F1 Super Season Ender

What a way to end a season! Three drivers are deadlocked on winning this season’s F1 Drivers' Championship. At the end of the Chinese Grand Prix, Hamilton still leads the pack with 107 championship points followed by Alonso with 103 points and lastly Räikkönen with 100 points. The final race to resolve the dispute… the Brazilian Grand Prix.

I watched the other night the replay of the Chinese Grand Prix on Star Sports. The Drivers' Championship would have been considered in the bag for Hamilton if not for the mishap (probably his own doing… rookie mistake). He was leading considerably and made a mistake in not changing his tires to dry weather ones much earlier (in the early part of the race, the track was wet). He opted to stay with his wet weather tires and drove fast as Räikkönen attacked him. As the track was beginning to dry, his tires deteriorated loosing grip and as he was entering the pit (there’s a sharp curve leading to the pit), he slid off to the gravel trap and got stuck forcing him to retire.

Any of the three driver’s mentioned earlier are now given a chance to win the Drivers' Championship with the following scenarios using the top eight point system (10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1):

• Hamilton can be on top and make history as the first rookie champion if he wins the Brazilian Grand Prix. He will end up with 117 points.
  

• If Hamilton finishes 2nd and Alonso wins the race. Alonso will have 113 championship points and Hamilton with 115 points. Hamilton still wins!

• If Hamilton finishes 3rd or 4th, he’ll end up with 113 and 112 points respectively. Alonso finishes 1st or 2nd, he’ll end up with 113 and 111 points respectively. So, with Alonso at 1st and Hamilton at 3rd, we have a tie.

• If Hamilton does another rookie mistake and not finish the race… the dream is over and it’s up to Alonso and Räikkönen to slug it out.

• For Alonso to win, he must finish 1st with Hamilton finishing lower than 3rd place.

• For Räikkönen to win, he must finish 1st with Alonso finishing lower than 2nd and Hamilton lower than 6th place.

Felipe Massa in 4th place with 86 points is already considered out for the drivers' championship but he can surely complicate things for the top three if he won the race like he did last year (2006 Brazilian Grand Prix).

Nobody can really predict the outcome of this season even if McLaren outnumber Ferrari wins in the Brazilian track (11 to 8). If we are to consider the race wins from year 2000 onwards, Ferrari outnumbers McLaren (3 to 2). See the details on Wikipedia!

Will the raging Spaniard do a three-peat? Will the rookie make history... or history with another mistake? Or be surprised by the Finnish in red! I guess we’ll just have to watch the ultimate race on October 21!