Kovalainen wins his "home" race, Hungary

Hungaroring..

This is the nearest thing to a home race for Finnish drivers. There has never been a grand prix race in Finland. But the Hungarians are ethnically related to Finns, and with the Hungarian GP staged in the summer vacation period - and also as its ticket prices, hotel prices etc tend are significantly less than most more established mid-European races such as Silverstone, Spa/Belgium, Hockenheim and Nurmburgring in Germany, etc - the Hungarian GP has been the favourite pilgrimage for Finnish Grand Prix racing fans right from the very first Hungarian GP in 1986, when Finnish former world champion Keke Rosberg was racing in his last season (in a McLaren). Keke did not finish that race, but he did qualify fifth, giving Finns something to cheer about.

Since then, however, the Hungarian GP has been a very Finland-friendly race. Mika Hakkinen won there twice, in 1999 and 2000 (driving for McLaren). Kimi Raikkonen won there in 2005 (driving for McLaren). And now this year, Heikki Kovalainen picked up his maiden win three weeks ago, at Hungaroring (driving for McLaren). And just to be clear, this is not a particularly McLaren-friendly track - Schumacher won three times in a Ferrari (and Barrichello also once), Alonso for Renault, and even Jenson Button got his only win so far for Honda in Hungary. But the Finns have had a great amount of success in Hungary, and their wins obviously have come always with the Silver Arrows of McLaren-Mercedes.

So of the race? Well, it was clearly supposed to be Lewis Hamilton's race, as the McLaren seemed to be particularly well suited for this track and Lewis took pole position with Heikki lining up beside him in second position. Massa in his Ferrari was lined in third and Kimi again far back, in sixth place. Kubica qualified his BMW in fourth.

The race had Massa take a fantastic start, and pass both Heikki and Lewis to lead the race. Since then, it looked like it would become a duel between Lewis and Felipe. The pit stops suggested that going into the second pit stops we would see all the excitement. Until Lewis's tyre failed. Hamilton fell back to 10th place by the time he had pitted and received a new tyre. Lewis fought bravely back to 5th place, which speaks volumes of how competitive the McLaren was in Hungary.

That left the victory into the hands of Felipe Massa. He drove well, with Heikki attempting to catch up to him towards the end of the race, until three laps before the end, on the start/finish straight, Massa's Ferrari engine failed.

That gave the win to Heikki, his maiden win. Another driver who excelled at the race was Timo Glock who finished second for Toyota. And a lukewarm performance by the reigning champion, Kimi finished third due only to the rare technical failures of Lewis and Massa.

As a Finn, for me, it was of course an exceptionally happy moment to cheer the fourth-ever Finnish Grand Prix winner, in Heikki Kovalainen. In his first season at McLaren he took his first win. Neither Mika Hakkinen nor Kimi Raikkonen were able to do that in their first McLaren seasons. Mika was in his fifth season for McLaren when he won in the last race of that season. That was also Mika's seventh season in Formula One overall. Kimi was in his second season at McLaren until he got his maiden win, which was his third season overall. Heikki is obviously in his first season at McLaren, and this is his second season overall in Formula One.

Yes, there was a lot of luck involved, and clearly the McLaren is very competitive this season. Still, this is great news for all Finnish fans of Grand Prix racing - and also for fans of Finnish race drivers in other countries. Obviously I fully hope and expect that Heikki will win many more, and I hope he will manage to win the championship as well in his career later on.

As to this season, it does mean we get a second new winner this season (remembering that Kubica also won his maiden win). And it means that so far, we've had 5 different winners in the 11 races we've had so far. And for skill - there is also Fernando Alonso, the former two-time world champion, in the underperforming Renault, who has the skills easily, if the right amount of luck comes his way, perhaps in the form of rain or pace cars, etc - to also get a win before this magnificent season is done.

So, the pack was shuffled well, and the two leaders in the standings had technical problems. Where does it leave the championship? Lewis still leads with five points ahead of Kimi. Massa is 8 points behind him, and Kubica has fallen to 13 points behind. Nick Heidfeld in the other BMW is 21 points behind Lewis, and his chances, in particular looking at how much BMW has fallen behind McLaren and Ferrari - seem very slim for this season. But Kovalainen, 24 points behind Hamilton, now with his first win, can still hold onto some distant hope with 7 races to go. But even if he won every remaining race - which would suggest the McLaren was the more competitive car than the Ferrari to the end, its likely Lewis would finish second (and Massa, Raikkonen and Kubica would fight for third) - Lewis would win by 10 points over Heikki. So Heikki does need for Lewis to have some serious setbacks and/or have the Ferraris and BMW's to finish between him and Lewis for any chance of this season's championship. Still, he must have gotten a big dose of self-confidence, making him even more motivated to race for the pole positions and race wins. Obviously the math favours Lewis intensely (against his team mate) and judging by recent performance - the tyre failure derailed Hamilton's likely win in Hungary - Lewis must be the favourite for this seaon's title.

And of the Ferrari pilots, Kimi has to be given the bigger chances at this point. Consider last season. After the Grand Prix in Germany (Nurmburgring, was not called the German GP, but the European GP) Massa had led Kimi by 7 points. Kimi had typical Finland luck at Hungary, and after the Hungaroring he had jumped to lead Massa by one point. In the first half of the season 2007, Massa had held as much as a 10 point lead over Kimi. At Hungary the tables were turned. By the end of the season Kimi had built a 16 point cushion over his team mate. Kimi is a racer, very determined, disciplined, competitive and extremely focused on the full season. Plus he's done it before..

Meanwhile Massa can't believe his luck. He had built a decent lead again this season over his team mate, and here we go, after half point, and the Finn just seems to pull ahead, rather easily. Yes, there was an engine failure but both guys have roughly the same amount of technical problems over a full season, yet the Brazilian must be concerned that the reigning champ did not bother to fight at full intensity in the first half of the season while Massa put in 100%. Now suddenly Kimi pulls ahead of him and could well repeat what he did last season..

Returning to Kimi and Lewis. Last season after Hungaroring, Lewis had a 7 point cushion to the reigning champion (his team mate) Alonso, and Kimi was 20 points behind the British rookie driver. This season the reigning champ is Kimi, and he is only 5 points behind. Hamilton must be concerned that Kimi is clearly his strongest rival, and far more dangerous this season than last season.

Kimi - must be smiling. He has not performed at his best the first half of this season, yet he finds himself only five points adrift of the leader with seven races to go. They include Kimi's fave race track - Spa, which ever since Kimi started winning in 2003, he's won every Spa race that has been held - three times. And of the other six, Kimi has won also in Brazil and China; of the seven remaining races, the only race track where Lewis has won before is Japan. And the season includes two new tracks, Valencia and Singapore - and Kimi has always been very quick on new tracks where nobody has previous experience (but so has Lewis).

And there is the team hierarchy. The worst thing that could have happened to Lewis, is a maiden win at mid-season for Kovalainen combined with technical problem for Hamilton. So where Lewis was nearing a point of "inevitability" and nearly statistically insurmountable lead - and could expect some degree of support from his team mate - before Hungary Lewis had led Heikki by 30 points, had over twice as many points as his Finnish team mate; after Hungary Heikki had clawed that to 24 points.. If Heikki remains very close to Lewis (or even worse, finishes ahead of him in some races), Lewis will not be getting any preferred treatment for many races to go.

The added confidence of Heikki (his first pole position at Silverstone, and now this maiden win) will definitely add the competitiveness of Kovalainen, and add to his confidencel; this will certainly knaw on Hamilton's confidence, and will put a lot of pressure on Lewis. The end of last season showed that under pressure Hamilton starts to make mistakes. And just remember how downcast Hamilton was in Silverstone, when Heikki got his first pole position. Hamilton does have a lot of emotions, and they can get to him.

Meanwhile, Ferrari has always had a strategy of preferring their top driver. Hungary was exactly the best possible result from Kimi's point of view (and worst from Massa's) in that Kimi surged from being 3 points behind Massa, to now being 3 points ahead of him.

If there was any doubt, should Ferrari support the reigning champion or his Brazilian team mate, when Felipe Massa was ahead by a couple of points, now that Kimi has passed him in the standings and leads Massa by 3 points, the tables are turning rather conclusively in favour of Raikkonen right at the time when Ferrari management will start to make that decision of which driver to focus on. Massa is also now under extreme pressure, he has to outperform Kimi for the next two or three races, else he will clearly be relegated to a supporting role. Massa does not perform well under such pressure.

But the Iceman? He knows his team will be supporting him. He knows he beat Massa last season from being further behind. He knows he beat Hamilton - who used to drive the better car last season - and who was 20 points ahead of him. Now he has the best car and is a only a couple of points from the lead. And the Iceman? He does not buckle with pressure. He took the fight to the very last race three times before (when each time his title rival led going into the final race and had the better car). Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso had managed to barely beat Kimi twice before in the last race; and last season, Kimi was able to snatch that victory from the jaws of McLaren. He will always fight every race, and he can smell his second consecutive championship. He will be fierce to the end.

As to BMW. I do hope they could still return to form, but they are a smaller team than Ferrari and McLaren. They have already met their goal for this season (their maiden win) and the prudent decision would be to focus full attention to the 2009 car, while Ferrari and McLaren are locked into their duel and pour resources into further development of this season's car. I think Kubica's (and Heidfeld's) chances for further wins this season will not come "on merit" but will only come under exceptional conditions and with a lot of luck - if say the front runners crash into each other or a major rain race or lots of pace cars etc...

But yes, exciting times. I do see this quickly clearling into a duel. Much as I'd love Heikki to really catch fire, I honestly don't see that happening. He may well postpone his elimination from contention and stay in the mix, with podium finishes. But in the silver cars, it will turn into Hamilton as the primary contender by around Singapore GP. On Ferrari's side, I think Massa is so prone to occasional blunders and errors - even more this season without the traction control - and with Ferrari's more obvious strategy of preferring one driver - Kimi should get unofficial lead driver status within two or three races, could well be after he very likely wins Spa Belgium, and heads to Ferrari's home race in Italy..

Then its down to really two things. How well do they develop their cars, McLaren and Ferrari. If McLaren had achieved a miniscule lead, that was so slight, that Ferrari could catch up within any interval between races.

And then its down to the racers and their motivation and focus. I have been concerned about Kimi's lack of total focus several times this season. I do think that changes now as he can sense his chances are better than ever before, but he knows he does have to focus fully every remaining race.

Against that is the fact that Kimi is a seasoned veteran - not that much growth anymore from one season to the next. Lewis is only in his second season. He is still growing a lot. Last season he finished only one point behind Kimi and his own team mate was his toughest rival through most of the season. This season he is far clear of his own team mate - and must feel a lot less interference from within the team - and he will certainly grow and learn and become a better driver this season than he was last year in his rookie season.

Can Lewis grow more, or can Kimi pull more out of his reserves.. This will be a magnificent racing season through the remaining seven races. I love it.

And going into Valencia this weekend, shortly we'll have the qualifying. It is a first-time track for all. The track is not a regular race track, its a city circuit like Monaco (and Singapore) so there also are not contests staged in junior series, so the drivers can not have "practised" on the track in their junior racing careers. It is a test of how quickly can they learn and adapt to the track.

I can't wait..

Hockenheim.. Lewis surges ahead

Quick notes while on vacation, and on the eve of Valencia's inaugral GP's qualifying. First Hockenheim.

The German GPs are Kimi's bogey tracks, both of them, and he must be happy that the season no longer contains two of the races, but rather alternates between Nurmburgring and Hockenheim. Still, the German races have always been bad news for Raikkonen.

Meanwhile, McLaren has been catching up to Ferrari's lead technically, and BMW, after its maiden win, seems to have slipped back somewhat.

Hockenheim Lewis on form, grabbing pole position. Massa lined up second and Heikki Kovalainen on third. Kimi was down in sixth, and Kubica in seventh position.

The race.. Lewis dominated and won the race without much trouble or drama. Massa lost a place down from where he qualified and finished third. Heikki lost two places and finished in fifth. Kimi held his position and finished sixth. The amazing performance was by Renault rookie driver Nelson Piquet, who started back in 17th and managed to finish second.

After the race, Lewis had gained a 4 point cushion to Massa, 7 points ahead of Kimi and 10 points ahead of Kubica. The wonderfully evenly matched season turned much less so in just one race.