The 3D Chess

The World championship could hardly be better poised going into Brazil, and it took a rare mistake by Lewis Hamilton to ensure that the title went down to the wire.

For the first time in 21 years, three drivers are in contention, and that means assessing what might happen is a little like playing three-dimensional chess.

The fact that more poor weather is forecast for the Interlagos weekend makes things even more interesting, and adds a random element that Hamilton and McLaren can well do without. Will team and driver repeat their Fuji domination - or will things fall apart, as they did at the Nurburgring and Shanghai?

McLaren mistakes

China provided a great reminder of how fickle this sport can be, as Hamilton went from hero to zero in a matter of laps.

He had done everything right in the early stages, opening up a cushion on Kimi Raikkonen. It could be argued that he pushed his tyres too hard, but what else could he do? He knew he was on an early first stop and thus had to create a gap, and he also wanted to win and keep Kimi between himself and any threat from Fernando Alonso.

Whether it was his driving style, his relentless pace or the influence of set-up and the way the car used the tyres is impossible to judge, but the fact is his tyres were in much worse shape than Kimi's as others began to switch to dries.

Alex Wurz showed that the dry window was open after he pitted on lap 22 and began to lap quickly, but the difference was not really enough to justify changing a strategy that was already in place.

For some midfielders the timing was right and a stop was due anyway - nobody pulled that off as well as Sebastian Vettel, who pitted on lap 26 and fuelled to the flag. That's exactly what Felipe Massa also did, although he had less to lose than the three title contenders (see later).

The return of the rain just after Massa's stop complicated matters somewhat. McLaren and Ferrari knew that it would be a short shower, they knew that they could fuel to the flag, and they didn't want to have to pit again.

It was a simple question - stay out on worn inters, or come in for dries and risk either a mistake by the driver, or a loss of temperature and pressure that might prove difficult to recover?

It was a hard decision, but given the increasingly obvious deterioration of Hamilton's rears, McLaren didn't make the right one.

"We got it wrong!," said Martin Whitmarsh. "At the time we had a weather forecast that there were some other showers around, and you don't want to come in at that point.

"At one point we thought we'd just cover Kimi, but we then decided really one lap too late that we'd pull him in. His tyres were shot at that point. You can easily fit the wrong tyres by coming in early, he had the right tyres probably for those current conditions, but they were just too worn out.

"Before they started to really drop off I think they were fine. We'd left them on at the first stop, and I think that was the right call. The majority of cars did that at the time.

"I think the circuit conditions there were such that had we switched to the new tyres they would have grained, so I think that was the right call. The wrong call was to have left him out that one extra lap.

"Strategically we suspected that Kimi was going to go a few laps longer at the first stop. At that point Kimi made the stop he didn't go longer for the second stop, so I think we were in reasonably good shape at that point.

"Had the tyres held out for anther lap, we would have been in a very strong position. It got to the point where it wore out or delaminated. That's not the fault of the tyre, that's our fault for running a wet tyre too long in those conditions.

"Lewis started very, very quickly, determined not only to win the World Championship here, but also to win this race. He wanted to open a gap up, and Kimi was obviously pushing quite hard.

"Conditions were quite difficult, because not only was it slippery, we had hints of rain. We took a view to leave the tyres on, and if we'd switch to new options we'd likely have grained them in those conditions.

"With hindsight we as a team made the wrong call, if we'd have called him in one lap earlier, we'd have been in good shape. By the time Lewis arrived at the pit lane entrance his rear tyres were badly damaged, and it was difficult enough without some damage to those tyres.

"As a team we've got to take responsibility. We've got the information available to us, we have weather forecasts, we can see what the other cars are doing, whether they've changed tyres, we can see their pace.

"A driver will give us an opinion of what he wants he feels we should be doing, but I think any professional racing driver knows that the team's got more information. It doesn't mean we always get it right, but we've got more information and we generally make that call."

How much the worn tyres ultimately contributed to Hamilton's slide into the gravel is impossible to say, but I suspect the real issue is that the situation had distracted Lewis.

He'd seen huge chunks of time disappear, he'd been off the road, he'd seen Kimi pass by, he was concerned about what was happening with Alonso. There was, no doubt, a lot of radio traffic. All of that contributed to an error when he found the pit entry to be somewhat wetter than it had been when he stopped 15 laps earlier.

Meanwhile Alonso survived all the chaos and logged eight precious points, an outcome he couldn't have foreseen when he qualified fourth. A three-lap fuel difference accounted for some of that, but the rest didn't compute, which is why he reacted with such anger.

Of late the McLarens have been rather closer than three laps in terms of qualifying fuel, but Whitmarsh insisted that it was normal strategy:

"On Saturday there was a high probability if you asked anyone that we would be starting in the middle of a typhoon. We didn't want to take risks, the less risky place to be if you're staring in a typhoon is at the front.

"If you then get yourself into a safety car situation with a high likelihood of a safety car, you can actually nullify both. Generally nowadays with the current safety car rules teams don't position their cars one lap apart.

"It takes two or three laps to form up, the safety car comes, out, if you'd gone for 15/16, both of your cars could have been penalised. So typically you'll be two or three laps apart with your cars.

"Fernando was disappointed in his performance. Up until the final qualifying session I think he felt that he was a in a good position, he was driving well, and he felt he could get on the front row.

"He failed to get onto the front row and therefore he was very disappointed. He's a passionate chap, he wants to win each race, he wants to win the World Championship.

"He'd liked to have won [this race], we'd have liked him to have won, but second place is really good outcome. He did a great job in very difficult conditions. He's really pleased with that, obviously it puts him strongly in contention."

The Ferrari story

It would be unfair on Ferrari and Kimi Raikkonen to focus solely on mistakes by McLaren and Hamilton in Shanghai. After all those mistakes might not have happened had Kimi not been right there, keeping the pressure on.

The Finn has done a brilliant job in recent weeks, and has been quietly piling up the points. He might have got off to a shaky start at Ferrari - that Monaco qualifying error was particularly expensive - but he has done very little wrong in the second half of the season, and has increasingly turned the screw on his team-mate. Shanghai was another good performance.

"We went into the race very strong," said his engineer Chris Dyer in China. "We knew we had a good strategy, we knew we had a good car. We probably would have preferred a nice quiet dry race, but obviously in the wet there's the chance of strange things happening, and Lewis did that for us. So we're pretty happy."

He insisted that tyre wear was not an issue as it was for Hamilton, although Kimi's inters had been well used.

"We weren't too bad. We were there, we knew we had more fuel than him, and we could match his pace, and then we reeled him in. I haven't seen them yet, but I don't think there was a lot of tread left on them ...

"We were in a pretty comfortable position to be honest, because when it looked like it was time to change to dry tyres, we could see the other guys were quicker, but we knew also that there was rain coming.

"We passed Lewis, we had more fuel than him, there was no need for us to rush anything and put dry tyres on the car, we just had to cover Lewis and stop the lap after him and we were okay.

"It was pretty clear from the times the other guys were doing, [what the situation [was]. So we could see the grooves were faster, but it wasn't worth the gamble for us."

Running third, and not directly involved in the championship fight, Massa did take the gamble. Having pitted on lap 17 and kept his inters on, he was back in on lap 26 for dries.

In fact that wasn't a matter of chance, because a window opened that allowed him to get to the flag from there. It was definitely a strategy worth pursuing, but just as he came in, the rain returned.

Indeed it was bad enough to send Schumacher and Sutil off the road, so it wasn't the ideal time to be tip-toeing round on new dry tyres.

"We knew we could go to the end at lap 26," said his engineer, Rob Smedley.

"And that's why we pitted, because we thought that would be a sharpish move if it all worked out. Come in, brim it, put the new tyres on and see if we can get to the end.

"I think when we took the tyre decision we were about spot-on, then there was a little shower, and it just lasted for about a lap.

"The temperatures went down, then it was a bit difficult to get back up. But we weren't a million miles away in the end, even running in the wet on the dry tyres our lap times were about the same as Kimi and Lewis, who were staying out."

At least the team now had a pretty good comparison as they pondered what to do with Kimi, but Smedley denied that he was switched early for that reason.

"Of course the team got information from what Felipe did, but whether or not he was a guinea pig - we would have done it anyway, it could have worked out and we could have been right there, and made up 20 secs on the leaders and been in front, or we would have been as it worked out. It was just a little bit difficult."

A one-two would have been even better, but Smedley was happy to see Raikkonen win and the title race blown wide open.

"Obviously from my point of view it could have been a bit better with Felipe, but we took a gamble on the dry tyres. It never quite worked out, but to be honest we didn't really lose a lot.

"If you look when he came in the pitlane he was just behind Fernando, and then he came out just behind him again.

"We were just missing a tiny little bit of speed, especially with respect to Kimi today. On Friday we were right there, and then Kimi picked up his game on Saturday and for the race.

"To be honest Kimi has been fantastic, I can't take anything away from him. He's done an absolutely stunning job today.

"That was exactly the result we wanted, Kimi had to win the race. Obviously we wanted Felipe second. You can't control what's going to go on with Lewis, and what happened to him was a complete unknown, but it's been, let's say, a nice piece of luck for Ferrari ..."

Interlagos or bust

It's easy in retrospect to suggest that Lewis should have been more cautious coming into the pits in China, or that he should have nursed those tyres a little more in the early stages, but even with a title within his grasp any great racing driver's instincts are to go for it.

But Lewis is also smart enough to know that sometimes a percentage game pays. After all, he has won championships in three of the last four seasons, so he knows how to do it. It will be fascinating to see how that manifests itself this weekend.

"Lewis wanted to win here," said Whitmarsh in China. "That's how he is. I don't think after the season that we've had that we'd want to modify Lewis in a particular way.

"He'll want to go to Interlagos to win that race and win the championship. If he didn't that have as a driving force within him, he wouldn't be the great driver that he is.

"It's not easy when you've gone through what he's just gone through - it's a bit of a wringer, but he's got a great character. He just wants to win the last race, not just the championship, and he'll go there with that approach.

"So it's a mixture of feelings, but we're first and second in the drivers' championship, we've got two great drivers both of whom are capable of winning the World Championship, and Kimi is a formidable opponent.

"So it's great for F1 that there are three drivers there in Interlagos who can win this World Championship."

Balancing the needs of Hamilton and Alonso is going to be a nigh-on impossible job this weekend, and whatever happens, Ron Dennis is likely to be criticised by somebody.

Of course, in many ways the job is so much easier for Ferrari. There really is nothing to lose - the team just has to go all-out to get a one-two, with Kimi ahead, and let the McLarens sort themselves out. Massa has to be up there, and any supporting role will involve riding shotgun.

"We have to do our normal job," said Smedley. "We have to do the job that we've done for the past couple of races.

"The great thing about Ferrari is that we work as a team. I think that is obviously showing now, and is obviously helping. We've had our problems in terms of reliability, that are quite clear for the world to see, but one thing we are doing quite well is we are working as a team.

"Felipe has to drive his own race and Kimi has to drive his own race, and in the end we have to see what the positions are, and decide from there.

"But there are never any team orders, it's always quite clear that both drivers are quite open to race. And that in the end is what we've done."

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