The Turning of the Season

The French Grand Prix weekend also marked the solstice, the longest day in the Northern hemisphere summer.

Associated with superstitions and annual rituals since pagan times, the solstice also has relevance to modern Formula One. As the days grow shorter, so too do the opportunities for the main championship challengers to recover from mishaps and disappointing race results.

In France, that had special significance for both McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen. Going into the season, both stressed repeatedly that clockwork consistency would be the key factor in winning the championship.

Although both drivers have looked like champions at times, the season so far has paradoxically been marked by the very quality that all the front runners vowed to avoid - a lack of consistency. With three different race winners and championship leaders emerging from the past three race weekends, the 2008 campaign has effectively become a lottery.

Both Hamilton and Raikkonen will be wondering not how to catch new championship leader Felipe Massa, but rather how they came to trail the mercurial Brazilian in the first place.

Hamilton's woes stemmed from a momentary lack of concentration in Canada, leading to the race-ending collision with Raikkonen and the ensuing ten-place grid penalty in France.

That demotion was always going to be ruinous to Hamilton's points-scoring aspirations. It would have taken a significant performance advantage and tactical genius worthy of Ross Brawn and Michael Schumacher to bring Hamilton back into the race reckoning.

Former McLaren teammate Fernando Alonso suffered a similar demotion in 2007, and spent most of the afternoon focusing on the BMW gearbox of Nick Heidfeld in front of him. With few overtaking opportunities at Magny-Cours, on a short lap where the top 15 cars were within one second of each other during the first and second qualifying runs, a ten-place grid penalty is truly draconian.

In his efforts to cut through the field during the 2007 race, Alonso had pulled off one of the best overtaking moves of the year on Heidfeld - only to end up behind the German again later in the race.

Hamilton, to his credit, attempted a never-say-die drive worthy of the passion and fury that often marked Nigel Mansell's most committed efforts. Alas, and again like many of Mansell's drives, it was a stirring but ultimately ineffective pursuit.

Time and again, Hamilton arrived at Turn 8 with smoke pouring off his locked and unloaded left front tyre in his attempts to unsettle the drivers ahead, particularly old GP2 rival Nelson Piquet in the Renault. Even when he did manage a relatively clean pass on Toro Rosso's Sebastian Vettel, it was marred by cutting the chicane and earning yet another penalty.

Fernando Alonso overtakes Lewis Hamilton in the hairpin © LAT

Although Hamilton will have gained some satisfaction in pulling off a brusque and unexpected pass on former teammate Alonso in Turn 3, it was all too little too late.

Failing to score any points at all in two successive races, and dropping from first to fourth in the championship, may seem harsh retribution for what was just a momentary lapse in Canada. But such are the margins and consistency expected of a champion driver.

For the first two-thirds of his debut season, Hamilton showed that level of consistency. There is no reason why he can't replicate the performance during his sophomore year.

The consequences from Canada have drawn a curiously mixed reaction from Hamilton, offering profuse apologies to the team while railing against the perceived injustices of the system and the officials. It's not about the team, the rule book or the officials. It's about Hamilton driving to the level that he displayed during his first dozen or so Grands Prix.

Kimi Raikkonen, by comparison, has the consolation that his driving error at Monaco is now fading into the past, and his more recent misfortunes have not been of his own making. He could do nothing to prevent Hamilton shunting him out of the race at Canada, nor about the exhaust problem that cost him certain victory in France.

Still, the sum of these problems has derailed his promising early season effort. Prior to Monaco, Raikkonen looked easily the most settled and confident of the major championship challengers.

Even though May was projected to be the toughest month in the calendar for the defending champion, few would have anticipated such a dramatic turnaround in his fortunes.

And yet, the Finn still has reason to be upbeat. Raikkonen may have deserved the full ten points from France, but can be very relieved to have escaped with eight.

Broken exhausts often lead to terminal mechanical failure, and Raikkonen can also consider himself lucky not to have been called into the pits by the stewards to remove the flailing section of broken pipe, an unscheduled stop that would have dropped him down into the minor points placings.

In the broader view of the championship, Raikkonen is also better placed than he was 12 months ago. Even after his victory at France 2007, the Finn was placed last of the four main protagonists, and trailed Lewis Hamilton by a whopping 22 points.

Felipe Massa leads Kimi Raikkonen © LAT

This year, he trails teammate Massa by just five points - interestingly, the same margin that separated the two exactly 12 months ago. The only difference is that both have scored one point less than they had in 2007.

However, what should concern Hamilton and Raikkonen most is not the points deficit to Massa, for that is slight and could be eradicated by as early as the next race. Instead, the more intriguing angle is that, after 15 months of being almost constantly in the championship frame, Felipe Massa finally gets to lead it.

In recent Formula One history, there is surely no driver who is affected by track position to the extent that Massa is. When he is in the midst of the chasing pack, the Brazilian often appears downcast, even defeatist. Give him the race lead and a clear track ahead, and he is arguably as dominant as Michael Schumacher was.

France represented a minor watershed in Massa's career. Prior to 2008, he had only ever won from pole position. Earlier this season at Bahrain, he won from second on the grid, although surprise pole sitter Robert Kubica wasn't a match for the Ferrari over the full race distance.

At France, Massa finally won a Grand Prix after starting behind a top championship contender (teammate Raikkonen) in the same level of machinery. It matters little that he was gifted the win, and looked to have already given up the chase well before Raikkonen's problem struck.

The key aspect is that the win, and the championship lead that went with it, will have increased Massa's sense of self-belief incrementally.

Hamilton and Raikkonen have both owned the championship lead this season, and both surrendered it with minimal resistance. If Massa can lead the championship in the same way that he leads races, his advantage may not be as temporary as theirs.