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Race Preview - Europe; Round 10
Topic Started: Jul 18 2007, 11:19 AM (234 Views)
Paul_Murtagh
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Chief Engineer
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After a close and exciting British GP, there are now two separate fights beginning to happen in the F1 world in the fight for the title. On track, Kimi Raikkonen showed at Silverstone that Ferrari are back in the title flight after looking out of it. He managed to beat both McLarens of Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton fair and square, and with Felipe Massa impressively coming through the field we now have a four-way battle on our hands for the title.

But its the off-track activities of both teams that are creating the headlines. First it started with Ferrari suspending then firing Nigel Stepney over possible sabotage of their cars before the Monaco GP. Then McLaren suspend Mike Coughlan, and it later emerges that Coughlan has a 700-page document belonging to Ferrari at home. It has become a very ugly issue and definitely not good for the sport's image to air it's dirty linen in public. McLaren will face the FIA on the 26th July on this issue and it's still not clear whether this could affect the outcome of either championship.

Away from the top two and all the madness, and it looked like BMW Sauber have slowed down in the development race, and this might just give Renault the boost they need to catch them. Heidfeld looked to struggle at Silverstone while both Renault drivers were able to do the best job they could with the equipment they had. And of course there is the possibility that Williams could join the party, but might fall short and are unlikely to challenge at the Nurburgring.

As for the teams behind them, Toyota looked better at Silverstone in qualifying but lacked race pace. As for their Japanese rivals Honda it doesn't seem to get any better. After a promising race in France in which Button scored the team's first point of the season, they seemed to slip back again at Britain, but the characteristics of the German circuit could suit their car similar to Magny-Cours. Their junior team Super Aguri are now beginning to struggle, and with the recruitment of Geoff Willis, Red Bull can now begin to climb forward, although his presence probably won't be felt for another year. It also looks like Markus Winkelhock could make his F1 debut for Spyker after the sacking of Christijan Albers.

So the teams travel to one of motorsport's most famous names with a huge cloud hanging over it. After all the talk about how close the season was upto this point, it now looks like it could be decided in the courts and not on the track. Hopefully a good race this weekend can deflect some of the attention away from it and get people talking about the racing and not the politics
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