A little over a month ago, you would have laughed at the prospect of Lewis Hamilton nicking a win at any stage this season, but fast forward 4 weeks and a raft of aerodynamic upgrades later, and the McLaren MP4-24 is a totally new beast, a race winning beast infact as Lewis Hamilton scored a dominant win after initially profiting from the mishaps of others, and that is why yours truly is now nearly £25 better off.The first of which being polesitter Fernando Alonso who got a blistering start but retired after a bungled pitstop caused a wheel to come off, an incident that has banned his Renault team from his home Grand Prix in Valencia, and with safety being at the forefront of everyone's minds after Henry Surtees's tragic death last week and also Felipe Massa's frightening shunt in qualifying (an accident that forced him to miss the start of the race and maybe the rest of the season too) it is no suprise that the FIA decided to take stern action against Renault.
Back to the race though, Hamilton (who started 4th) scorched past Webber early on in the race to take 2nd place, which after Alonso's troubles, became the race lead. His position was further strengthened after Webber's Red Bull pit crew made a mess of his pit stop meaning he would come out behind Kimi Raikkonen, also championship contender Sebastian Vettel suffered an equally bad stop and would later retire with suspension damage after contact early on with Raikkonen. This benefitted a struggling Jenson Button who would go on to finish in 7th spot.
Hamilton's lead was strengthened again when Kimi Raikkonen stalled his car briefly after his 2nd stop giving Hamilton a comfortable enough lead to ease the car home to the finish. ahead of Raikkonen, Webber and the still improving Nico Rosberg. Kovalainen, Glock, Button and Trulli completed the scorers while debutant Jaime Alguersuari (replacing the sacked Sebastien Bourdais at Toro Rosso) had a fine debut beating his teammate Sebastien Buemi to finish a lap down in 15th place.
Also on the good news front, Felipe Massa's condition after his horror Qualifying crash is now not critical but there are now fears his sight in his left eye could have been affected in the crash, if so, this could mean a premature end to his racing career, here's hoping this is not the case and that he makes a speedy recovery and we see him back racing as soon as possible.
RACE RATING - 6/10: An action packed beginning followed by a precessional finish, but a great result
RACE TESULT - TOP 10
1st Lewis Hamilton - McLaren ................ 70 laps in 1h 38m 23.876
2nd Kimi Raikkonen - Ferrari ................ + 11.529
3rd Mark Webber - Red Bull ................ + 16.886
4th Nico Rosberg - Williams ................ + 26.967
5th Heikki Kovalainen - McLaren ................ + 34.392
6th Timo Glock - Toyota ................ + 35.237
7th Jenson Button - Brawn ................ + 55.088
8th Jarno Trulli - Toyota ................ + 1m 08.172
9th Kazuki Nakajima - Williams ................ + 1m 08.774
10th Rubens Barrichello - Brawn ................ + 1m 09.256
CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS AFTER ROUND 10 OF 17
DRIVERS TOP 10
1st Jenson Button 70pts, 2nd Mark Webber 51.5pts, 3rd Sebastian Vettel 47pts, 4th Rubens Barrichello 44pts, 5th Nico Rosberg 25.5pts, 6th Jarno Trulli 22.5pts, 7th Felipe Massa 22pts, 8th Lewis Hamilton 19pts, 9th Kimi Raikkonen 18pts, 10th Timo Glock 16pts
CONSTRUCTORS CHAMPIONSHIP
1st Brawn 114pts, 2nd Red Bull 98.5pts, 3rd Ferrari 40pts, 4th Toyota 38.5pts, 5th McLaren 28pts, 6th Williams 25.5pts, 7th Renault 13pts, 8th BMW Sauber 8pts, 9th Toro Rosso 5pts, 10th Force India 0pts
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