2007 Formula One World Championship

The 2007 FIA Formula One World Championship was the 61st season of FIA Formula One motor racing. It began on 18 March and ended on 21 October after seventeen events. The Drivers' Championship was won by Ferrari driver Kimi Räikkönen by one point at the final race of the season , making him the third Finnish driver to take the title. An appeal by McLaren regarding the legality of some cars in the final race could have altered the championship standings, [ 1 ] but on 16 November, the appeal was r...

A major talking point of the season had been an espionage controversy involving Ferrari and McLaren , which led to McLaren being excluded from the Constructors' Championship. As a result, Ferrari clinched the championship at the Belgian Grand Prix . [ 3 ] Defending double Constructors' Champions Renault proved to be uncompetitive with their R27 car taking them to third in the constructors' standings (after McLaren's exclusion) and ended up win-less for the first time since the 2002 season. [ 4 ]...

The 2007 season heralded the end of the existing Concorde Agreement between the existing Formula One constructors and Bernie Ecclestone . In particular, Mercedes-Benz , BMW , and Honda (collectively the Grand Prix Manufacturers' Association ) had a number of outstanding disagreements with the FIA and Ecclestone on financial and technical grounds. They had threatened to boycott Formula One from the 2008 season onwards and instead stage their own rival series, before signing a memorandum of unders...

2007 also marked the seventh and final season, since its reintroduction in 2001 , in which the use of traction control was permitted in Formula One . Standardised electronic control units (ECUs) were mandated by the FIA from the 2008 season onwards, which prohibited teams from using this kind of technology . [ 6 ] [ 7 ] The season also saw the debuts of future world champions Lewis Hamilton and Sebastian Vettel .

Honda ran with an "Earth livery" on their RA107 car. It was the first time since 1968 , the year in which sponsorship in the sport became widespread, [ 8 ] that a team ran sponsor-free for an entire season. Michelin 's withdrawal from F1 at the end of 2006 meant that Bridgestone was the sole tyre supplier for 2007.

Three constructors entered free practice only drivers over the course of the season: Sebastian Vettel for BMW Sauber at the opening two rounds, Christian Klien for Honda at the British Grand Prix and Kazuki Nakajima for Williams at five Grands Prix.

The 2005 and 2006 World Champion Fernando Alonso switched to McLaren after five years at Renault . Following the retirement of Michael Schumacher and Jacques Villeneuve , Alonso was the only driver on the grid in this season who had previously won a drivers' championship.

Juan Pablo Montoya , who was a McLaren driver until the aftermath of the 2006 United States Grand Prix moved to the NASCAR Cup Series for 2007, effectively ending his Formula One career, as announced on 9 July 2006.

On 2 August 2006, Williams announced that test and reserve driver Alexander Wurz would step up to a race seat for 2007, replacing Australian Mark Webber . On 7 August 2006, Red Bull Racing announced their 2007 driver line-up of David Coulthard and Mark Webber , displacing Christian Klien . On 7 August 2006, BMW Sauber announced that Jacques Villeneuve 's contract had been terminated immediately and for the rest of the season would be replaced by test driver Robert Kubica . Kubica was later annou...

On 6 September 2006, Renault confirmed Heikki Kovalainen as the team's replacement for Fernando Alonso . On 10 September 2006, Scuderia Ferrari announced Kimi Räikkönen to replace for the retiring Michael Schumacher .

On 15 November 2006, Super Aguri confirmed Anthony Davidson as Sakon Yamamoto 's replacement. On 24 November 2006, McLaren confirmed Lewis Hamilton , their junior program driver who won the GP2 Series title that year as their second driver.

Ferrari technical director, Ross Brawn , was to take a sabbatical year for 2007, after ten seasons at the Italian team since 1997. However, it was later announced that he would leave the team. [ 16 ] In 2008 , Ross Brawn became Team Principal of the Honda team.

McLaren signed a title sponsorship deal with the telecommunications company Vodafone late in 2005. With the loss of Vodafone , Scuderia Ferrari began a sponsorship deal with Alice, a brand of Telecom Italia .

Mild Seven confirmed that they would not renew their contract with Renault following its conclusion at the end of 2006 due to current European tobacco laws. [ 17 ]

British American Tobacco 's Lucky Strike and 555 brands ceased to sponsor the Honda team, following which the team ran a sponsorless livery in 2007.

Williams changed their engines from Cosworth to Toyota in a three-year deal until 2009. Contrary to speculation at the time, the engines were not rebadged as Lexus. [ 18 ]

On 30 September 2006, Cosworth announced that they would temporarily withdraw from Formula One as an engine supplier, citing lack of room for supplying engines for private teams after Williams switched to Toyota engines and Spyker opted for Ferrari engines from 2007 season onwards and thus for the first time since 1962 a Formula One season did not feature Cosworth-powered cars. [ 28 ] However the company would return to the sport from 2010 season onwards. [ 29 ]

For the first time in nearly half a century, no German Grand Prix was held as a result of the circuits previously hosting a Grand Prix in Germany beginning to alternate in organizing the German Grand Prix. However, the promoter for the Hockenheim race controlled the rights to the descriptor " German Grand Prix " and an agreement could not be reached between them and the Nürburgring circuits for the naming rights. The Nürburgring event therefore retained its usual European Grand Prix title. [ 34...

After twenty years of being hosted at the Honda -owned Suzuka Circuit since 1987, the Japanese Grand Prix moved to Toyota 's rebuilt Fuji Speedway , a circuit that F1 had not raced at since 1977 .

The Belgian Grand Prix at Spa-Francorchamps returned after a one-year absence in 2006 due to track maintenance.

For the first time since 1975 , no country hosted more than one Grand Prix.

Felipe Massa topped the times on the first two days of testing. Massa's testing partner, Luca Badoer , took the fastest time on the third day, although interest was on the fact that double World Champion Mika Häkkinen joined Hamilton and de la Rosa at McLaren for a one-off test, although the Finnish driver was over three seconds slower than Badoer's time, completing 79 laps of the Spanish circuit.

The other big story of 2007 was the return to a single tyre supplier ( Bridgestone ). It was perceived that this accounted for some of the reason why Ferrari led the early tests, although it was claimed by Bridgestone that the 2007 tyre is of a completely new build, thus minimising any real benefit for the 2006 Bridgestone teams ( Ferrari , Toyota , Williams , Midland / Spyker and Super Aguri ).

Toyota was the only team out for the fourth day of testing at Barcelona, as the Japanese works team chose to miss the first day of testing. Both Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli 's fastest laps were quicker than Massa and Badoer's times during the previous three sessions. Testing resumed on 6 December at Jerez , with the majority of teams attending the session. Both Ferraris of Massa and Badoer were first and second fastest, with McLaren's Lewis Hamilton making up the top three in third. Hamilto...

Japanese works teams Honda and Toyota topped the times for the next two days of testing: Honda's Rubens Barrichello and Toyota's Franck Montagny were fastest, although Toyota had the Jerez track to themselves when Montagny took the fastest time. Heikki Kovalainen and Pedro de la Rosa took the fastest times on the fourth and fifth day of testing at Jerez. Also of note, on the last day of testing Fernando Alonso made his McLaren testing debut after an agreement with manager Flavio Briatore . This ...

The season started at Albert Park in Australia on 18 March. Kimi Räikkönen led the whole race, and became the fourth driver to win on their debut for Ferrari. Fernando Alonso came second and debutant Lewis Hamilton finished 3rd. Felipe Massa took his first pole of the season in Malaysia but Alonso won his first race with McLaren while Hamilton finished second. Massa led the entire race to win in both Bahrain and Spain , and in both races Hamilton finished second, becoming the first rookie to fin...

The Canadian GP included four safety car periods and one of the biggest crashes of Formula One in that era. [ 52 ] The race started off with the second all-McLaren front row with Hamilton taking his first pole position followed by Alonso. Alonso made a mistake in turn 1, losing several places while Hamilton was opening a gap between himself and Nick Heidfeld. On lap 22 the first safety car period began after Adrian Sutil hit the concrete wall. The safety car went into the pits on lap 28 but befo...

In Britain Hamilton took his third pole position, going on to finish a distant third behind winner Kimi Räikkönen and Fernando Alonso. Europe (Germany) would see Hamilton's run of nine consecutive podiums come to an end. After a large crash in qualifying he started in 10th in the race. On lap 4 he aquaplaned off the circuit in a torrential rainstorm but the race was stopped. He restarted after his car was pulled out of the gravel but after taking a gamble to change early to dry tyres on a drying...

After a qualifying incident between Alonso and Hamilton in which Alonso prevented Hamilton from completing his final flying lap, Alonso was demoted to 6th on the grid at the Hungarian Grand Prix while McLaren was made ineligible for points for the constructors' championship for that race. Hamilton then took victory with Räikkönen coming second. In Turkey Felipe Massa took a dominant victory followed by Räikkönen and Alonso. Hamilton finished fifth after he suffered a tyre failure while running i...

The Japanese Grand Prix moved to Fuji Speedway . The event was marked by treacherous weather and was started behind the safety car. Lewis Hamilton survived a brush with Robert Kubica to win from Heikki Kovalainen and Kimi Räikkönen. At the last three corners Kubica and Felipe Massa ran side by side in a battle for 6th, while Fernando Alonso aquaplaned and crashed on lap 41 of 67. In China, Hamilton won his 6th pole of the season and led up to lap 28 when he was overtaken by Räikkönen and he then...

Points were awarded to the top eight classified finishers using the following structure: [ 56 ]