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2007 Brazilian Grand Prix

The 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix was the seventeenth and last race of the 2007 Formula One season. It was held from 19 to October 21 at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace in São Paulo. The Championship was decided in the race, which was won by Kimi Räikkönen. Lewis Hamilton, who held a four point lead over Fernando Alonso, and a seven point lead over Räikkönen, was slowed by a gearbox problem early in the race. He recovered to finish seventh, losing the championship to Räikkönen by a single point.

Pre-race

Repair of the circuit

For the event, the largest-scale repairs in the last 35 years were carried out at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, to fundamentally solve problems with the track surface. The existing asphalt was entirely replaced. At the same time, the pit lane entrance was enhanced to improve safety. To facilitate the work, the circuit was closed and no events were held in the five months immediately preceding the race.

Driver change

Alexander Wurz retired from Formula One at the end of the Chinese GP. He is replaced at Williams-Toyota by the Japanese driver Kazuki Nakajima, son of former F1 driver Satoru. As a result, three Japanese drivers entered into the Grand Prix for the first time since the 1995 Japanese Grand Prix.

Point standing before the race

Prior to the race, championship leader Lewis Hamilton (107 pts.) was 4 points ahead of second placed driver, Fernando Alonso (103 pts.). Kimi Räikkönen (100 pts.) was 7 points behind the leader.

Report

Practice

In the Friday practice session, Ferrari duo topped the timesheet with Kimi Räikkönen leading the first practice in the wet session. In the second practice session, Lewis Hamilton led McLaren to a 1–2 finish, with the track improving from time to time.

Stewards fined McLaren, Honda and Super Aguri €15,000 each for tyre rule infringement. Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Takuma Sato used two sets of wet tyres, more than the one set permitted during the first practice. In addition, each driver has to surrender one set of wet tyres to avoid gaining any advantage.

Race

Only 21 cars were aligned on the grid, because of problems on the Spyker of Adrian Sutil, who started the race from the pit lane. At the start, the Ferraris of Felipe Massa and Kimi Räikkönen were faster, with the Finn passing Lewis Hamilton on the outside. At the third corner, Fernando Alonso passed Hamilton on the inside and the, on the Reta Oposta, defended himself from the attack of the Briton by swerving on the inside; Hamilton then made a mistake while braking, going off the track and rejoining the race in 8th place, just behind Jarno Trulli's Toyota. Also in the first lap, Liuzzi lost his front wing and was forced to enter the pits for repairs. In the first corner on the second lap, Fisichella went off the track, and was hit on the back from Sakon Yamamoto while re-entering on the track. Rubens Barrichello jumped the start and was given a drive-through penalty for this.

Hamilton was trying very hard to make up for the positions he lost: on lap 2 he passed Trulli and went into 7th, and 4 laps later he passed Nick Heidfeld to take the 6th place. Just minutes later, he suffered a gearbox problem: on the Reta Oposta, he failed to find gears and slowed down, to be passed by most cars on the track. Journalist Luc Domenjoz claimed the problem was caused by a mistake made by Hamilton, but this was denied by both Hamilton and by McLaren. Domenjoz later admitted that he had been mistaken. After going slow for about 30 seconds, Hamilton managed to reset the computer of his car, and get it going again: he was in 18th place by then, and with the Ferraris pulling away he needed at the very least 7th place but more likely 5th place to clinch the World Championship.

On the front no position was changed: by lap 15, the Ferraris were almost 12 seconds ahead of Alonso, third. By that lap, Hamilton climbed to 11th, having passed Barrichello, Ralf Schumacher, Anthony Davidson, Takuma Sato and Kazuki Nakajima, and having taken advantage from the retirement of Mark Webber, who was running in fifth position.

After 20 laps, the front runners began stopping for the first time: the first was Robert Kubica, who went for 3 stops; on the same lap Massa entered the pits. Räikkönen pitted on lap 22, carrying a bit more fuel than his teammate, to try to overtake him after the second stop. Alonso, Trulli, Sebastian Vettel and Hamilton pitted on lap 22, with the Spaniard keeping hards, while Hamilton switched his strategy to a 3-stopper (a rather risky strategy on the track which features the longest pit lane of the whole season): he carried less fuel than Alonso and switched to soft tyres. Heidfeld was the last to stop, pitting on lap 25.

After the first round of pit stops, Massa was leading with 3.3 seconds on Räikkönen, followed by Alonso, 17 seconds behind. Hamilton was 13th, again behind Barrichello, 50 seconds behind Massa. On lap 32, Nakajima entered the pits for his first stop, but he ran wide while entering his stand, injuring two mechanics in the process. They were both brought away, but they suffered no serious injuries.

On lap 34 Kubica, who was light on fuel, passed Alonso to take the third position, only to stop 5 laps later; he rejoined in seventh place. Hamilton made his second stop on lap 37, switching to hards again; on the same lap Heikki Kovalainen, who finished his first 16 consecutive races in Formula One, ended his race spinning on turn 3 and crashing into the barriers. This also meant that Kovalainen lost the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity of becoming the first driver to finish all of his races in his first season.

On lap 43, the second round of pit stops began: the first to enter was David Coulthard from 8th, followed by Trulli (then 6th) a lap later. Meanwhile Massa made an error and ran wide at the Descida do Lago, with Räikkönen closing on him. The Brazilian pitted on lap 50, followed by Alonso on lap 52 and Räikkönen on lap 53. The Finn set record lap times in the process, which meant he rejoined the race into the lead, 2 seconds ahead of Massa. At that point, Räikkönen was the virtual world champion; third was Kubica (who still had to stop a third time), fourth Alonso, then came Heidfeld, Nico Rosberg, Trulli, Hamilton (more than a minute behind Räikkönen), Coulthard and Nakajima. Hamilton pitted on lap 57, rejoining in 9th. On lap 59 Kubica pitted dropping to 6th; in the same lap Hamilton passed Coulthard to take the 8th position, setting the then fastest lap.

On the final laps the positions were pretty much set: Räikkönen and Massa led with a comfortable margin on Alonso, and Hamilton was lapped. On lap 61 Rosberg tried to pass Heidfeld on the first corner: both ran a little wide (Rosberg passed Heidfeld), with Kubica passing both to take the 4th. On lap 70, Rosberg tried successfully a similar move, overtaking Kubica. Hamilton gained the 7th place with Trulli made a pit stop, but this wasn't enough, as he needed at least a 5th place to gain the title.

At the chequered flag, Räikkönen was first, winning the race and the World Championship by one point. Massa was second on the other Ferrari, the fourth double (1–2 finish) of the year for the Italian team. Third, and last on the podium, was Alonso. The other drivers on points were Rosberg on 4th, Kubica on 5th, Heidfeld on 6th, Hamilton on 7th and Trulli on 8th.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	Name	Team/Engine	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3
1	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:12.303	1:12.374	1:11.931
2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:13.033	1:12.296	1:12.082
3	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:13.016	1:12.161	1:12.322
4	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Mercedes	1:12.895	1:12.637	1:12.356
5	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:13.081	1:12.683	1:12.928
6	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:13.472	1:12.888	1:13.081
7	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:13.085	1:12.641	1:13.129
8	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:13.470	1:12.832	1:13.195
9	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	1:13.264	1:12.846	1:13.272
10	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:13.707	1:12.752	1:13.477
11	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:13.661	1:12.932
12	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	1:13.482	1:12.968
13	Sebastian Vettel	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:13.853	1:13.058
14	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:13.607	1:13.251
15	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1:13.767	1:13.315
16	Jenson Button	Honda	1:14.054	1:13.469
17	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	1:14.078
18	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	1:14.098
19	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1:14.417
20	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	1:14.596
21	Adrian Sutil	Spyker-Ferrari	1:15.217
22	Sakon Yamamoto	Spyker-Ferrari	1:15.487

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	6	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	71	1:28:15.270	3	10
2	5	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	71	+1.493	1	8
3	1	Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Mercedes	71	+57.019	4	6
4	16	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	71	+1:02.848	10	5
5	10	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	71	+1:10.957	7	4
6	9	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	71	+1:11.317	6	3
7	2	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	70	+1 lap	2	2
8	12	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	70	+1 lap	8	1
9	14	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	70	+1 lap	9
10	17	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	70	+1 lap	19
11	11	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	70	+1 lap	15
12	22	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	69	+2 laps	18
13	18	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	69	+2 laps	14
14	23	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	68	+3 laps	20
Ret	20	Adrian Sutil	Spyker-Ferrari	43	Brakes	21
Ret	8	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	40	Engine	11
Ret	4	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	35	Accident	17
Ret	19	Sebastian Vettel	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	34	Hydraulics	13
Ret	7	Jenson Button	Honda	20	Engine	16
Ret	15	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	14	Gearbox	5
Ret	21	Sakon Yamamoto	Spyker-Ferrari	2	Collision	22
Ret	3	Giancarlo Fisichella	Renault	2	Collision	12

Notes

Lap Leaders: Felipe Massa 46 (1–19 & 23–49), Kimi Räikkönen 24 (20–21 & 50–71) & Fernando Alonso 1 (22).
First Race: Kazuki Nakajima
Last Race: Ralf Schumacher, Spyker F1
This was the last race where all cars were using traction control. It will be banned starting from 2008.
On lap 31 while making a pit stop Kazuki Nakajima hit two mechanics, neither were seriously injured.
After the race, the result had been thrown into doubt following an inquiry into the cars of BMW Sauber and Williams. Race stewards investigated alleged irregularities with the cars' fuel. The stewards decided not to penalize the teams based on a lack of conclusive evidence, but the McLaren team appealed against this ruling. The appeal was finally rejected by the FIA on November 16 2007. If the appeal had been successful although it would be unprecedented, the title could have been handed to Lewis Hamilton.
This is Kimi Räikkönen's first victory at Interlagos. He had stood on the top step of the Interlagos podium in the 2003 Brazilian Grand Prix, but he was later deemed to have been runner-up to Giancarlo Fisichella. He was also runner-up in 2004 and 2005, both times to Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya It was later revealed by Ferrari that Massa was ordered to pit 3 laps early to give his team-mate victory for the championship. Massa was praised in Italy for giving up victory to his team-mate for the championship, despite being faster on the day.
This was the first three-way title fight in the final race of the F1 season since the 1986 Australian Grand Prix saw Alain Prost become champion, ahead of Nelson Piquet and Nigel Mansell.
The race gained an average of nine million viewers in the United Kingdom on ITV1, which is the highest for Formula One in seven years. Viewer numbers peaked at 10.4 million in the last 15 minutes.
The weather was up to 37 degrees Celsius.
The track temperature was 63 degrees Celsius.
First and only retirement for Heikki Kovalainen this season, equalling Tiago Monteiro's record of "Most consecutive finishes from start of career" with 16 consecutive finishes.

New railway station for the Grand Prix

On October 17, Companhia Paulista de Trens Metropolitanos (CPTM) began to operate the new station of the Line C, Autódromo, near the circuit. The Line C had been extended to improve the access between the center of São Paulo and southern region of the Greater São Paulo including the circuit. As a result, 7,100 spectators used this new station only on Sunday, October 21, and 18,000 spectators or more from Friday to Sunday.