McLaren ace is tantalisingly close to season victory
With three races to go Lewis Hamilton has a seven point lead over Felipe Massa and while the Brit threw away a seventeen point lead over Kimi Raikkonen last year, yet he faces a different challenger this time. Here’s how many points we can expect Massa to get in the final three races, courtesy of our amigos at chickendinner:
Japanese Grand Prix
Massa never finished in the points in Japan in his three races there for Sauber but came second in his first year at Ferrari. However, last year the race swapped from Suzuka to Fuji Speedway and he only managed to finish sixth. Considering the race is being held there again this year, it doesn’t bode well for Massa.
Points there last season: 3
Average points there for Ferrari: 3
Chinese Grand Prix
The Brazilian produced his best performance in China last year by finishing third. He also impressed there in 2005 by finishing sixth in a Sauber but retired two years ago in a Ferrari.
Points there last season: 6
Average points there for Ferrari: 3
Brazilian Grand Prix
Behind Turkey and Bahrain, Massa’s home race in Interlagos is properly his best track. Last season he came second behind Raikkonen but obviously Kimi shouldn’t be a factor this year with the Finn supporting Massa. Two years ago he was victorious.
Points there last season: 8
Average points there for Ferrari: 9
Which means…
If Massa was to replicate his performances last season at these three tracks - seventeen points - then Hamilton would require just one more win to claim the Championship on races won. Incidentally, the Brit did win one of these races last season - the Japanese Grand Prix.
Hamilton took twelve points from these races last season compared to Massa’s seventeen and the Brit can afford a repeat as he would still lead by two points..
However Massa outperformed Hamilton in both China and Brazil and with Alonso and Raikkonen out of contention this year, if Massa can improve his performances he could take Hamilton to the wire.
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4 responses so far
1 Ron Menace // Oct 2, 2008 at 10:21 am
Massa is the moral winner of this year’s Championship. He was heading for a certain victory in Hungary, and would have scored points in Singapore! He was significantly faster than Hamilton in Singapore qualifying, on the SAME fuel load!
I really hope Massa wins the Championship. The British media are kissing Lewis’ arse big time. Note James Allen’s major overreaction at Hamilton passing Coulthard!
The race would have been very different if Piquet hadn’t screwed up (yet again!). Replace him with Sato!
Things will rebalance themselves …. the British media tub-thumpers CURSE their heroes!
Just look at the In-ger-land football team …. 42 years of hurt?!
2 Berger // Oct 3, 2008 at 10:18 am
Massa the champ, Lewis the chump, “I know I am better than Senna” yeah right, in your wet dreams numpty boy…
3 Joker // Oct 3, 2008 at 1:52 pm
“Massa is the moral winner of this year’s Championship.”
I agree. Massa’s pretty much only hope though is that Ferrari get their act together (unlikely, since they haven’t for 15 races) and that McLaren would somehow again throw everything away in the last few races (pretty much unimaginable). Still, Schumacher and probably Alonso and Kubica would have already won this championship in the Ferrari, even with the problems Massa has been given by the team.
4 Morgan // Oct 5, 2008 at 11:17 pm
Noone is the moral winner of the championship this year. The championship is a joke. It wont be about who races best in the remaining 3 races, it will be about who gets luckiest with safetly cars or race stewards. The sport has become a laughing stock where people talk about a drivers personality rather than his driving. Since when did a driver have to be Miss Congeniality? Probably right after overtaking became illegal, pit lanes became day care centers for pre school kids.
Why cant we let Massa and Hamilton (2 great drivers) decide the championship by doing something different like say WINNING RACES rather than worrying about which violation of which pit rule they broke by wearing the wrong shade of underwear while entering the pitlane?
Oh wait, because that would be boring right. Lets line them up, have a procession around the track and then have the audience SMS their votes for prettiest car.