Notes Taken During the 2008 Chinese F1 Race

Notes taken during the SPEED broadcast of the 2008 Formula 1 Sinopec Chinese Grand Prix in Shanghai, China, Oct. 19, 2008.

Holy tardy posting! Sorry for posting this so many days after the event but I kept falling asleep while watching the DVR replay.

pressdog beer of the race is Hacker-Pschorr Original Oktoberfest Amber M?en brewed in M?en (Munich).

Welcome to the Shanghai International Circuit in China. The second-to-last (penultimate) go-round. Leigh Diffey is sitting in for Bob Varsha so I'm momentarily disconcerted. Lee Diffey would be a tremendous name for a country and western music star. Jussayin.'

Right into it with the comic stylings David Hobbs and Safety Car Excitement of Steve Matchett.

Hobbs -- Lewis Hamilton is on the pole. He must win today if he wants to win it all. Massa is 5 points behind but he's unbelievable in Brazil, the site of the last race of the year. The start of the races is key. Diffey -- Massa needs to win or at least do well enough to force it to Brazil.

Matchett -- Constructor's championship between McLaren Mercedies and Ferrari.

Last year McLaren was stripped of all it's points and fined $100 MILLLION!

Down to Pete Windsor with the unseen Jon Me-shell for the Grid Walk.

Kubica. P11 start. Not so good. Pete with teh Toro Rosso cars. P10 Sebastien Bourdais. Pete asks about the ridiculous, giggle-smoke penalty against Bourdais last race for failing to dematerialize as Massa approached. Bourdais said he was over it quickly since it "sounded so stupid" and he realized there was nothing he could do about it.

A word with Nick Heidfeld? NO. Someone named Tanya from Austrian TV beets Pete to Nick.

Jarno Trulli. First time as a top-10 qualifier. Pete's on the move with Jon-Mee-shell scurrying after him. Chris Dyer, race engineer for Kimi R?k? gets air.

Jock Clear, race engineer for Rubens Barrichello says qualifying P13 is a major victory (for the pig Honda).

Patrick Head is always good for a laugh, Pete says. But Pat gives us no humor. Bummer.

Bernie Eccelstone is in the house and talking to Pete. Pete: Great crowd. Bernie: Yeah, its full. It takes time to build an event. Pete: Any progress on a U.S. Grand Prix? Bernie: NO. Bernie claims he would love to see the US GP. "If somebody comes up with a sensible arrangement, we have a race."

I think a "sensible arrangement" means "a race where I make a zillion gillion dollars."

Mark Webber. Gives Lee Diffey some on-camera shout outs. Something about watching Super Cross at 2 in the morning or something. They have some kind of Aussie connection going on there or something.

Racing Per Matchett. Steve interviews a clutch.

Cue music montage! Many clips of cars going sideways and slant ways and cross ways. Massa spinning FIVE times in the rain at Great Britain. Break it down, Pete:

Massa 10 driving errors. Lewis 5 driving errors. Ferrari 11 team mistakes. McLaren 7 team mistakes. Ferrari 2 penalties. McLaren 7 penalties. (Here suffer systemic shock that McLaren had more penalties than Ferarri. UNBELIEVABLE, but true.)

Shanghai International Circuit: 3.4 miles. 16 turns. Very wide.

Cars on recon lap. Starting lineup: Hamilton, R?k?, Massa, Fernando Alonso, Heikki Kovalainen, Sebastian Vettel, Jarno Trulli, Sebastien Bourdais, Nick Heidfeld, Nelson Piquet, Bob Kubica, Timo Glock, Rubens Barrichello, Nico Rosberg, David Coulthard, Mark Webber, Kazuki Nakajima, Jenson Button, Adrian Sutil, Giancarlo Fisichella.

Story lines -- Hobbs -- Deja Lew (rim shot!) Lewis repeating last year's 1-point championship loss? Steve -- Ferrari team orders? (of course). Diffey -- If Lewis leaves here with six points on Massa he's the WORLD CHAMPION.

Let's light this candle. Standing start. Red light, red, red, red ... off means GREEN GREEN GREEN.

Hamilton gets a monster start and dives in to turn 1. We got a Toyota off. Bourdais and Trulli got together. Look for the stewards to fine Bourdais and move Massa to the font. (Kidding, sort of).

Hamilton, R?k?, Massa, Kovalainen, Alonso, Heidfeld, Vettel, Kubica.

Alonso goes inside Kovalainen -- gets him down the straight. Televised pass! BMW tells Kubica they expect rain around Lap 14. Look for Meteorologist Pete Windsor to give us minute-by-minute weather updates.

55 to go -- Kovalainen losing touch with Alonso. Lewis goes purple with a 1:37.332

Replay of Hamilton diving into turn 1. Massa gets out ahead of Alonso. Not a real shocker since Alonso said he'd do whatever he could to help Massa win.

53 to go -- Trulli is in the garage, TOAST. Stewards order snipers to open fire on Bourdais and penalize him $329 million pounds. (Kidding again. Somewhat.)

51 to go. Hamilton sets new fast lap. 1:36.940. He's 3.1 seconds up on R?k?.

49 to go. Eyes getting heavy. First stops coming on lap 13 or 14

Webber has gone from P16 to P10. Working on Piquet for P9. CLEAR. Webber got him. HOLD YOUR HORSES -- Nelson goes up and under and retakes the position.

47 to go -- R?k? goes purple now. Hamilton, R?k?, Massa, Alonoso, Kovalainen, Heidfeld, Vettel, Kubica.

Replay of Hamilton dirt-tacking around a corner. Replay of Piquet going waaaaay wide.

Ferrari is setting their stuff out. Stops coming. Shot of the McLaren crew. Someone waves! They are alive. I dare the crew to hold up "pressdog.com rocks!" signs sometime. Come on. It would be fun!

Massa pits. Qualified light. That cheeky bugger. Matchett -- that explains why Massa was so pissed after he qualified. He was light and still qualified P3.

42 to go -- McLaren is setting its stuff out. Sutil is sideways and dead. BLOWN up, SIR!

42 to go -- Hamilton pits. R?k? pits. Both get otu OK. Hamilton out in front of R?k?. Hamilton comes out P3 behind Kovalainen and Heidfeld.

42 to go -- Sutil out. Walking the longest walk back to the pit. Replay. Sutil locks them up and goes wide. BLOWS it up on some way. No smoke but it's dead stick.

38 to go -- Heidfeld pits. Diffey -- If Hamilton leaves China up by 6 or more on Massa then he's the WORLD CHAMPION. Kovalainen pits. Hamilton leads again.

34 to go -- Hobbs remind us that Team Orders (having one driver pull over to let his teammate pass) are illegal in F1. Insert me laughing so hard I temporarily become fully awake here. Hobbs -- "It might be a bit different in that it's Ferarri ..." See, that's what I love about F1. I can't imagine -- even fully intoxicated, the IndyCar announcers being snarky like that about the league and alleging that IndyCar favors one team over the other. You go, F1 boys.

Diffey says FLAVIO Briatore (Renault boss) says Massa should be the champion, not Hamilton. (Unfortunately FLAVIO doesn't get to decide. Kind of why we have the points system, FLAV.)

Alonso says he'll do whatever he can to help massa.

Hobbs -- it's the green-eyed goddess. Absolute, pure jealousy from everybody else. Hobbs says the Hamilton penalty for the start at Japan was "weak."

F1 Stewards announce they are fining Sebastien Bourdais for Hobbs' comments and moving him back 21 places on the grid.

32 laps to go -- Kubica pits.

Diffey says it took 3000 workers 18 months to create the $300 million track.

Replay -- didn't change the front tires of Kubica. May have changed the backs.

29 to go -- I'm awake, really I am -- R?k? is 6.4 seconds behind Hamilton and slowly eating into his lead.

28 to go -- Lewis goes into a power slide. Much gasping in the booth. He's fine though.

27 to go -- In car with R?k? passing Fisichella. Hobbs -- R?k? gives him the V sign which is the English equivalent of the old single digit.

FIA announces it will burn Fisichella's house and penalize him 10 grid spots for being "discourteous to a Ferrari."

22 to go - Kovalainen has a right front puncture. I limping back around. TOAST.

18 to go. Lewis pits. 6.8 seconds. R?k? pits. 8.4 seconds. Kovalainen not in P17, one lap down.

17 to go -- Massa is on hard tires. Hobbs -- Maybe Massa will be miraculously quicker in these closing laps (wink wink).

Hamilton 12.3 seconds ahead of R?k?.

Matchett -- sporting regs say no team orders. Article 39.7.

11 to go. Hamilton is 13.5 seconds ahead.

8 to go. Less than 2 seconds between R?k? and Massa. A ripple of shock goes through the crowd. MASSA IS CATCHING HIS TEAMMATE, R?k?!

7 to go -- Massa passes R?k?. SHOCKER.

Hobbs: (insert heavy sarcasm here) WHAT A BRILLIANT PASS, THERE! Great pass! Massa pulls out, gets a tow, just a FANTASTIC out-braking maneuver into that final hairpin!!!

Of course R?k? was ordered to slow down discretely enough to allow Massa to catch up and pass. Making it illegal is goofy. But it is illegal. But FIA won't do jack about it because it's Ferrari. Welcome to F1.

Kovalainen parks it.

1 to go. Hamilton will win barring air strike. He's up 15 seconds.

Hamilton wins.

Hamilton, Massa, R?k?, Alonso, Heidfeld, Kubica, Glock, Piquet, Vettel, Coulthard, Barrichello, Nakajima, Bourdais, Webber, Rosberg, Button, Fisichella, Kovalainen, Sutil, Trulli.

Hamilton out. Anthems. Interview room. I fell asleep again. Sorry.

For most excellent notes on the post-race conference, check out Patrick's most excellent Euro notes at Too Much Racing.

Hamilton leads Massa by 7, but despite what I thought Leigh Diffey was saying, that's NOT enough to clinch it. I THINK if Hamilton finishes in the top 5 at Brazil he locks up the title no matter what Massa does.

Tune in Sunday, Nov. 2, 4 p.m. Eastern for the race in Brazil.

I'm out of here ....zzzzzzzzz.