Silverstone, 8th July 2007

Kimi Raikkonen defeated the home McLaren Mercedes team in front of a partisan crowd at Silverstone on Sunday to maintain the gap in the World Championship between Ferrari and McLaren, but for him to close on drivers Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton, who finished second and third. All three drivers led at varying stages of the race, but it was Raikkonen who emerged first after the second round of tyre stops. Unfortunately, teammate Felipe Massa stalled at the first start and had to join from the pit lane, but stormed through the field to finish fifth.

It was sunny and warm as the field drew up on the grid, but suddenly a yellow flag fluttered above Massa's fourth placed Ferrari, sending the field off on a second parade lap while Massa's car was pushed into the pit lane to join that of Sato starting in the pit lane.



At the start, now for 59 laps, poleman Hamilton took off into the lead from Raikkonen in second and then Alonso third. Robert Kubica inherited Massa's fourth place, with Heikki Kovalainen and Giancarlo Fisichella in the Renaults and Nick Heidfeld next ahead of Ralf Schumacher who lost two places.

Raikkonen shadowed Hamilton every inch of the way in the first stint, even coming close to overtaking him on lap 14. Alonso wasn't far behind, usually less than two seconds further back, but these three were in a class of their own. Kubica steadily fell back, so that he was seven seconds behind after 15 laps. He, in turn, was around five seconds ahead of the Renaults, who had changed places on lap 12, before Heidfeld and Schumacher. Massa was already up to ninth.

The first round of stops began on lap 15, with Kovalainen pitting first, then an over-eager Hamilton and Kubica on lap 16, Raikkonen on lap 18 and then Heidfeld on lap 19, followed a lap later by Alonso and Massa.

Alonso's short stop saw him emerge in the lead from Raikkonen, with Hamilton now back in third place after he anticipated the raising of the lollilop. The English driver now suffered from poor balance on his second set of tyres, and in the next stint, to just after half distance, his gap to Raikkonen opened up from 2.6s to 15s.

Raikkonen, meanwhile, also lost a little time to Alonso, the gap opening up from 2.4s to 5.5s, but Alonso knew that it was not enough to take the lead at the next round of pit stops. After taking on slightly less fuel than his rivals, he pitted again on lap 37, the first of the leaders to come in. Hamilton came in a lap later, but it wasn't until lap 43 that Raikkonen pitted, and the extra laps saw him emerge in the lead on lap 14, with a margin of 3.2s to Alonso in second place. Hamilton was now over 20s behind in third.

This was the order the leaders held to the flag, although Raikkonen's 6.6s lead shrunk to 2.459s in the last couple of laps. Hamilton was 34s further back, but the big battle was between Kubica in fourth place and Massa in fifth. The Brazilian had carved his way through the field, and during pit stops had been as high as second. However, at his final stop on lap 45, he emerged behind the Polish BMW Sauber driver, and try as he might during the remaining 14 laps, he was unable to overtake and finished a close fifth.

In the Constructors' series, both teams scored 14 pts, so the margin of 25 points between them remains the same. But in the Drivers' series, Raikkonen has moved one point ahead of teammate Massa into third place in the championship, now six points behind Alonso, while Hamilton's lead over his teammate is now 12 points.