? That was the biggest joke I've ever seen. Fangio and Schumacher were the only ones even on the list and they were 15 and 11 respectively. The idiots who put that list together have probably never even heard of Senna.

Alonso would have dominated if he had stayed at Renault, has to hope McLaren-Mercedes get back twhere they were in the late 90s in terms of car quality. Otherwise he's going to experience what Schumi did when he first went to Ferrari, alot of 2nd places behind drivers with better cars.

My dark horse: Massa. I'm not a big Kimi fan, and Massa showed last year that he's a great young talent. Admittedly, he probably should just be listed as a favorite rather than a dark horse.

My sentimental favorite: Alexander Wurz. Spent alot of time as a test driver, is now finally getting a chance. Finished third at Imola in 2005 in a one-off chance to race.

Why is that? After his first two years he has always beaten his teammate, whether that has been the experienced David Coulthard, the fast Juan Pablo Montoya or the testers Alexander Wurz and Pedro de la Rosa. Bernie Ecclestone himself has said in several occasions that Kimi Räikkönen is currently the fastest driver around. What has stopped him from winning the championship was his poor car. Some years there was enough speed but no reliability in sight, and some years the reliability was fine but the car was slow. Fernando Alonso is the overrated one, he wouldn't have got any championships if his opponents had been able to enjoy the same reliability as his car did. Plus in 2004 he was outqualified by Jarno Trulli.

In a nutshell: Now that Kimi finally has a good car, results will come.

By the way, Kimi was the first Ferrari driver in over forty years to take a pole position in his first race with Ferrari.

No he would not. Renault is currently slower than McLaren, and when McLaren too is behind Ferrari, he wouldn't be able to dream of even finishing third in the championship.

Raikonnen (sorry for the spelling, CS, but British keyboards don't come with handy double-dotted letters) is doing quite good, as is Hamilton. Kovalainen is useless.

Why don't you just copy the name from my post then?

That's what I always do when there are special letters, for example if I needed to post something using cyrillic letters...

Alonso overtaking Hamilton near to the end made me (and also the commentators) think about whether or not McLaren did it on purpose, which was a little unfair for Hamilton. After all it was his debut, and there will never be another debut, so why make the result seem worse (even though it was incredible already) just for Alonso's sake.

Kovalainen on the other hand needs to improve a lot. Briatore didn't save his words when referring to Heikki's performance.



Nevertheless,

FANTASTIC JOB KIMI RÄIKKÖNEN!

Before him there was only one guy who could dominate like that. Excellent job!



EDIT: I just read that according to Hamilton he lost his position to Alonso because of "those drivers which are needed to overtake because they are behind at least one lap" (I don't know the translation) slowed him down just before Alonso came back to the circuit.

In other words, you don't like Alonso much?

Pretty good opening race. I thought Hamilton did an awesome job throughout the whole weekend, and although it was disappointing that he didn't make 2nd, you can't complain at 3rd place on your debut race. Of course had Massa not had to start from the back, he probably would have been 4th.

Raikkonen did a stunning job, no question about that. Though I do wonder just how relaible the Ferrari engine will be in the heat of Malaysia, considering both Massa and Kimi were being told to "cool" things down at various points during this race. Remember the cars have to take the same engine into Malaysia that they had in Australia.

Anyway, an excellent start for Kimi and Hamilton, a reasonable start for Alonso and a poor start for Massa.

And as for Jenson Button and Honda, best to say nothing.

No I don't. He just hasn't done anything to make me impressed, and has stolen championships from my two favourite drivers because of the incredible reliability of his car.

How can you say "stolen?" The driver/car package has ALWAYS been the key issue of F1. Just because he had a good car doesn't mean he "stole" two championships. Did schumacker "steal" the titles he won from 2000-2004, when the Ferrari was the car to beat? Or did Mansell and Prost "steal" the Championship's they won when Williams was the class of the field in 92 and 93? F1 is all about the car/driver package, like I say. Renault built Alonso the best car in the field, and that along with a clear talent allowed him to become back to back world champion. He also showed a lot of metal and grit to win last years title, when you consider how Schu and Ferrari came back at him and Renault and pretty much everyone was writing him off at one point last season.

It seems to me like you are bitter because he has happened to beat your favourites for a couple of years.

I agree with u there... i think they did it on purpose to help Alonso, cause let's face it, he's the defending champion, wich means he's their #1.

I was very impressed by Kimi, and i'm very happy he's the one taking over Schumi's place ... tough luck for Massa though, i would have loved to have seen him racing right there with Alonso and Hamilton, just to see what would have happened there

It was clear to me that the reason's he got past Hamilton were;

1. Hamilton was held up badly by a backmarker (Sato?) on his "in lap" and also going into the pit lane

2. Alonso had a couple of laps more fuel, so when Hamiton was fat on fuel, Alonso managed to stay out for a couple more laps.

So, it was a case of Hamilton having a little bit of bad luck and Alonso having a slightly better strategy, that cost Hamilton 2nd place. I don't see any evidence there for a conspiracy.

Because he wasn't the fastest driver/car package. In my opinion it was bad to see the other one dominating but still not winning just because of bad reliability. That is why I say "stolen".

This weekend sees Round Two is the F1 season come to Malaysia

I heard a weather forecast earlier saying it could well be hot and thundery, with torrential rain expected at Sepang this year! If it does turn out wet, it could be an exciting race.

Massa pretty much gave the race to McLaren early on. Perfectly fine by me. It's about time McLaren had a winning season again. And I am very impressed by Hamilton. Not everyday you can find a driver new to F1 with his skill.

Yes, a stunning display from Lewis Hamilton today, IMO. I think the UK has found its best driver since at least Nigel Mansell. He is really displaying a maturity that you wouldn't expect to find in someone so young. It makes you wonder how good he'll be in 4-5 years time doesn't it?

As for Ferrari, well its only one race, but to me it looks as though they are seriously missing Ross Brawn's tactical brilliance, but as well as that I really don't rate Massa very much. He was very, very poor today.

Great race for Hamilton, i'm really impressed with him ... i would root for McLaren more, but i dont like Alonso

Massa is better than he was as this race, so i'm not happy with his performance in this one. Hopefully Ferrari will have a better performance from both next race

Why doesn't anybody like Alonso?

Round 3 finds F1 at BAHRAIN Where Massa *just* pips Hamilton to pole position. Should be another very close race.

What's Hamilton's background? As a casual fan he seems to have come from nowhere. I assume he has some test driver experience, maybe some Formula 3/3000?

Well, for those of us who follow motor racing Lewis Hamilton has been an exciting prospect for 4 or 5 years. However, for the wider public, I'm sure a lot of people are like you and to them it seems he has just burst on the scene.

HERE is Hamilton's biography to date. As you can see he's actually be racing since 1995 and has slowly worked his way up the formula's culminating in winning the GP2 championship last year. He has been sponsered through much of his career by Mclaren boss Ron Dennis, the first time to my knowlage that a team boss has ever brought a driver through the ranks and into F1 in this way?

So, Massa wins his first race of the seasom, followed by Lewis Hamilton in second, Raikkonen third and Alonso trailing back in fifth.

Excellent display from Massa today. It was vital that he stamped some authority on the world championship and won one of these early races.

Another top-notch performance from Lewis Hamilton again. OK, the car didn't have the pace to win, but to once again bring it home ahead of Raikkonen's Ferarri and way ahead of his team mate was very good. Spaking of Alonso, very poor 5th place from him today. He's looked out of sorts all weekend, IMO. I guess Bahrain just isn't his kind of circuit?

Three drivers now on 22 points after three races, with Massa close as well. It looks like a real vintage season so far. No team or driver looks like pulling out an huge lead at this point (still early days, of course) So a really classic season could be developing here.

Interesting statistic is that Lewis Hamilton (with three podium finishes) has had the most sucessful start to a season than any Rookie in F1 history. I'm sure thats one of many records Lewis is destined to break during his career.

Good one for Massa and Hamilton was very impressive once again, he's doing an amazing job!

Alonso look bad (wich i'll admit makes me very happy ) and i was a bit annoyed cause he did slow down Kimi a bit, but i'm glad Raikkonen still amnaged to come in third.

What should be interesting is next race in Spain, cause i get the feeling that if Alonso doesnt finish ahead of Hamilton he wont be very happy