Team-Mate Wars: Interlagos

Thursday 25th October 2007

In F1, the first person you have to beat is your team-mate

Renault
Season: Fisichella 5 Kovalainen 12
Race: Heikki
The last race of the season was a competition between the two Renault drivers to be least worst. Fisichella got the better of Kovalainen in Qualifying for a change and then did one of his now familiar off-track excursions, only to be collected at speed by Yamamoto. Heiki got nudged out at the start by Ralf Schumacher and ended his race in the tyre barriers.

Ferrari
Raikkonen 10 Massa 7
Race: Kimi
It would have been interesting to see if Raikkonen had the pace to beat Massa on a day when it didn't matter. However Felipe put in the lap times of someone who is driving their hardest - up until the time he was due in for his first pit-stop, when they levelled off. Often you see green (personal best) times or purple (best of all) times just before a pit-stop as the fuel load has come right down. Not with Felipe.

McLaren
Alonso 9 Hamilton 8
Race: Fernando
This was like a reverse of the start of the season when Alonso got delayed behind a Ferrari in the first turn and Hamilton drove round the outside of him. Lewis's attempt to get the place back off Alonso straight away was the rookie showing through. He needs to acquire some of Raikkonen's patience.

BMW
Kubica/Vettel 5 Heidfeld 12
Race: Robert
While Heidfeld got involved with Nico Rosberg, Robert Kubica was able to take advantage of them both. It's always difficult making a three-stop strategy work when almost everyone else is on a two-stopper, but he did it.

Honda
Barrichello 9 Button 8
Race: Jenson
And so the nightmare ends. The 2007 season was almost as good for Honda as it was for Nigel Stepney and Mike Coughlan. Rubens certainly got a lot more out of his car in Brazil than Jenson, though to be fair to Jense, it is the circuit that Rubens grew up on.

Toyota
Schumacher 7 Trulli 10
Race: Jarno
A strong final race for Jarno, a mediocre one for Ralf (starting from too far back) with a bit of argy bargy at the start - Ralf's season in one race.

Red Bull
Webber 11 Coulthard 6
Race: Mark
Another chance to score good points went by the wayside. Webbo was up to fourth before the first corner and a solid fifth on the opening lap. It may well have been the potential threat from a big Webber points score that made Williams refrigerate their fuel more than the regulations allowed. In the end it didn't matter as the eternal Red Bull gremlin - hydraulics - sidelined Mark. You can imagine which department at Red Bull won't be getting a Christmas card.

Williams-Toyota
Rosberg 12 Wurz/Nakajima 5
Race: Nico
A dazzling display from Nico, who had moré horsepower at his disposal than was allowed thanks to his cool fuel. But he didn't let it go to waste. Nakajima will have made the Williams designers think about redesigning their pit box. Perhaps one of those restraining wires that goes across the decks of aircraft carriers. The minute the fuel flap comes up, the car hook goes down.

Toro Rosso
Speed/Vettel 8 Liuzzi 9
Race: Sebastien
Vettel ended the season in front of his team-mate and set the benchmark for what we should expect from incoming 2008 driver Sebastien Bourdais. Bourdais will have to be very close to Vettel to justify his drive given his wealth of single seat experience.

Spyker
Albers/Winkelhock/Yamamoto 6 Sutil 11
Race: Adrian
Yamamoto didn't get very far after Giancarlo's car rejoined the circuit in front of him and he instantly reduced the Spyker team's return cargo load. Sutil won out, but for a driver as highly rated as he is, he's not had it all his own way this season.

Super Aguri
Sato 7 Davidson 10
Race: Taku
Ant got embroiled in a mid-race accident that was not of his making and suffered as a result. Though he has an edge on Takuma, it's not been as big as a lot of people (including us) had predicted.

Star of the Race
Hamilton 5
Raikkonen 4
Massa 3
Alonso 2
Heidfeld 1
Vettel 1
Whiting 1

Overtaking Move of the Race
Alonso 2
Hamilton 2
Button 2
Rosberg 1
Wurz 1
Heidfeld 1
Sato 1
Fisichella 1
Massa 1
Webber 1
Kubica

F1 Comedy Moment
Can only be Rosberg and Heidfeld's balletic slide into Turn 1 to allow Robert Kubica to nip up the inside and take both of them on Lap 61. Robert probably found it funniest of all.

Spot The Bishop for the last time
The never-under-punctuated Matt Bishop, editor of F1 Racing magazine, is off to head the McLaren press department. Out will go the many lurid shirts he was keen to besport before races and in will come the corporate McLaren dress code. So we will see no more an explosion of colour dodging behind Martin Brundle as he did so adeptly in Brazil. At this stage of the season perhaps it's fitting to go out with a song.

So Farewell

Matt Bishop's shirts.

His shirts of many colours

He looked handsome, he looked smart

He was a walking work of art

With such a dazzling shirt of colours

How he loved his shirts of many colours

They were red and yellow and green and brown...

(Apologies to Tim Rice)

Andrew Davies

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