Dodgy Business

If ever I doubted that the Formula One World Championship is the best soap opera on the planet, the Japan/China trip put me right.

There was Lewis Hamilton's brilliant win at a rain-soaked Fuji that drivers labelled the most dangerous race they'd ever done; the will they/won't they ban him/hang him for his driving behind the safety car; the latest developments in the McLaren/Alonso saga; the cliff-hanging excitement of the championship; and on and on.

It's often said that F1 is insular, with people so wrapped up in their own little world that there could be a nuclear war going on and nobody would notice.

It's pretty much true. On Sunday night in Japan we had an earth tremor that shook the hotel and registered significantly on the Richter scale.

And in China, we had a typhoon killing people in its wake, arriving in Shanghai early Sunday night. Neither was given a second thought as everyone bashed out reams and reams about Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Raikkonen, et al.

Rain fell in Fuji and Shanghai © LAT

For me, one thing stood out. It was the vast cheer that erupted in the press room when Lewis Hamilton ended his race in the pitlane gravel trap.

Not too much shocks you in this business, but I was genuinely taken aback at that. No surprise if there'd been a ripple or two where the Spaniards were seated, but this was much more than that. It was on a par with the common delight that used to greet any misfortune for Michael Schumacher while he was busy mopping up his seven world titles.

With Michael, it was easy to understand. He was dominant, he'd done some fairly uncompromising things on the circuit and - said with a smile before the PC brigade swings into action - he was German to boot. So obviously he was going to get a load of stick.

But Lewis? What's he done? He's driven in pretty much exemplary fashion, he's thanked everyone at every turn, he's stood his ground when he's had to, hasn't appeared to deliberately mislead anyone, and so why the beef? Perhaps he's been a bit too good to be true. Perhaps that's what he's done wrong.

Or perhaps everyone was buying into Alonso's thinly-veiled propaganda that he is being nobbled. Fernando had been at a loss to explain a missing half a second to Lewis in Q3 at Shanghai. It had not been there in either practice or in Q1 and Q2.

He told us after the race that the pressures on his Q3 tyres had been higher than normal, but that he wasn't sure if that was the explanation or not.

You did have to wonder. According to the team it was a bit of Lewis magic on the soft tyre, time made up largely on the brakes.

Certainly, when you looked at the sectors, Lewis found a chunk of time in the sector two twiddly bits, suggesting he had indeed got the best out of the option tyre's extra grip while also being able to make it last the whole lap - something he'd had serious doubts about being able to do.

Alonso was nearly seven tenths away on the same tyre. And that did take some believing. Almost three tenths was fuel load, but Fernando was still missing four tenths. For a driver of his calibre to lose that much time in one single sector, unaided, was very odd. Which is not to say it's impossible.

But let's just stop a minute. If McLaren were intent on nobbling Alonso, they could have done it a lot more effectively than that, believe me.

A dodgy washer somewhere in the hydraulic system or a lifed out/substandard component in the engine would have been enough to ensure that Alonso did not make it to the end of the race. Job done. If the team was going to nobble him, would they have let him get to Brazil still in the hunt?

Lewis Hamilton with Professor Jurgen Hubbert, Ron Dennis, and Martin Whitmarsh © LAT

And way too much was made of Ron Dennis's post-race comments. Asked about the decision not to call Lewis in earlier, he said this: "We weren't at all fazed about Kimi, we weren't racing Kimi, we were basically racing Fernando. Kimi winning and Lewis coming second was adequate - it just didn't quite work out that way."

All too predictably that was wildly spun all over the place to indicate that McLaren, this paragon of equality, excuse the pun, was now openly favouring Hamilton.

Earlier in the day I'd been talking to Niki Lauda, who had some pretty strident views on Alonso incidentally.

Niki is now a media man and admitted: "In today's media you are either the king or the biggest idiot, and there's nothing in between. That's down to too many newspapers trying to beat each other with headlines. I know how it works..."

Ron might have helped himself if he hadn't made those comments, but then why the hell should he pick and choose his words to suit people who are going to deliberately misinterpret them anyway?

The man was being straight up. Of course the chief concern for anyone responsible for Hamilton's race strategy in China was Alonso. It doesn't matter that he happened to be in the other McLaren.

Hamilton, as long as he was on the track, was never going to finish lower than fourth in China, which would automatically have removed Raikkonen from the championship picture. Fifth or better for Lewis was enough to do that.

His prime objective was to ensure that Fernando didn't outscore him by two points. If he achieved that and was fifth or better, he was champion. Hardly rocket science, that.

Ron's answer was straight up, just as it would have been straight up to say that Alonso's race strategy was equally simple - he needed to beat Hamilton by two points to stay in the hunt.

If you could point the finger at McLaren at all, it was for allowing Hamilton to circulate for two laps with his tyres clearly down to the canvas against the better advice of Bridgestone.

But again, you could see the logic. It was raining and there was a set of dry-weather tyres waiting for Lewis. The weather around Shanghai was unpredictable, with a typhoon arriving later in the day.

If the shower had been heavier than expected they wanted the chance to put Lewis on wets. If it stopped, they wanted to get him through the greasy stage on his intermediates in case he skated off on dries.

A worn Bridgestone © XPB/LAT

From the lap times they knew that Alonso's intermediates were in better shape, and Fernando therefore had a bigger window before having to make the tyre call.

They were trying to optimise that window for Lewis but, in so doing, they left it too long and created the very situation they were trying to avoid.

It has all set up a barnstormer of a finish at Interlagos. What's in store for us there is anyone's guess. On paper, it looks good for Lewis. But then for different reasons, it doesn't.

Forget all about last year's race. Ferrari dominated as Michael Schumacher lapped 0.7 seconds quicker than anyone and he and winner Felipe Massa were in a totally different league. It was down to Bridgestone and nothing else.

The fact that Sakon Yamamoto set seventh fastest race lap in a Super Aguri and his quickest lap was within a tenth of Kimi Raikkonen's McLaren best on Michelins told you all you needed to know. It was a Bridgestone race, end of story.

This year, of course, everyone is on the same tyre and that's history, irrelevant. But, last Sunday in Shanghai, I talked to one of the technical directors about Brazil.

"Surprisingly," he said, "Bridgestone has proposed us the two softest compounds - Monaco compounds. But in terms of tyre severity, Interlagos is much harder than Monaco.

"One of the challenges of the weekend will be tyre management, and we expect to have a tough time, especially on the softer tyre. We don't really expect the very soft compound to be that raceable. It should be OK in qualifying but definitely in the race it will be hard to make it survive."

What we have seen from earlier in the season is that Ferrari struggles to make the supersoft compound work. The casing is relatively stiff, and the Ferrari does not seem to get the heat into the tread that provides the additional grip.

If that is the case in Brazil, Ferrari will struggle to get on to the front row and may even qualify on the harder tyre. Which means that if they want to get Raikkonen or Massa up front, they may have to fuel them very light. Which would mean a short first stint.

Given that they would want to limit the running on the supersoft to a minimum in the race, that would probably mean a very long middle stint, and that may overly compromise their race strategy.

On the harder tyre during the race, however, there is nothing to suggest that the Ferrari would not be highly competitive. But a McLaren should be the tool of choice in Brazil.

Talking to Ralf Schumacher at Monza, he simply smiled and shrugged at the performance of the McLaren on the kerbs. Another world, he said quietly. The car should be made for the Interlagos bumps.

With that, and what we've just said about the tyres, you'd expect that McLaren would be too strong for Ferrari in Brazil. And all that Lewis has to do is finish second.

Bearing that in mind, he'd probably be wise to let Fernando go. So long as he finished second to Alonso, he's champion. But, if the Ferrari are anywhere close and Kimi got between them, he and Alonso would finish equal on points and Fernando would be champion, five wins to four.

And, of course, it's Massa's home race and the little Brazilian always goes well there - he even put a Sauber on the second row.

Then there's Alonso. Have no doubt that if Fernando can't win a third title himself, he'd much rather Kimi won it than Lewis. If there's a wheel-to-wheel battle between the McLarens, therefore, Fernando probably won't be too bothered whether or not he leaves Lewis on the road.

How will this high-octane soap conclude? Trying to predict it is pointless. But something just tells you that given the situation at McLaren it might just be 1986 all over again, this time with Ferrari the benefactors. Kimi might well just sneak in through the back door.

As with all good soaps, whatever the outcome, it's been a hell of a story!