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Russ Bond Motorsport Report: Alonso's Back

I've said it time and time again, want a good formula car race – make it rain.This was the case at Nurburgring this past weekend for the European Grand Prix. Coming in, it looked like it was McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton's championship to lose, which he tried very hard to do. His teammate for the German mark, defending champion Fernando Alonso, has been very much an also-ran recently, and that has hurt his championship bid.

Over at Ferrari, the two drivers, Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa seem to go hot and cold for several rounds at a time. Raikkonen has been hot of late, much to the distaste of former Ferrari man Michael Schumacher, who has tutored Felipe Massa this year. Massa is blindingly quick, but seems to just lack that champion's quality. He seems good at snatching defeat from the hands of victory, and that is what happened to him at Nurburgring.

At the start, in the dry, it was all good for about a lap, and then the rains came. Only Formula 1 rookie Markus Winkelhock – in his first race – had the smarts to come in and switch to intermediate tires before the start

The European Grand Prix at Nurburgring went from dry to wet in the first few laps. (Photo: Ferrari)

– of course being in last place overall made it so starting from the pits meant no loss of position. Then the red flag came after five cars, including Hamilton, ended up in the turn one gravel, one even rubbing up against the crane truck attempting to haul the beached cars out of harm's way. Hamilton, much like Schumacher years ago, kept his car running, and was able to be assisted back onto the track, albeit one lap down, but with the quirky F1 rules,he would be allowed to get his lap back once the pace car came out before the restart.

As the race wore on, Raikkonen was the first of the contenders to disappear when his Ferrari quit. Again, the Finn was forced to watch a race he should have won from the Ferrari garage.

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