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Felipe Massa
secured Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's fourth win from five
races this season, his second this year, to take a
hat-trick of Turkish Grand Prix victories. Starting from
fourth on the grid, Kimi Raikkonen also put in a strong
drive to come home third, joining his team-mate and
second placed Lewis Hamilton on the podium. With the
quarter point of the season now passed, the numbers tell
the story: Ferrari heads the Constructors' table on 63
points, nineteen points ahead of BMW Sauber, Kimi is
still up at the top of the Drivers' classification on
35, with Felipe now moving up to second, seven points
behind the Finn.
The grid formed up in untypical chilly conditions for
Turkey, with an ambient temperature of just 17 degrees
and keeping tyres warm was made even harder as the
Safety Car came out immediately after the start because
of a collision between Fisichella and Nakajima. Massa
got a perfect start from pole, with Lewis Hamilton
charging into second place from third ahead of Kubica
who got ahead of Kovalainen who made a bad start from
second place. The Finnish McLaren driver pitted as soon
as the race restarted on lap 2 for a change of tyres.
Raikkonen found his path blocked off the line and had
dropped two places to sixth, moving up to fifth after
the McLaren had pitted. So the order on lap 3 was: Massa,
Hamilton, Kubica, Raikkonen, Alonso, Webber, Heidfeld,
Rosberg, Coulthard, Trulli, Button, Barrichello, Glock,
Bourdais, Piquet, Vettel, Sutil and Kovalainen, 18th and
last.
Out in front, Massa was having to push hard, as second
placed Hamilton was only 1.4 seconds behind on lap 7 and
only 1.1 five laps later. Why was the McLaren so fast?
All would be revealed later! Kubica's BMW was a further
5.3 behind, while Raikkonen was 1.1 down on the Polish
driver, with a comfortable 2.1 seconds in hand over
Alonso's Renault. The fight for first place was turning
into a fascinating duel, as the McLaren man seemed to
always have a slight advantage in the first two sectors
of the track, but the Ferrari had the edge in the third
and final part of the lap.
Alonso was the first driver to make a planned pit stop
bringing his Renault in on lap 15 and next time round,
Hamilton came in for a 6.4 stop, which took the pressure
off Massa, who came in for an 8.2 second stop on lap 19,
as did Kubica in the BMW. But a Ferrari still led, as
these stops promoted Raikkonen to first place, the Finn
immediately setting a fastest lap with a clear track
ahead of him. Next time round, he made his first stop,
stationary for 8.6 seconds. Heidfeld who had been up to
second in the BMW, also refuelled on this lap. Massa was
leading again, but not for long, as Hamilton tried a
very brave move running down to the hairpin to pass the
Ferrari man on lap 24. This meant the two F2008 were
running in convoy, as Raikkonen was third, 9.3 behind
his team-mate and 4.1 ahead of Kubica.
With 28 laps of 58 remaining, the lead McLaren now
headed Felipe by 6.3 seconds lapping almost a second
quicker than the Brazilian, while Kimi was now running a
solitary race behind Massa with a 4.8 second lead over
Kubica. In the remaining points positions, were Heidfeld
fifth, then Alonso, Webber and Button who pitted the
Honda on lap 31.
On lap 32, Hamilton made his second stop, thus handing
the lead back to the Ferrari duo. The TV caption
indicated the McLaren driver had enough fuel to get to
the flag. Was this right? Wait and see! Sometimes the
best battles are not at the front and that was the case
in Istanbul, as in the middle order, there were two
fantastic fights for eleventh place between Button and
Piquet and for thirteenth between Kovalainen and Glock.
Massa made his final 7.3 second stop on lap 40, with
fourth placed Kubica also pitting on the same lap.
Hamilton was now the McLaren meat in a Ferrari sandwich,
as Raikkonen inherited the lead when Massa rejoined in
third place, with the Englishman back in the lead when
Kimi made his second and final stop for 7.1 seconds on
lap 43. This meant that with 14 laps to go, Hamilton
looked set for a relatively secure sprint to the flag as
he led Felipe by 14.4s, with Kimi a further 7.1 behind.
But things are not always what they seem and the pace of
the McLaren now became clear as Hamilton came in for a
third stop on lap 45, which promoted Massa to the number
one position yet again. McLaren had in fact opted to put
their English driver on a three stop strategy, which is
why, on lighter fuel loads, he appeared to be quicker
than the Ferraris. With eight laps remaining, the Finn
had closed to within 0.7 seconds of Hamilton, but it was
clear that he would not get past and Kimi made sure of a
good third place. Off the podium but in the points were
Robert Kubica, fourth and Nick Heidfeld fifth for BMW
Sauber, Fernando Alonso sixth for Renault, Mark Webber
seventh for Red Bull Renault and Nico Rosberg eighth for
Williams Toyota.
The next round of the championship takes place at the
most glamorous venue on the calendar in Monaco, where
driver confidence and good team spirit play a key role -
what better way to go there than leading both
championships. It was victory number 205 from 763 Grand
Prix starts for Ferrari, and the seventh from 93 starts
for Felipe.
Stefano Domenicali: "We are very happy with this
result, but we know it was a tough one to get. Felipe
drove a great race and made the most of yesterday's pole
position, but given what happened at the start, Kimi's
result in managing to get onto the podium, could have
been a lot worse. It was yet another example of the fact
that, in this sport, it takes very little for the
pendulum to swing one way or the other. We wanted to
continue down this winning path which started as a
reaction to the heavy hit we took in Melbourne and we
have managed it. We hope this is a nice wedding present
for Clementina, the daughter of our President, Luca di
Montezemolo! These sixteen points are the result of the
work from the whole team at all levels and that is why
we chose Francesco Uguzzoni, the head mechanic to go on
the podium and pick up the winning team trophy. Now we
have to prepare maybe even more carefully for the next
rounds: at Monaco and Canada last year, we suffered a
lot and we will have to do our best in preparing for
these races, both in the test session at Paul Ricard,
from next Wednesday to Friday and in analyzing the data
back in Maranello."
Felipe Massa: "Its fantastic to have got the hat
trick here in Istanbul: it might really almost be worth
asking for a Turkish passport! It was a very tough race
but the team work magnificently, giving me a great car.
When Hamilton came underneath me at an incredible pace,
I preferred not to take too many risks: the pit wall
informed he that he was cleary running a lighter fuel
load even if we were not certain he was on a three stop
strategy. When that became clear, we were calmer,
knowing we had everything in place to go for the win. My
engineer, Rob, guided my pace and I drove in such a way
as to keep ahead of Lewis. Maybe the hard tyres worked
better today, but from what we saw over the weekend, the
softs were more competitive and in any case, the
difference was not that great. I want to dedicate this
win to two people: to my mother on Mothers Day and to
Stefano Domenicali whose birthday it is today."
Kimi Raikkonen: "It was a difficult weekend for
me but six points are definitely better than nothing. At
the start, I was almost alongside Heikki but then he
slowed and I had to brake too to avoid a heavy crash. We
touched just enough to damage the end plate of the front
wing on my car: it was not a very serious problem, but
it definitely didn't help my race. My first set of soft
tyres worked very well, but the second was not as good:
for the rears, maybe it would have been better to switch
immediately to the harder, but that's easy to say with
hindsight. After a less than great qualifying yesterday,
we knew the race would be an uphill struggle. Now we
must ensure we are as well prepared as possible for the
Monaco Grand Prix, where we struggled in 2007. This
winter we worked a lot on the car to concentrate on
those shortcomings which we saw at tracks like this. Now
we will see if we did enough to be competitive."
Luca Baldisserri: "All in all, a really good
result. We had the potential to get a one-two, but after
what happened at the start, we could have ended up with
one car outside the points. The choice of when to use
which tyre was based on data gathered in free practice
and on past experience at this track, as well as a
logical prediction of how the track surface would
evolve. With hindsight, it is easy to say that we could
have gone for a different choice. The team worked well
and the cars ran trouble free, which included amongst
other things, successfully completing the useage cycle
of four races for the gearbox: for this and for their
usual technical contribution I would like to thank Shell
especially. Now we can expect two tricky races, where
last year we were not competitive enough to win. We have
worked a lot to remedy the problems which we had there
and now we will find out if we have worked in the right
direction."
Race
Details: F. Massa: 1st 1:26.49.541 58 laps chassis 267;
K. Raikkonen: 3rd 1:26.53.722 + 4.271 58 laps chassis
270; Weather: air temperature 20 °C, track temperature
28/29 °C, partially cloudy then sunny.
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