As much as I hoped Raikkonen would start on pole, I hate to see Hamilton crash. Lewis Hamilton, who started his F1 career like a no other, made his first ‘mistake’ (in 9 starts) two weeks ago at Silverstone - his home GP. The 22-year old accidentally moved his car when the lollipop was flipped to indicate ‘1st gear’ during a pit-stop. Yesterday - during the German GP qualifying - Hamilton crashed into the tyre barriers at about 240km/h after his front right wheelgun failed, which was of course not his fault at all.
(Image belongs to Setanta Sports)
Having had a spectacular debut season so far - where he has been finishing in no worse than third place since the first race - Hamilton has won the hearts of millions of F1 fans, non-fans, and prospective sponsors, all of whom are equally excited to see if he’ll be continually writing history as he races. As such, there is little wonder why yesterday’s crash created a huge anxiety among fans and the media. Last month, his 22-year old compatriot at BMW Williams, Robert Kubica suffered a huge crash at Montreal, Canada.
I did a search on Youtube with keywords “Hamilton crash” and sure enough, I found more than 10 different videos of the same incident. Although his crash may not be as strong as Kubica’s, it did require a stretcher to remove him from the track (he was subsequently airlifted to a hospital). A video showed that he was trying to walk away from the car when he decided to lay down and wait for the stretcher. He also appeared to be moving his legs repeatedly shortly after the impact - a move I later learnt (from one of the commentators) was to ensure that his legs were okay.
Anyway, despite the heavy impact, he has been cleared to race later today. He will be starting from an unfamiliar grid position - as far as 10th on the grid. It will be really interesting to see how Hamilton attacks from mid-field.
Edit@23/07/07 at 2019hrs: The race was awesome. I’m not gonna talk you through it, because it should be splashed all over the net by now. I had never seen a race being red-flagged before. So many cars were beached. The closest to what happened in Nuerburgring would probably be the Sepang GP about 5 years ago (if I’m not mistaken). Almost everyone waltzed off track and at one moment I thought, “How can the race continue like this?”. Ferrari were the biggest losers yesterday. Kimi could never seem to shine in Nuerburgring, huh? IMO, the most entertaining part of the race was mostly when the cars were stationary. Yes, during the restart (where Markus Winkelhock was leading in his debut outing with Spyker Ferrari), and after the race.
Alonso and Massa were two angry men and it showed. Haha! I enjoyed that :p
