Awesome new Mercedes-Benz commercial with Nico Rosberg, Michael Schumacher and a pregnant woman.

After Lewis made his first pit stop and they started talking about the Brawns being on a on one stop strategy, I knew, I knew, that Rubens was set to hoist himself up into the top three; possibly even the win. The big question was, would the team pull the dick move of delaying him just a touch in the pits to let Jenson leap frog? Or would Jenson pull a Schumacher and put in a stellar in and out lap to pull the lead? Everything played out. Ruben's gear box (that caught on fire two laps from the finish of the last race) held up and it was his second victory of the year. Bigger yet, the old man has out raced Jenson in the last five races. I don't have big hopes that he's going to catch and pass Jenson for the championship. I'm certain Jenson and the team feel that any wins Rubens can take, mean that Jenson's rivals aren't getting them. It's almost a certainty that this will be Rubinho's last season, so I get crazy stoked that I can watch him go out on a high.

How great was my Sunday? Not as great as his, the old man finally pulled one off! No mistakes, no team orders, everything just aligned perfectly. It more than made up for not having Schumacher in a car.

It came down to the last corner of the last lap. And fittingly, he won the championship by one point where he lost it last year by one point. Cynics won't help being able to believe it was orchestrated. Timo Glock, who'd chosen to stay out on dries when everybody else dove in for wets, clawed up to forth putting Hamilton in sixth behind Vettel. Lewis, not able to put any moves on Vettel in the closing laps appeared to lose the championship to Massa. Massa and Ferrari were celebrating on Massa's victory lap. And then, out of nowhere, on the very last corner of the last lap Glock wobbled on the increasingly wet track letting Vettel and Hamilton by, giving Lewis the fifth place finish he needed to go one point up on Massa. Sadly, it was the most exciting event of the entire race. Another season over. I won't see another race until the baby is born.

This is my favorite race of the year, because Spa (Spa-Francorchamps) is the last of the great old circuits. Monza is still on the calendar, but it's a shadow of its former self. And it's rare that there's a boring race at Spa. And what's not to like about watching cars fly up Eau Rouge? A typical Spa race calls for rain, but because the circuit is so long, and has so many elevation changes, it's not unusual for the circuit to be wet at one end, and bone dry at the other. And that's what we got for 08. Coming into this race Kimi was locked in an internal power struggle for lead driver status because his season has been so dismal. He lost pole to Hamilton, and worse, Massa was lined up 2nd and Kovalainen 3rd. But, the starting grid and first turn were wet while the rest of the track was dry ... everybody was on dry tires and would have to tip-toe off the start. Kimi got a great start, took Kovalainen immediately; reeled in Massa, and pushed him to the edge of the track to get by so ...

I almost squealed like a little girl when I saw Barrichello go to extreme wets and start storming past everybody else that were on intermediates. First unlapping himself, then charging through the field. Honda claims that were it not for a fuel rig problem, he would've been good to go to the end of the race. Which would've netted him second place instead of third. Looked more to me like they pushed him out of the pits early to service Button who was stacked behind him ... Button later beached it. I came close to screaming when I saw them put intermediates back on Barrichello, thinking that his slow ass car would drop back the field like a stone. Surprisingly, he was able to keep the pace. Old man crash, aka David Coulthard, announced he was retiring at the end of the season; fittingly he crashed into somebody, again and took himself out of the race. That will leave Barrichello, if he picks up a contract extension for next year, as the most senior driver in F1. And unlike Coulthard, he seems to still have the concentration and the reflexes to go fast.

It's long. Very long. But, strangely, it's the easiest version to understand that I've read. It does talk down the technical aspects to reach people without previous F1 knowledge, so a lot of the article can be skimmed. The article though, sheds more light on just how deep the rabbit hole went. And it makes Alonso, in my eyes anyway, look even more like a whiny bitch. What's got me scratching my head though about his blackmailing of Dennis to give him favor in the team is: he's rumored to have wanted a Ferrari drive for quite some time, and the rumors of him going there in 2010 are flying right now, so was there an underlying motivation? When it looked like his odds of winning the driver's championship from Lewis were looking grim, did he go make a backdoor deal with Ferrari? 'Dennis won't give me my way, I'm not getting the championship, I won't be at McLaren next year. I'll rat them out, hand you the manufacturer's title, all I ask is a ride in 2010 when Kimi's contract runs out.' If I want to go even more conspiracy theorist, I'd also throw out ...

I wanted this in the highest possible quality, so with my slow server connection this may take awhile to download. Highly suggest just pausing it, letting it download and then watching it. I don't know how they pulled shutting down streets in Manhattan, Rio and Rome to get this commercial shot. Monoco would've been easy during gran prix weekend. And there's no CGI. Video after the jump.

2007 FORMULA 1 Brazilian GPInterlagos 21 Oct Race Results RAIKKONENFerrari1h28m15.270s MASSAFerrari+ 1.493s ALONSOMcLaren+ 57.019s Fastest Lap Räikkönen1m12.445slap 66 Lap Distance 2.667miles/4.2670km Lap Record Juan Pablo Montoya 1m11.473s Race Distance 189.357miles/302.9710km Number of Laps 71 Räikkönen wins the drivers title! Or does he? McLaren declared it's intention to appeal the steward's decision to over look fuel irregularities from the Williams and BMW team. If they were to be disqualified, Hamilton would gain three positions and take the title. How'd he loose it in the first place? Rookie nerves I guess. It started last race in China when he blew his race and again here on lap one turn four, he blew a completely unnecessary outside pass move on Alonso. And then as he was working his way back up, his car suddenly failed and he dropped back to 18th before it came alive again. Massa lead for the first two stints, and then they slipped Räikkönen up front on the third stop. Which put him one point up on both Hamilton and Alonso. The Ferrari's dominated, and Alonso wasn't close to challenging at any point. Strange end to a strange season. We've had three strong drivers fighting for the title all year long, but that was ...

2007 FORMULA 1 Chinese GPShanghai 07 Oct Race Results RAIKKONENFerrari1h37m58.395s ALONSOMcLaren+ 9.806s MASSAFerrari+ 12.891s Fastest Lap Massa1m37.454slap 56 Lap Distance 3.386miles/5.4180km Lap Record Michael Schumacher 1m32.238s Race Distance 189.616miles/303.3860km Number of Laps 56 So it all comes down to Brazil. Hamilton had the chance to put the championship in the bag this weekend, but in a rookie move allowed the team to keep him out on intermediates about 5 laps too many. Not only was he blowing his gap, but then he missed the turn into pit lane and ended up beached in the gravel. Game over. Alonso and Raikkonen took much needed points off his lead and now it's (possibly) a three way battle in Brazil. Kimi's a long shot, but Alonso has a better than fair chance. Which sucks. The guy is such a cry baby that I want to see his season end in humiliation. I still feel he shouldn't have gotten out of the Ferrari spy scandal ... but then if he didn't Hamilton wouldn't have either. China was one of those perfect rain races. Not too wet, but wet for 80% of the race. It's always a great equalizer and it kept everybody bunched up and fighting for position ...

2007 FORMULA 1 Japanese GPFuji 30 Sep Race Results HAMILTONMcLaren2h00m34.579s KOVALAINENRenault+ 8.377s RAIKKONENFerrari+ 9.478s Fastest Lap Hamilton1m28.193slap 27 Lap Distance 2.835miles/4.5360km Lap Record Lewis Hamilton 1m28.193 Race Distance 170.100miles/272.1600km Number of Laps 60 Normally wet races are fun, but this one was crazy. Practice was dry, but quali was soaked. Hamilton pulled out a tenth of a second over Alonso to pip pole. Which turned out to be key because the race started under the safety car due to the torrential downpour. I was apprehensive because the Fuji I'd seen back in the 90's was very tight, very boring. The redesigned circuit is wonderful. Right up there with Spa. The first part of the circuit is very fast and flowing, and then the second half of the circuit is very tight and slow. It was amazing to watch the dry performace during practice. The two big surprises, Alonso crashed out and Kovalainen made it to the podium. Kimi almost made it by him a few times and then just seemed to give it up. I'm not sure, but I think even finishing second to Hamilton puts him so far out of the championship that he wasn't going to push it. It also puts Hamilton comfortably ahead ...

2007 FORMULA 1 Belgian GPSpa-Francorchamps 16 Sep Race Results RAIKKONENFerrari1h20m39.066s MASSAFerrari+ 4.695s ALONSOMcLaren+ 14.343s Fastest Lap Massa1m48.036slap 34 Lap Distance 4.335miles/6.9360km Lap Record Kimi Raikkonen 1m45.108s Race Distance 190.740miles/305.1840km Number of Laps 44 My favorite race was back on the calendar this year. During the off year, they widened the last chicane before start/finish and once the teams examine the film from the race, it's going to be obvious that it's the perfect over taking spot. It doesn't even require any skill; just jam your car in front and it's done. The profile of the corner is such that there's no way to re-overtake if the person passing screws it and out brakes themselves, you're way offline at that point, making it impossible to go back around on the outside. So the person who's just stuffed you motors on their merry way. Both BMW drivers pulled the same move a couple of times. Lap 1 was beautiful to watch. After that I could've quite easily turned it off and read the results the next day. Alonso deliberately shoved Hamilton off the track at turn one. Alonso is turning out to be the biggest whiny bitch of the century (more on that later). He used to complain ...

2007 FORMULA 1 Italian GPMonza 9 Sep Race Results ALONSOMcLaren1h18m37.806s HAMILTONMcLaren+ 6.062s RAIKKONENFerrari+ 27.325s Fastest Lap Räikkönen1m27.295slap 57 Lap Distance 3.588miles/5.7410km Lap Record Ruebens Barrichello 1m21.046s Race Distance 197.340miles/315.7440km Number of Laps 55 Wow, what a disappointment for Ferrari at their home race. McLaren handily out qualified them, and then just pulled away. Massa went out with mechanical problems. Kimi, still suffering from Friday's practice accident, didn't put up much of a fight. On a one stopper, Kimi passed Lewis in the pits, but two laps later he brain farted and Lewis slithered past in turn one. Or maybe he was wise in letting him go, the performance difference at that point between the Ferrari and McLaren was amazing. Luckily my favorite race is next weekend. I'm excited to have it back on the calendar for this year.