Hamilton on verge of making history

SHANGHAI: Britain's Lewis Hamilton breezed his way through yesterday's Chinese Grand Prix but failed to clinch his maiden Formula One title ahead of time as Felipe Massa powered up to second place to take the battle to his native Brazil and the last race of the season.

Hamilton is hoping to carve his way into the history books as F1's youngest-ever winner but an early title decider for the McLaren-Mercedes' driver was not on the cards in the Chinese metropolis of Shanghai despite the Briton executing a nearly flawless race.

Massa's tenacity, and some help from his teammate and defending champion Kimi Raikkonen, now leaves Hamilton with a healthy but not indestructible seven-point lead (94-87), and Massa with a mathematical chance of staging an upset akin to the unpredictable events of last season.

Ferrari teammate Raikkonnen, putting team esprit de corps before personal glory, allowed Massa to overtake him with seven laps to go to keep the title challenge alive as memories of last season's upset threaten to come back and haunt Hamilton, the bookies' favorite for the second year in a row.

This time last year, one false move from the Briton on the Shanghai track saw him jeopardize a seemingly unassailable 17-point advantage in the driver's championship that resulted in Raikkonen snatching the title two weeks later by a single point.

Determined not to let history repeat itself, Hamilton kept pole throughout yesterday's race for a decisive win, meaning that the 23-year-old can now take the crown in a fortnight's time by finishing fifth or higher even if Massa were to win the season finale in front of what is sure to be a hugely supportive home crowd.

Hamilton will however be buoyed by his performance yesterday.

After easily beating Raikkonen and Massa on the first corner he built a steady lead to clock 1 hour, 31 minutes and 57.403 seconds to keep his dream alive and the charging Ferrari's at bay.

"This is another step toward the championship, toward my dream and toward my team's dream," he said after the victory.

Yesterday's win was a morale booster for the Briton who was criticized for his late meltdown last season and a sub-par performance in Fuji last Sunday that failed to garner him a single point.

"Everything just went right this weekend: our car has been simply phenomenal, I made one of my best-ever starts and had perfect balance during the race," Hamilton said.

The Ferraris were never able to get close as their gap with Hamilton widened to 13.9 seconds with 10 laps remaining.

"We saw that Lewis was a bit stronger in the beginning of the race, I mean he was stronger during the whole race but in the beginning he just started to pull away, maybe two or three tenths sometimes per lap, and then this made his race much more comfortable," Massa said.

"For us we were completely driving on the limit to reduce the gap but it was not possible."

With seven laps to go, Raikkonen apparently slowed to let Massa overtake him for second place to stay in the hunt.

"I am not in a position to challenge for the championship. I know what the team expects from me and I am happy to try to achieve the maximum points for the team," said the Finn.

Massa said he was happy to take the title down to the wire and things were far from over.

"I am very optimistic," he said. "For sure we are in a very difficult situation but we know many things can happen in one race. We just need to keep our head up. It is not finished yet."

Renault's Fernando Alonso, winner of the last two races, finished fourth yesterday followed by BMW Sauber's Robert Kubica.

"Fourth place is the best result that we could have hoped for today and so I am therefore extremely satisfied with my race," said Alonso. "We had good pace, close to the Ferrari, which is another reason to be pleased."

(China Daily 10/20/2008 page12)