|
Felipe Massa
made it to the third step of the podium at the end of
the German Grand Prix this afternoon and his Scuderia
Ferrari team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen finished where he
started in sixth. The race was won by Lewis Hamilton for
McLaren-Mercedes, while Nelson Piquet, having started
from the penultimate row of the grid, brought his
Renault home second thanks to a lucky and clever
strategic break, only making a single pit stop. Hamilton
now leads the Drivers' Championship on 58 points, four
points more than second placed Massa, with Kimi third, a
further three points down. In the Constructors'
classification, Ferrari is still out in front on 105
points, with BMW Sauber second on 89, and
McLaren-Mercedes a further three behind.
The grid formed up in the warmest conditions of the
weekend, with Felipe Massa in second spot on the front
row and Kimi Raikkonen in sixth place on row three. As
the lights went out , Hamilton maintained his pole
advantage for McLaren, while Felipe came under immediate
pressure from the other McLaren of Kovalainen for
several corners. Kubica in the BMW moved up from seventh
to fourth ahead of Trulli in the Toyota and Alonso in
the Renault, which meant that Raikkonen dropped one spot
to seventh. Behind him was the Toro Rosso of Vettel,
with Webber's Red Bull and Glock's Toyota completing the
top ten. Kimi passed Alonso on lap four to go sixth.
By lap 4, Hamilton's lead over Felipe was 3.7 seconds
and the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro driver had a 2.7
advantage over Kovalainen. Kimi was eleven seconds off
the leader. As is often the case, one of the best battle
was lower down the order, as Button (Honda) Coulthard
(Red Bull) and Rosberg (Williams) had a great scrap for
thirteenth spot.
On lap 10 of 67, Hamilton had a 7.0 lead over Felipe,
with Kovalainen 5.2 behind. The order behind the top
trio was Kubica, Trulli, Raikkonen, Alonso, Vettel,
Webber, Glock, Heidfeld, Bourdais, Button, Coulthard,
Rosberg, Barrichello, Nakajima, Piquet, Fisichella,
Sutil.
The leader was the first to pit on lap 18 (9 seconds)
and Kubica also came in from fourth. Trulli and Alonso
came in together next time round, helping the Toyota to
get ahead of the Renault. Felipe now led the race and
Kovalainen by six seconds, until he refuelled on lap 20
(7.9.) Kovalainen came in on 21, along with Vettel. Kimi
came in on lap 22 (8.0.) Webber and Bourdais refuelled
on lap 23.
On lap 25, with all cars still running, the English
McLaren driver led from the Brazilian Ferrari man, the
gap between them 9.4 seconds. In third fourth and fifth,
Glock, Kovalainen and Heidfeld had yet to make a pit
stop, so that Kubica was sixth, 3.4 seconds ahead of
Kimi. But once the late-stoppers refuelled, the Finnish
Ferrari driver found himself fifth ahead of Trulli. The
race had been pretty much incident free, but on lap 36,
Timo Glock had a heavy crash in the Toyota which brought
out the Safety Car. While the accident was going on,
Piquet was refuelling his Renault and this would have a
key effect on the final result.
On lap 38, when the pit lane was declared open, almost
the entire field pitted, with Kimi queuing behind
Felipe. This meant the top three was now Hamilton,
Heidfeld and Piquet as they had yet to make a second
stop. The race went live again for the final 27 laps
with Felipe in fourth and Kimi in eleventh place. Vettel
and Alonso were scrapping eighth which allowed Raikkonen
to get ahead of the Renault to go ninth and then eighth
as he got past Vettel too. The Finn was really flying
now as he slipped past Trulli to take seventh and set
off in pursuit of Kubica. Still having only stopped
once, Hamilton was leading, 10.8 seconds ahead of fourth
placed Felipe. Coulthard and Barrichello collided on lap
49, the Scotsman pitting for a new nose, but the
Brazilian was out. Then Hamilton finally made his second
stop on lap 50, promoting Felipe to third behind new
leader Heidfeld in the BMW and Piquet in the Renault,
both men having only stopped once. Heidfeld came in on
lap 53, moving Felipe up to second, with Hamilton, on
the softer tyres, now 1.4 behind him and catching.
The Ferrari man was not so happy with the way his F2008
was performing, struggling also with the brakes. On lap
57, the Englishman barged past the Brazilian at the
hairpin to retake second and Felipe immediately fought
back at the next corner, but he ran wide, costing him
precious time. Meanwhile with ten laps remaining, race
leader Piquet had still only made one pit stop. On lap
58, Alonso in tenth, spun but continued. By this stage,
it was clear Piquet was not making another stop, but on
lap 60, he was powerless to hold off Hamilton, who moved
into the lead. Felipe was now 3.5 seconds behind his
fellow countryman with seven laps to the flag, but he
had Heidfeld just 0.7 behind. The remaining points
positions went to Kovalainen fifth, Kimi sixth, Kubica
seventh and Vettel eighth.
Nine the number of points picked up by Scuderia Ferrari
Marlboro in the German Grand Prix, thanks to a third
place finish for Felipe Massa and a sixth with Kimi
Raikkonen. After the first ten races of the season,
Felipe finds himself second in the Drivers'
classification, with Kimi third, four and six points
respectively off the leader. The Scuderia continues to
head the Constructors' Championship. Next week, the
F2008 will be on track at Jerez de la Frontera, for four
days of testing: on the first of these, Luca Badoer will
be at the wheel, followed by Kimi (two days) and finally
Felipe.
Stefano Domenicali: "This was not a good day and
there's no point denying it. Our rivals were stronger
than us and we have to work out why, without however
getting caught up in nebulous and superficial analysis.
For the first time this season in a race, we did not
have the pace we had expected to run at, with both Kimi
and Felipe. We suffered constantly from a lack of grip
and, in the final stages, Felipe's brakes were also
overheating which complicated still further the
management of his car. The Safety Car offered us the
opportunity to give it another go and all things
considered, I think we made the right choice in terms of
strategy, but when your pace is inadequate, it is
therefore difficult to get a good result. We have to
work well over the coming days to react in the right
manner to return to the level we were at just two races
ago."
Felipe Massa: "It was a difficult race. Right
from the beginning, Hamilton's pace seemed unbeatable
and I understood that it would be very hard to beat him.
I never had good grip and, in the final stages, I also
had brake problems and was not even able to attack
Piquet, whom I congratulate on the first podium of his
career. We must try and understand why, this weekend, we
have not been a match for our rivals. They have
definitely improved, but I think this was more a case of
us having taken a step backwards. However, we are still
confident: we have the ability to get out of this
situation, right from the next race."
Kimi Raikkonen: "This was definitely not the kind
of race we had been hoping for. We have struggled all
weekend and we have to try and understand why. Usually,
our race pace is always good, but today that was not the
case, because I almost always suffered with a lack of
grip: only in the final stages did the situation improve
a little bit, but it was never enough to be competitive.
We have a test in Jerez, where we will try and improve
the car so as to arrive in Budapest in better shape.
This is definitely not a crisis, but we have to study
carefully the handling of the car to understand if we
have taken the right road in terms of development."
Luca Baldisserri: "This weekend, to be honest, we
were not competitive enough to fight for the win. Again
today, we did not have the speed to go up against our
main rivals. When the Safety Car came out, we opted for
a double pit stop and I think that was the right
decisions. Then in the final stages of the race, Felipe
did not have the right grip level and furthermore, he
had problems with his brakes which first prevented him
from attacking Piquet and then from adequately fighting
off a closing Hamilton. We have to carefully study our
situation to try and understand how to return to being
as quick as we had been up to a short time ago."
F. Massa: 3rd
1:31.30.213 + 9.339 67 laps chassis 269
K. Raikkonen: 6th 1:31.35.357 + 14.483 67laps chassis 270
Weather: air temperature 23/24 °C, track temperature 29 °C,
partially cloudy.
|
