Mc Laren Mercedes blew again at Monza and that really spoiled Raikkonen hope of title chase. As a result, the driver champion now is surely belong to Alonso who is now 27 points ahead of Raikkonen with only 4 more races to go.
Firstly, the engine failure during practise set Raikkonen 10 grid back at starting line. By starting at 11th position cost Raikkonen more than 30 second behind Alonso during the window of the first pit stop. When Raikkonen pit for the first time, a lot of fuel went into his car to make him race to finish with only one pit stop and this look extremely promising. But before long, Raikkonen was called in again for a tire replacement which cost him another 30 seconds.
Montoya who was leading the race also suffer some tire problem during final few laps but he was lucky to finish the race to take the chequed flag. As Michelin tire works well in other Michellion Teams, the tire failure must be due to the suspension setup problem as highlighted by Alonso later.
Mc Laren no doubt has the quickest car at this moment but they simply lack reliability. Renault on the hand simply going to win driver championship on reliability of the car.
Montoyo vowed to help Raikkonen to win remaining races but it is now a little bit to late and there is no way Raikkonen can win the driver title unless Alonso crash out of the remaining three races. That look quite impossible of course.
As a McLaren fan, all I can do is wait for another year to see if Raikkonen can take the title again for Mc Laren.
Drivers’ Standings
Pos Driver Points
1 F Alonso (Spa) 103
2 K Raikkonen (Fin) 76
3 M Schumacher (Ger) 55
4 JP Montoya (Col) 50
5 J Trulli (Ita) 43
6 G Fisichella (Ita) 41
7 R Schumacher (Ger) 35
8 R Barrichello (Bra) 31
9 N Heidfeld (Ger) 28
10= M Webber (Aus) 24
10= J Button (GB) 24
12 D Coulthard (GB) 21
13 F Massa (Bra) 8
14= T Monteiro (Por) 6
14= A Wurz (Aut) 6
14= J Villeneuve (Can) 6
17= N Karthikeyan (Ind) 5
17= C Klien (Aut) 5
19= C Albers (Hol) 4
19= P de la Rosa (Spa) 4
21 P Friesacher (Aut) 3
22 A Pizzonia (Bra) 2
23= T Sato (Jap) 1
23= V Liuzzi (Ita) 1
Constructor Standings
Pos Team Points
1 Renault 144
2 McLaren 136
3 Ferrari 86
4 Toyota 78
5 BMW-Williams 54
6 Red Bull 27
7 BAR 25
8 Sauber 14
9 Jordan 11
10 Minardi 7