champion's drive

Kimi Raikkonen won yesterday’s Japanese Grand Prix, and he did this from the back of the grid.

After losing the driver’s championship to rival Fernando Alonso after last week’s Brazilian Grand Prix, he didn’t look set to even step on the podium much less win yesterday’s race. During a practice session, he blows an engine getting him a 10 grid-slot penalty. This means that even if he gets pole position, he will be demoted to 11th spot, and this is the best he can hope for. Mother nature however, had other plans. During the second half of qualifying the rain fell on the circuit ruining everyone’s times, Kimi fell to 17th on the grid.

Throughout the race he was quietly making his way up the grid, most of the attention was on Alonso who was also having a great run up the grid (he started 16th). Somehow, when it was needed most, he put in a string of fast laps to overtake Alonso in the pits. He did it again on his second pit stop to leapfrog a couple of front-runners! By this time he was looking good for a podium finish. Then he got to it, third, then second, he was now just 5 seconds off Fisichella on first place with 10 laps left in the race. 5 seconds is a lap time in Formula 1, but after a lap he cut it down by a little over a second! Mathematically he could reach Fisichella to battle for first by the last couple of laps. Fisichella got bundled on one of the backmarkers giving Kimi a few extra seconds and there it was, the battle for victory with 2 laps to go. Kimi tried on the first corner, but Fisichella held on to the lead. Kimi towed behind for the rest of the lap, then tried again on the first corner. This time he got it! Taking the lead on the last lap and holding on to it to win the Japanese GP!

Too bad Montoya (his teammate) crashed out on the first lap, thus McLaren loses their lead in the constructor’s championship. But it was a great race nontheless. He hails this to be his best race/win ever as he worked real hard for it, the makings of a true champion. Despite losing the driver's championship twice in 3 years, many hail him to be a multiple champion someday. With performances like these, I'm pretty sure he will be.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to watch all this! I had to make due with the live timing at Formula1.com