Patronise F1

It had been a bad couple of weeks for fans of donuts, what with long-time Patronise favourite Krispy Kreme sliding towards bankrupcy on the back of a thousand and one health drives. But then along came Kimi Raikkonen, who became the first F1 driver in 48 years to celebrate a victory with the traditional donutting celebration, causing F1 fans across the world to collectively wet their pants at the thought that maybe this was the first sign of a return to the good old days.

Truth be told, unless we missed part of it, it was a really rubbish effort, amounting to little more than a glorified handbrake turn to get his Ferrari back into the pitlane at the end of the race, but never mind. We can't be too critical of the lugubrious Finn, for the simple reason that we now have to support him. Shudder.

Quite simply, Kimi remains as the only realistic winner of the title. Not by virtue of a commanding points lead (indeed, far from it) but because of the three title protagonists remaining (Felipe Massa's retirement at Monza confirmed him as the Boobens for this year), he is the only one unsoiled by the whole McLarengate nonsense. If Fernando Alonso or Lewis Hamilton were to triumph, their victory would forever be tarnished with the spectre of being a big bunch of cheating evils. Some may say that the history books won't remember the spying and the subterfuge, but then a) F1 Season Review Annuals aren't strictly "history books", and b) it isn't as if everyone's cheerily forgotton about Senna's kiboshing of Alain Prost back in 1990, or even (may Godwin have mercy on our soul) *ahem* Adelaide '94 *ahem*. Nope, if an elephant never forgets, then an F1 fan scorned positively revels in reminding everyone just how much they could teach an elephant about memory tricks. Already there are enough collective chips on shoulders to keep northern England in fish suppers for many a long winter over the perceived leniancy of the penalty handed to the McLaren team, so if one of their drivers were to win, the internet may very well implode.

So Kimi it is then, much to our relative dismay. Frankly, right now, choosing your preferred drivers champion is only slightly worse than choosing your favourite 20th century dictator out of a line up of Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot. Ah well, perhaps, just perhaps, Kimi isn't really all that bad. For a start, he loves his donuts.

It was all very easy for Kimi as well. Though this was a fun old race, the action was limited to the "best of the rest" scrap behind the front four, who qualified, and raced, in the order that their pace for the weekend demanded, with Ferrari comfortably faster than McLaren, and Raikkonen and Alonso comfortably faster than Massa and Hamilton respectively. Not that this meant there were no fun and games amongst them. Indeed on the first lap, we got a glimpse of the future of the McLaren twins, now free from the necessary shackles of racing for constructors points, going wheel to wheel off the start line. At least after everything else they have been accused of this year, you can no longer claim McLaren are imposing any kind of team orders now.

Side-by-side through the first corner, Alonso then squeezed Hamilton onto the tarmac run-off on the long run to Eau Rouge (a corner name which roughly translates as "fanwank"), but Hamilton used the fact that tarmac offers more grip than gravel traps to power back on and try to re-squeeze Alonso as the cars swept through the blindingly fast hillside switchback. His efforts failed, and Alonso was secure in 3rd place. Another point off Hamilton's (official) lead, but neither McLaren ever looked like threatening Massa's Ferrari for 2nd. Kimi is now 13 points back with three races left. Realistically, he'll need at least one retirement for each McLaren to bridge the remaining gap, but despite the McLaren's oddly bulletproof reliability this year, any further repeats of the early duel at Spa could well end with an embarrassed couple of drivers standing next to wrecked silver cars. An incident which would probably help fry the chips of the whole righteous brigade in one go.

As the leaders settled into the groove, there was the fun developing behind. With the BMW twins oddly slower than normal, Ickle and Bignose were forced to scrap for their points with the usual suspects of the lower points places (i.e. Hunky, Skippy, Heady and, somewhat surprisingly Mini-Chin). Ickle succeeded, though missed out on the BMW place as none of the big four did a mess-up, while Bignose failed, despite overtaking pretty much everyone in the field what seemed like seven times. Move of the race was either one of Bignose's efforts, or Webber's move on Kovalainen, which should probably get the nod merely for the scarcity value of the whole thing.

ITV were despondant at the toils of the Brits. With Hamilton slower than his rivals, the race also featured retirements for Jenson Button and David Coulthard, and a fairly dismal effort from Anthony Davidson, who had actually been rather impressive recently. Hamilton lost further ground in the Rookie of the Year scrap to demi-God Adrian Sutil, who remarkably showed that perhaps the new Spyker is actually some cop by spending much of the race scrapping over an empowering 11th place. Even the Admiral managed to finish a mere one lap behind, which to him is like a Drivers Championship with extra cream.

Elsewhere, Honda experienced the ignomany of having their old car overtake their new car for only the 11th time all season, while Forrest continues to look like he'd struggle to hold down a drive in an invitational historic F3 team. The STRs again failed to turn up, possibly wary that to do so would be to risk being the slowest team out there.

All in all though, a fun old race. And one which keeps the three-way title fight nicely balanced. Most people "in the know" (and Blunders) reckon that Ferrari will have the edge over the remaining three races. Though three third places would be enough for Hamilton to take the title, and though Alonso merely needs two third places and a second, if they continue to knock seven shades out of each other rather than concentrating on the external threat, 2007 may be a happy year for our "favourite" after all.

Drivers Championship Standings -
1 Hamilton 97pts, 2 Alonso 95pts, 3 Raikkonen 84pts, 4 Massa 77pts, 5 Heidfeld 56pts, 6 Kubica 33pts, 7 Kovalainen 22pts, 8 Fisichella 17pts, 9 Rosberg 15pts, 10 Wurz 13pts, 11 Webber 10pts, 12 Coulthard 8pts, 13 Trulli 7pts, 14 Schumacher 5pts, 15 Sato 4pts, 16 Button 2pts, 17 Vettel 1pt.

Constructors Championship Standings -
1 Ferrari 161pts, 2 BMW Sauber 83pts, 3 Renault 36pts, 4 Williams 26pts, 5 Red Bull 18pts, 6 Toyota 12pts, 7 Super Aguri 4pts, 8 Honda 2pts.
McLaren removed from constructors championship.