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Hamilton wins in spite of McLaren

NEWS STORY
20/07/2008

While the last four or five laps of yesterday's GP2 race were held in the wet, there has been very little rain since.

There was some rain overnight, however, all of this morning's events, including the GP2, Procar, Porsche Supercup and Formula BMW, were held in the dry, albeit with varying degrees of sunshine.

Therefore, despite what the weather experts might have said, it looks as though today's race will take place in almost perfect conditions.

On paper, only a fool would bet against McLaren taking the win here, and in particular, Lewis Hamilton. However, Felipe Massa has looked good for much of the weekend, and is still clearly hurting and keen to make up for his Silverstone debacle.

The word in the paddock is that Hamilton is slightly lighter than his McLaren teammate, while - with all due respect - Trulli and Alonso must have been running on fumes to take fourth and fifth.

Kimi Raikkonen has looked uncomfortable for much of the weekend, the Finn being one of those drivers who does occasionally appear to suffer a mental block that tends to prevent him performing at his very best. Yes, there is talk of retirement, but it is clear, if only from his string of fastest laps in recent races, that the 2007 World Champion must never be written off.

Although a shadow of its former self, courtesy of Bernie Ecclestone and his sidekick Herman Tilke, Hockenheim does still offer some decent racing with a couple of good places for overtaking. While we might not be able to rely on the rain to provide some excitement today, the high winds, together with the obvious difficulty drivers are having at a number of corners, could spring a few surprises.

Also, with conditions better than they have been at any other time over the course of the weekend, it will be worth paying attention to the tyre situation, with the Ferraris appearing to make better use of their boots than McLaren.

By its own standards, BMW has been disappointing this weekend, and while we expect to see Kubica (at least) in the points, it is to be hoped that the German team isn't going to continue losing ground to McLaren and Ferrari in the remaining races.

While McLaren, Ferrari and BMW look set to claim the lion's share of the points, the fight for the 'best of the rest' look likely to be as hard as ever, with Trulli, Alonso, Webber and Vettel all in with a chance of adding to their teams' tallies. Just ten points separate the five midfield teams, with Toro Rosso looking likely to join the fight in the coming races… maybe even today, what with Sebastian Vettel racing in front of his home crowd and fired up by the Red Bull deal.

All in all, we can look forward to a hard fight today, particularly in the midfield, and if some rain should fall in the final laps, as in yesterday's GP2 race, would you really complain?

On a lighter note, ahead of the race, Premiere is showing a competition between the five German F1 drivers in which they are in a race to see who can be first to assemble a tent. We would say 'erect' a tent, but for some reason we keep thinking of Max. Anyway, Timo Glock wins the tent contest, though we will never forget the image of all five nibbling their sausages at the picnic table afterwards.

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