Chinese Grand Prix Preview

Wednesday 3rd October 2007

We head into the Chinese GP with a mathematical possibility of three drivers winning the Drivers' title. But it might have been two. There was a time at the Japanese GP last weekend where it looked like a case of "which McLaren driver was going to be World Champion" after Ferrari had shot themselves in the foot with their tyre choice for the grid. Whereas the entire field were required to start on extreme wets, they thought they could get away with shallow cut wets, often known as "inters".

Luckily the delayed e.mail from Race Control telling them they had to switch, rescued their chances of at least carrying Raikkonen's title fight through to the next race. Why? Bear with us on this.

Though Ferrari have been huffing and puffing about "the system failing" and the "FIA's error" and the "race stewards forgot" etc Race Director Charlie Whiting's insistence that they change tyres saved the day.

Because had they been allowed to continue behind the Safety Car on inters until it was safe to go racing, they would have either been picking bits of Ferrari out of the barrier or having to go and change their tyres when all the cars were up to racing speed on Lap 20. Supremely talented as they are, Raikkonen and Massa would have had a couple of laps dropping back and then an inevitable dive for the pits. In those circumstances neither of them would have been able to make up positions as quickly as they did.

The inter was the wrong choice and making them come in early gave them the opportunity to get back behind the Safety Car queue, so that when racing began on Lap 20 they were able to make places up quickly, not slowly realise the folly of either Jean Todt or Stefan Domenicali in sticking them out there on inters in the first place.

Michael Shumacher was always the Houdini of F1 but I doubt even he could have made the shallow cut wet work in those circumstances. As far as I know nobody used them in the rest of the race, so whether Ferrari were allowed to start on them or not it was the wrong decision, which they freely entered into.

Fuji showed yet again what amazing drama wet races can provide and your heart has to go out to the unfortunate Sebastien Vettel who could easily have got his first podium. Before Liuzzi pitted they were running in P3 and P4 and cars from the Red Bull organisation were P2, 3, 4 and 7. In the end they finished with just a P4, but it must have been an emotional rollercoaster for boss Dieter Mateschitz.

Unless the skies open in Shanghai we are unlikely to see so much drama andit will be situation normal at the front with Ferrari versus McLaren, BMW versus Renault and Williams versus Red Bull.

There are all kinds of computations of: "If Hamillton finishes third, Alonso will need to..." which will be trotted out during the broadcasts, but basically both Kimi Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso need to go out and win and then see what the maths are after that.

Given that Hamilton has finished every race he has started this year it's very likely that he can scramble a fourth place finish in the last two races. It's also likely that given Alonso and Hamilton's past record, they are likely to qualify within a couple of tenths of each other, so in the absence of a mechanical problem, Alonso's mountain is going to be hard to climb.

But it's not impossible. The glorious nature of F1 is that it can occasionally turn up weird results - who could have predicted the race order on Lap 46 of the Chinese GP, with final pit-stops carried out, would be Hamilton, Webber, Vettel, Kovalainen, Coulthard.

Alonso won in China in 2005, but in 2006, under pressure from Michael Schumacher's late season charge, he had his infamous "my team don't want me to win the World Championship" tantrum. The Spaniard was leading the Chinese race, but in the middle stint he chose the wrong tyre settings and all of a sudden both second place Giancarlo Fisichella and third place Michael Schumacher started closing in on him.

The tyre choice had been his, and they needed a lot more laps to start working. In that time Fisi caught him very quickly when Alonso had wanted him to hold Schumacher back until his tyres had improved. Alonso thought that because he was going to McLaren next year the team didn't care.

Fisichella, having been soundly beaten all year by Alonso, gleefully took the opportunity to pass him and Fernando put up some solid resistance. Ferrari fans though that the intra-Renault battle was some plan to thwart Schumacher, but it was actually Fisi and Fernando having a bit of a ding-dong.

Fernando's lap times eventually improved but Schumi won and Fernando did his now familiar post-race briefing to Spanish media about how Renault didn't want him to win, or the No.1 on McLaren in 2007 etc etc.

Fisichella and Alonso's 2006 battle showed that just like Fuji, the Tilke-designed circuit has wide sweeping tarmac allowing cars to run side by side through corners and race safely. In 2007 that will be to Lewis Hamilton's advantage, because if he has a fast car, he can use it to stay with the front four - and that's all he has to do now.

It is very likely to be the swansong for Alex Wurz, Giancarlo Fisichella as well as Ralf Schumacher in their respective teams. Ralf, we know, is leaving Toyota, but he's an all-together more complete racing driver than Wurz. Could he go to Williams? Similarly, Heikki Kovalainen proved in Japan that he has what it takes to be a No.1 driver, so Renault should have no problem pairing him with Nelson Piquet Junior if Alonso fails to return. Again, Fisi would be a better bet than Wurz at Williams, and Frank Williams wanted to sign Giancarlo earlier in his career.

One of the most interesting aspects of this weekend's GP will be the size of the crowd attending the race. We're into the post-honeymoon lull, where the idea of an F1 race in China is no longer a novelty. In Malaysia the circuit has failed to sell half its tickets recently bringing into question the move away from countries with a tradition of the sport. With a potentially Championship-deciding race on their hands and a chance to see the hotshot young rookie, it could be a moment in F1 history. It'll be interesting to see how many turn up.

James Allen is probably rehearsing his carefully scripted adlib even now.

Andrew Davies

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