Six Formula 1 World Championship remain to know who will be this year’s king of Formula One Racing. Will it back to back World Championship for Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari or will McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton snatch the most coveted crown in car racing or can Felipe Massa outrace Hamilton?
With the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix set at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps, Spa, Belgium this coming 7 September, and the top three formula one racers will try to keep their momentum going to gain crucial much needed points.
Current leader Lewis Hamilton of McLaren has 70 total points, he finished second right behind Felipe Massa of Ferrari of their last race at 2008 Formula 1 Telefonica Grand Prix of Europe. He leads Massa by six points. Ferrari teammates Felipe Massa of Brazil follows closely at second with 64 total points while Kimi Raikkonen of Finland is right behind at third with 57 points. Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen of McLaren round up the fourth and fifth spot with 55 and 43 total points respectively.
Now that Ferrari teammates are at the second and third spot of the 2008 Formula 1 Driver Standings, who will be the favorites to overtake and snatch the lead of McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton coming to the 2008 Belgian Grand Prix.
One expert says that 2007 World Champion Kimi Raikkonen is out of the running for the 2008 Formula One World Championships.
Ferrari legend Niki Lauda believes that 2008 championship is set to be a down-to-the-wire battle of Ferrari versus McLaren. Although Massa has only slight edge in total points over teammate Raikkonen, the Austrian, who won the drivers' championship with the Scuderia in 1975 and 1977 has more trust in Massa rather than Raikkonen going in the 13th race of Formula One Season.
Up until now [the battle] has been [between] Massa and Hamilton because Raikkonen's performance has been going up and down all the time," the 59-year-old said.
"For the moment Massa has the edge over Raikkonen from a driver's point of view." Lauda added that Raikkonen is "clearly not" in the hunt to defend his crown while Massa did a "perfect job" in Hungary until his engine failed.