Formula One / David Croft / 29 August 2008 / Leave a comment

With twelve races gone and six to come, Formula 1 is about to hit the home stretch with the final third of the season starting next week at Spa. David Croft reports.

So far three teams and five drivers have shared the wins between them with both Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa picking up four victories each, Kimi Raikkonen winning twice and Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen once. Kovalainen's win in Hungary by the way means that eleven drivers of the twenty who line up on the grid have won at least once in Formula 1, emphasising the quality of the field this year.

In the race for the Drivers Championship Lewis Hamilton takes a six-point lead into the final third. His maturity in Valencia last week was impressive as he guided his Mclaren home into second place knowing that he never had the pace to challenge Felipe Massa and that to push too hard would be a foolish risk to take. Hamilton has the advantage of being able to learn from the mistakes he made toward the end of last season when he and his team threw a title away, particularly with their ill-advised decision to keep him out far too long on worn tyres in China. At [1.73] with Betfair he remains a short price to go one better than he did in 2007 but he and his backers will surely be casting a glance or two over their shoulders at the moment.

Last weekend we saw Felipe Massa finish off what he started at the Hungarian GP. With his new Ferrari engine holding firm he controlled the race from start to finish and must now be seen as a realistic title challenger. The Brazilian reminds me of Formula 1 marmite sometimes. You either love it or hate it, you're either a fan or not, he drives brilliantly or his afternoon is riddled with mistakes. With the yeast extract and the Brazilian driver there's never any middle ground.

Even after his improvement in Monaco this season we still questioned whether Mass could cut it on the streets in Valencia. He answered those questions emphatically, once again using the presence of his friend Michael Schumacher on the pit wall to his advantage. Having at one stage traded as high as [24.0] for the title Massa is now available at [3.95], a decent price given that Ferrari seem not only to have closed the gap between themselves and Mclaren but opened up a slight advantage in the development stakes if the evidence of the last races is anything to go by.

If only they could solve the problems that Kimi Raikkonen seems to be having in qualifying. Should they do so they might start to open up a bigger lead in the constructors standings as well. As it is the gap is now down to just 8 points with Ferrari currently trading at [1.45] and Mclaren [2.98]. If they can't get Raikkonen back to the form that won him the world title that price for Mclaren looks good to me. In the last four races they've scored 55 constructors points, Ferrari have picked up just 30.

During that time Felipe Massa has failed to score twice, once down to an engine failure, once down to bad driving - back to that F1 marmite again. Raikkonen too failed to score - another engine blow out cost him in Valencia, but he just hasn't looked up for the fight in recent races. He hasn't won since Spain and hasn't been on the front row since France. He must sort out his qualifying woes soon or it may be too late and the fact that his price to win the title has now drifted to [6.6] reflects this.

What will please Kimi though is that the next race is Spa. This is a track he's made his own in recent years, winning the last three races there. Don't bet against him making it four in a row, especially given Ferrari's dominance there in 2007 but I expect better things in Spain from the defending champion and sadly we didn't see any evidence on the track that he was moving in the right direction

Robert Kubica, 15 points off the lead theoretically remains in the hunt but it would need some major failures from the top three for him to take the title. Since his win in Canada the BMW driver has scored only 13 points hence his price now of [85.0].

So it's down to three challengers in my book. In Spa Kimi should be the man to catch. Mclaren spoiled the Ferrari party in Monza last year but in 2008 I think the Italian team will hit back.

Singapore will be a lottery but the cooler temperatures at night may favour Mclaren. Lewis Hamilton was immense at Fuji in 2007 expect a repeat performance 12 months on. Ferrari should be more suited to Shanghai and that leaves Brazil with everything to play for. Let's hope so this title race is bubbling up into another classic.