Soteria Music

I’ve been a fan of the McLaren F1 team for years, I’ve seen some high times and the excessivly low times. Yet for all everyone’s blab about the upgrades the team had planned for their car a few weeks back I still doubted they would be faster than the over-grown Fiats. There was a hint back at Silverstone when Kovy was a good 0.5 seconds faster than anyone through qualifing, however with the race day being so rediculasly wet we never got to see the true pace of a McLaren in a one-on-one fight with one of the Ferraris.

Last Monday night that same doubt came to my mind, (I only got to watch the race on Monday so I’m a day behind everybody), “I know Hamilton’s on pole and Kimi is way down the pack, but he’s still got a Ferrari right behind him so he dosen’t stand a chance”. Perhaps I’m just too used to McLaren only winning by cunning or exceptional cercumstance, not by simply having an outright faster car. Yet that was what was demonstrated in the German GP, a dry race largly between Lewis and Massa.

Lewis was simply devistating to the Ferraris, he was a lot faster when he was out in front, and then after a screw up with the 2nd pitstop Hamilton was around 3rd and 4th places and had to do a huge fight back. By this point I’d figured he had the pace to catch up to Massa, but over-taking him is another story; boy, was I wrong. As Martin Brundell commented at the time Massa might as well have asked to be pushed off the racetrack as Hamilton tore past him as though his car was tracing paper. At this point Nelson was still in front but quickly moved out of the way when he saw the huge laviathon of Hamilton’s McLaren in his mirrors.

It’s not often McLaren have the edge over Ferrari, let alone outright dominance. In-fact it think the last time this happened was back in 1999 with Mika, and he won the championship twice.

Here’s hoping the second half of the season is every bit as good as the first.

Go Lewis!