2007 Grand Prix of Europe

[mipuumal]

All you people make me sick. I can't believe you are calling this "the best race in F1 history", entertaining yes but overall a crap race.

Massa again proving that he is useless in the wet (and Fernando proving that he is brilliant).

I made a similar post after Hungary 2006, let's hope I don't have to make one next year aswell.

China 2006 was a much better and even more entertaining wet race (I don't get my thrills from seeing cars going off the track uncontrollably).

That was entertainment right there folks! I was so happy to see Kimi pull up once again, better luck next year, sunshine!

I wonder how happy you will be after Lewis looses the championship.

 

[daan]

Every single track should have a sprinkler system installed which may, or may not, be pressed into action at some point during the race. Wet/dry races are always exciting and this one was no exeption.

Great victory for Alonso. I've no idea what Massa was complaining at. Alonso was alongside when Massa hit the side of him, and Alonso also had the speed and the line to get into the next corner in front anyway.

Hamilton damaged his own race when he changed onto slicks a few laps too early, and spent the majority of the race trying to catch Trulli.

It was the correct decision to stop the race as there was a river at the first corner and there was too much standing water. The drivers were just passengers when they reached there and there was nothing they could do as the cars aquaplaned off into the gravel. The safety car was sitting just before the first corner waiting to pick up the leaders, but he suddenly accelerated round the corner as he saw Speed, or Liuzzi, spinning towards him out of control! It was too dangerous to continue.

All you people make me sick. I can't believe you are calling this "the best race in F1 history", entertaining yes but overall a crap race.

So you thought it was an entertaining race, but I'm guessing you thought it was crap because Kimi retired?

A race cannot be entertaining and crap at the same time.

 

[mipuumal]

So you thought it was an entertaining race, but I'm guessing you thought it was crap because Kimi retired?

A race cannot be entertaining and crap at the same time.

No, I'm not partial like some *cough* Britons *cough* here. I said that China 2006 was a much better and entertaining race than this and Kimi retired from that race in a very similar fashion.

We are watching a sporting event, not a hollywood blockbuster where cars explode and curse words are removed in order to get more gross (Die Hard 4.0). And while movies can be entertaining, they can also be crap at the same time just like this race was.

 

[Digital-Nitrate]

IMO an entertaining race doesn't have to be a great race. For me, it was entertaining, but it was certainly not a great race. To be great in my book is when the racing is close and competitive and very little luck was involved... thus for me, this was definitely not a great race.

 

[Avery GT]

Then much later in the race it appears he ran short on fuel. Not the kind of race he was hoping for in front of his Grandma.

T_T No man, you can't be serious about that. Team could avoid this :-/ Damn!

To Digital-Nitrate: I agree, definitely interesting race, definitely entertaining, but certainly not great race. I wonder how the Massa-Alonso duel would end up if the rain didn't return.

Fernandito is now tied-up with Ham in points (okay, 2 points between them), I hope you are happy Ali, because I am not!

I feel so sad for Kimi, that must be frustrating, ...starting in pole after 2 consecutive wins and it ends up like this. Now he's out of position once again.

 

[sejtur]

Wet/dry races are always exciting and this one was no exeption.

I agree. But it the downside of it is that the race turns into a lottery.

Great victory for Alonso. I've no idea what Massa was complaining at. Alonso was alongside when Massa hit the side of him, and Alonso also had the speed and the line to get into the next corner in front anyway.

Massa took the corner with great speed, from a defending, so, a wrong line. That way he needs space at the outside of the corner. Too bad that Alonso tried to overtake at that point.

But Felipe didn't complain. I guess you turned your TV off before they parked at parc ferme. Or you just dint see what happened. Alonso pointed at the damaged side of his car, and did a no-no gesture to the ferrari that was standing next to his car. Felipe was already in the room before the podium, so he didn't know that. When Alonso entered the room, Felipe said something along the lines of "it was a good battle", but Alonso started yelling at him because he thought Felipe ran into him and that Felipe really aimed for his car. Felipe was very upset by this, and then, they had an argument. So from this I conclude, Alonso was the one that started it.

Oh, and I agree with Digital-Nitrate about the thing you said about that it can't be a crapand entertaining race at thesame time.

 

[Only_in_f1]

That track with a bit of rain always throws up a good race.
Anyone remember Stewart Racing winning there in 1999 with Jonny Herbert?
That was a great race, Jarno Trulli was 2nd in a Prost and the Ferrari's were not in contention. As were the Mclarens.
Good race. Well done Alonso.
Bad luck to Kimi.

 

[Alex.]

what a boring race that was

 

[Stevisiov]

All you people make me sick. I can't believe you are calling this "the best race in F1 history", entertaining yes but overall a crap race.

You make me sick with your ranting, but hey i can live with it.

If it was such a 'crap' race, I would like to hear why you thought it was a crap race.

I thought it was a great race, and an entertaining race. The reason I thought it was a great race is not because I like seeing cars flying off all over the place a smashing each other to bits, I thought it was great because as stated in my last post, there where great overtaking moves, e.g Alonso, Kimi, Lewis, Kovelinen all good examples of great overtaking, there where great tactical decisions made e.g team spyker getting Winklehock into first place by a massive margin, it was a great race because no driver dissappeared into the distance and stayed there, Alonso refused to let Massa take the victory and slow down to ensure he got second, he went after Massa relentlessly and just a few laps from the end made a overtaking move that had them side-by-side for a good length of time, overtaking we tend not to see very often these days.

The rapidly changing weather added to the unpredictability and it made teams re-think their tactics, it was great to see different drivers taking different approaches to how too deal with it.

That is why I personally thought it was a great race, other people may not and that is not a problem, Digital Nitrate thought it wasn't a great race and he posted his opinion +rep to him. What you posted was a moan/rant which isn't worth posting.

And could you please clarify what you mean by...

I'm not partial like some *cough* Britons *cough* here.

 

[mipuumal]

You make me sick with your ranting, but hey i can live with it.

If it was such a 'crap' race, I would like to hear why you thought it was a crap race.

I thought it was a great race, and an entertaining race. The reason I thought it was a great race is not because I like seeing cars flying off all over the place a smashing each other to bits, I thought it was great because as stated in my last post, there where great overtaking moves, e.g Alonso, Kimi, Lewis, Kovelinen all good examples of great overtaking, there where great tactical decisions made e.g team spyker getting Winklehock into first place by a massive margin, it was a great race because no driver dissappeared into the distance and stayed there, Alonso refused to let Massa take the victory and slow down to ensure he got second, he went after Massa relentlessly and just a few laps from the end made a overtaking move that had them side-by-side for a good length of time, overtaking we tend not to see very often these days.

The rapidly changing weather added to the unpredictability and it made teams re-think their tactics, it was great to see different drivers taking different approaches to how too deal with it.

That is why I personally thought it was a great race, other people may not and that is not a problem, Digital Nitrate thought it wasn't a great race and he posted his opinion +rep to him. What you posted was a moan/rant which isn't worth posting.

To me it was a crap race because I am a fan of F1 (all of F1), not just the occasional roll the dice races like some people here seem to be.

Obviously I was exaggerating when I said it made me sick, but it bothers me that people come out of the woodworks when a freak race like this (and Hungary 2006) happens.

And regarding overtaking, there was plenty of overtaking in Silverstone and great battles in Magny-Cours with Alonso and Heidfeld/Fisichella. Overtaking a car just because it is working better than another to me is not so great, and there was quite a bit of that going on today.

And could you please clarify what you mean by...

That was mostly aimed towards Bee... and the ITV crew. Maybe I should've made it more clear.

 

[ExigeEvan]

And regarding overtaking, there was plenty of overtaking in Silverstone and great battles in Magny-Cours with Alonso and Heidfeld/Fisichella. Overtaking a car just because it is working better than another to me is not so great, and there was quite a bit of that going on today.

As far as I remember, most the overtaking in Silverstone was Massa in his considerably faster Ferrari, so that just leaves Magny-Cours as one of your examples.

 

[Kylehnat]

I made a similar post after Hungary 2006, let's hope I don't have to make one next year aswell.

You're right: bloody awful. I can't believe that there is one race EACH AND EVERY YEAR where the final results can't be predicted on Saturday.

Shame on you, FIA. This race should have been cancelled on Lap 3, relocated to Egypt, and re-contested in late August. And while you're at it, disqualify Winkelhock. Nobody wants to see that piece of 🤬 Spyker leading a race.

 

[Solid Lifters]

I loved the race; very entertaining. Crazy, a bit mad, and I'm OK with that.

Trying to watch this race was about as smooth as racing in it. Took THREE tries. Thanks to DirecTV, I missed the first two times, live and then recorded. Thank Petey the race aired a second time and I FINALLY got to watch the end. Why don't they record the show, and not the time!

Too bad for Hamilton. Changing tires too soon hurt him bad. But then, the race wasn't going to be easy for him.

Kimi proves again he cannot race on this course.

Frustrating to watch, and frustrating to race. This was a weird one, but very entertaining.

 

[Lee]

I wonder how happy you will be after Lewis looses the championship.

Dude, I'm like 2 mins from the Honda factory in Brackley, I support Honda. As for drivers, probably Heidfeld although I really wasn't impressed by his move on Kubica..

 

[Bram Turismo]

What a crappy race, I waisted 2 hours on this, Germany, I want my 2 hours back!

 

[Brett]

Well I had taped the early showing of the race this morning so I could sleep in after staying out late last night. Well being that the race was stopped for a good while, my taping did not tape the whole race and cut out before Alonso had passed Massa. It cut out while the two of them were battling and just a little before Alonso's pass. It is a great thing that SPEED replays the race a little later in the day, as I was able to pick up the race about 10 laps from where mine cut out. So I did get to see the end of the race, but it was absolutely terrible there for a it because I did not want to look up the results of the race without watching it.

I have to say I was mightily saddened when Kimi's car had problems. It really took a lot of enjoyment out the race for me. He really just cannot seem to do well in Germany. Hopefully this problem is only a one time occurrence and will not happen again for the rest of the year. It also did not help that he got the bad end of the rain at the beginning and hurt his position a bunch.

Massa had a pretty good race going up until the end when he could not hold off Alonso. He did appear to be trying his hardest to hold off Alonso, but to no avail. Having said that, I have to give Alonso his props for managing to stay in the race and get himself a win, even though I would much rather see a Ferrari on top of the podium.

Great job by Red Bull today grabbing a podium with Mark Webber and a 5th place by David Coulthard. Those finishes put them past Toyota in the Constructor's Championship and are well earned points.

I had a good laugh when Hamilton passed Barrichello, as Steve Matchett made a comment along the lines of, "Compared to the McLaren, the Honda is a piece of junk this year". I found that very amusing.

It was an interesting , somewhat entertaining , and overall odd race. There was some good racing at times, some good passes made, a surprise leader of the race for a bit, some inconsistent weather, and a well driven car throughout the race by the eventual winner.

Here's to the next Grand Prix at Hungary.

 

[Sureboss]

Entertaining race for sure. Though it did look stupid at times and I thought the red flag could've come out earlier, a Torro Rosso came quite close to hitting firstly the safety car and secondly the recovery tractor. 4/5 cars in that gravel put with cars still going into the corner at normal speed. Oh well.

Good race for RBR and Fernando and his half of the McLaren garage will be happy. His move on Massa was good. Nice to see a spyker leading too!

 

[zoxxy]

It was a pretty entertaining race, and it will go down in history for one reason or another.

 

[Brett]

It will go down in history for being the first race in which a driver, Markus Winkelhock, started last and then also started first in.

 

[Avery GT]

It will go down in history for being the first race in which a driver, Markus Winkelhock, started last and then also started first in.

Now that's a interesting point .

Anyway to some different topic:
Yesterday when i was watching qualifying session, commentator discussing Toro Rosso's & Red Bull failures, that Vitantonio Liuzzi didn't finish in last 7 races. I remember I went "Nah..I believe they are gonna do better this time".

Well, apparently...I was wrong! They both spun out in the first corner. Someone has a podium streak, someone has a DNF streak...I feel bad for them. On the other side..RBR had (best?) race so far..finishing 3rd and 5th..Congratulations!

Of course it was affected by all the stuff that happened but...that's just life.

 

[Aremburgkerve]

I thought this race was probably not the best for tight racing with clever overtaking maneouvers (apart from Alonso's move on Massa, and a few clever passes down the race order), but it will only make F1 more popular really, after such an entertaining race. Whenever you looked, there was something going on, whether it was crashes, pit stops, contact, red flags, etc.! And this is the sort of stuff that attracts a younger viewer to the sport and so will mean greater followers to F1 in the future.
I, being British, obviously wanted Hamilton to win, but I soon realised he would need a miracle. When Winkelhock took the lead, it was so great because it was a break from the norm, if only he was able to stay ahead for a couple more laps and just annoy the front runners! However, it was definately the right decision to red flag the race, because the first corner had become the new Nurburgring River! It was sooooo comical, albeit rather dangerous, watching car after car just slide off into the gravel, making it the most expensive car park in the world at that moment! It remimded me of the floods and storms that were hitting England a few days ago - same sort of length, same ferocity, but always the sun coming out afterwards! And then another hour later, another batch of rain!
I think that although the purists will say that this was a poor undertaking of the sport, most people felt it was an entertaining and exciting race to watch, and certainly gripping, as the battle between Alonso and Massa fluctuated in every crest, straight, turn and pit stop. In the end, despite wanting Hamilton to win the championship, I was pleased that Alonso had won because it had produced a great battle and good racing to watch. All in all, a very good race, not the best by a long way, but still one to break awkward silences with!

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

You're right: bloody awful. I can't believe that there is one race EACH AND EVERY YEAR where the final results can't be predicted on Saturday.

Shame on you, FIA. This race should have been cancelled on Lap 3, relocated to Egypt, and re-contested in late August. And while you're at it, disqualify Winkelhock. Nobody wants to see that piece of 🤬 Spyker leading a race.

+rep

I finally got my rain, after Monaco and Silverstone. The race was very entertaining to watch. Well, it was a shame for Kimi, but Alonso's pass nearly had me out of my chair. I can't see how Massa can complain. Alonso was in front of him and then Felipe moved over and tapped him.

Also, it was funny watching Fernando giggling like a schoolgirl at the press conference. Maybe it was a bit immature, but he's still human.

This was a great follow-up to the race at Silverstone.

 

[Kylehnat]

Also, it was funny watching Fernando giggling like a schoolgirl at the press conference. Maybe it was a bit immature, but he's still human.

Alonso is clearly very passionate about racing, which leads him to irrationally show anger when it is not warranted (like after the race today), and act a bit childish when he is pleased with himself. Who on Earth would still be mad after winning a Grand Prix? The incident was clearly neither driver's fault; a "racing incident" if I ever saw one. There must be more to this Alonso/Massa feud than we're being told. They seem to cross paths more than anyone, and get upset at each other for seemingly nothing.

We need more drivers like them .

 

[Muzaffar]

Now that's a interesting point .

Anyway to some different topic:
Yesterday when i was watching qualifying session, commentator discussing Toro Rosso's & Red Bull failures, that Vitantonio Liuzzi didn't finish in last 7 races. I remember I went "Nah..I believe they are gonna do better this time".

Well, apparently...I was wrong! They both spun out in the first corner. Someone has a podium streak, someone has a DNF streak...I feel bad for them. On the other side..RBR had (best?) race so far..finishing 3rd and 5th..Congratulations!

Of course it was affected by all the stuff that happened but...that's just life.

Toro Rosso is bad.Never gonna support them if they don't put Bordais or Vettel.They could be the only person that could turn STR's misfortunes.I've seen enough retirements from them and they really need to improve their car.

As for the race,it was quite entertaining (as i said before) but i don't get why it was boring and stupid.Would you want to watch a race where nobody retires and very little overtaking (Monza 2005) and most of you consider F1 to be boring.Well i don't and i don't mine watching every race even if it was that boring (is it just me?)

I expect Hungary should be another race to watch.Another race which could have rain and is as unexpected as Nurburgring.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

And while you're at it, disqualify Winkelhock. Nobody wants to see that piece of 🤬 Spyker leading a race.

Oh, so only the teams with the biggest budgets should be leading races? Never mind that Winkelhock was the only driver to opt for wets at the start and then won the lottery in the downpour. The fact that Spyker managed to out-strategise their rivals means nothing, does it?

 

[Blake]

Sarcasm is awesome.

 

[Touring Mars]

Beat me to it, Blake

In terms of testing the full range of driver's abilities - including making the correct judgement calls on what tyres to use and when - this race certainly had it all... plus, in terms of pure racing, Alonso's performance was arguably the best performance by a driver of the season so far - awesome stuff 👍

Unfortunately, I almost missed the last lap and I did miss the immediate aftermath of the race, since my landlord appeared unannounced, so I missed the 'excitement' after the race. I'm sure Massa was a tad upset, but there was not much he could do... But credit to Alonso for staying out of trouble, putting in a solid performance to give himself a crack at winning, and then taking his chance when it came. Never mind Ferrari - the warning bells for Hamilton are now ringing very, very loud...

 

[sejtur]

Touring Mars, read my post on the previous page. It explains that not Felipe is a cry-baby, but that Alonso is.

 

[Redgodzila]

Wow what an incredible race . The start was amazing- cars jostling left right and center and then half the field piling up it the SAME sand trap, and NOT hitting each other! Move of the day wasn't from any F1 driver. The move of the day was from the safety car dodging that out of control Toro Rosso . I was well out of my chair at that stage! Also, did anyone notice that the crane coming to Hamilton's rescue copped a hit from the 2nd out of control Toro Rosso. Just a small tap
The biggest shock of the day came from seeing Webber on the podium . He obviously didn't have the speed to be there yet luck and fate intervened and, being Australian, I am obviously happy to see him up there for once, rather then breaking down on the track 👍

Pity about Hamilton though. I guess he had the right idea jumping on slicks, yet maybe he jumped the gun a little too early. Hopefully we can see him and Alonso have a close battle til the end without any DNF's 👍

 

[Touring Mars]

Touring Mars, read my post on the previous page. It explains that not Felipe is a cry-baby, but that Alonso is.

I see, thanks for the heads-up. I hate missing the after-race stuff, since it often puts a different spin on things... Seems like they've made up now though 👍

Speaking of putting a different spin on things, I was annoyed at ITV for a couple of things before the race... they suggested that, although sympathetic to Hamilton after his crash, Alonso may not be 'too upset' because it means that he could really close the gap on Hamilton.... well, that in itself was not too bad, but they showed a clip of Alonso in his car, apparently rubbing his hands together - although he was rubbing his hands together like people often do, the insinuation was clear and completely misleading, infact it was nothing short than a gratuitous and totally unnecessary slight on Alonso's character. The deliberate editting of that particular shot with those particular comments was grossly unfair in my opinion.

After qualification, Raikkonen made no mention of Hamilton at all (but why would he?), but Alonso, to his great credit, said that the most important outcome of the day's work was that Lewis was OK. Did he say that to earn himself brownie points? Maybe he did. But I felt that it was not only genuine, but also a very necessary thing to do - to atleast acknowledge that a fellow driver had been in a nasty crash and that he wished him well...

In this context, I thought that the ITV editting was really uncalled for and supremely childish, and I hope they don't do stuff like that again.