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Scuderia Ferrari finished this afternoon's Turkish Grand Prix
with a sixth place finish and three points for Felipe
Massa and a ninth place and no points for Kimi Raikkonen. The
team remains fourth in the Constructors’
championship, 12.5 points adrift of Toyota. An
incident packed opening lap is what upset the
race for the two Ferrari drivers, followed by a
race pace that was far from optimum. The race
was won by Jenson Button, who has now been
victorious in sixth out of seven races. It
looked for a while as though the Red Bull cars
might challenge him, but an early mistake from Vettel saw the German end up third, behind his
team-mate Mark Webber.
Race day was the
hottest of the whole weekend, with air temperature over 30
degrees as the cars lined up on the grid, with Kimi
Raikkonen and Felipe Massa in sixth and seventh places on
the grid for Scuderia Ferrari.
As the lights
went out, Vettel led from pole, chased by Button, while
Barrichello, third on the grid, dropped all the way down to
13th. Trulli passed Webber to go third, but on the opening
lap, Vettel ran wide at Turn 9, so that Button led, as
Webber went back past Trulli. Felipe started well, moving up
to fifth, but as he lined up to pass Trulli at the end of
the straight, Rosberg got by him. As for Kimi, after Alonso
got past him, the F60 front wing was damaged as it touched
the back of the Renault and that allowed Kubica to steal by
too. Barrichello was fighting hard, scrapping with
Kovalainen, but spun on lap 8, dropping back again. On lap
10, the order was much the same, with Felipe trailing the
leader by 16.9s and Kimi was 23.3 off the lead Brawn.
Barrichello was still causing most of the excitement,
damaging his front wing while trying to pass Sutil, so he
pitted for a new nose. Alonso was the first to make a
scheduled stop coming in on lap 14 from seventh place,
moving Kimi up one. One lap later and Vettel, evidently on a
three stop strategy, pitted from second and rejoining sixth,
as Felipe moved up, before making his own stop along with
Button on lap 18. Webber, Rosberg and Raikkonen all pitted
next time round, so that Button was back in the lead. Felipe
was now eighth, while Kimi was passed by Hamilton dropping
to 14th.
Lap 31 and
Felipe was back up to sixth, but Kimi was still thirteenth.
Ten laps later and Felipe had gone up to fifth with Kimi
having moved up to tenth with the run of pit stops, with a
mix of one, two and three stops being used today. Lap 43 saw
Felipe make his final stop, fitting the softer tyres for the
remaining 15 laps to the flag. As for the leaders, Vettel in
second was putting Button under real pressure, except that
the German had an extra stop to make.
On lap 48, Glock
pitted from sixth, while Vettel came in on lap 49, rejoining
third, behind Button and Webber. With eight laps to go,
Felipe was 51 seconds behind the leader, in sixth spot,
while Kimi was now over a minute behind and the order
remained unchanged to the flag. Behind the podium trio, the
rest of the points went to fourth placed Trulli, Rosberg,
Massa, Kubica, and Glock.
Stefano Domenicali:
“We definitely expected more from this
weekend, especially given what we had
seen up to the end of Saturday morning,
when our level of competitiveness was
pretty good. We have to understand why
the performance of our car evolved in a
negative fashion over the course of the
three days: the race pace we saw this
afternoon was not only not up to the
level of the best but it was also not as
good as many of the others. We must
continue to work on the development of
the car to try and make up ground, by
continuing to stay focused and without
getting discouraged by this setback.”
Kimi Raikkonen:
“It was definitely not the race we were
expecting or the one we wanted. The
first lap was decisive for me: I lost
valuable places and then it wasn’t
possible to get them back because today
we weren’t quick enough. Over recent
weeks, we have improved our performance
a lot, but we are not yet at the level
of the best, especially at tracks like
this one. It is never easy to catch up,
because in the meantime, the others are
not exactly stopping their own
development. We must not be negative
about this after a weekend like this
one, but we should continue to
concentrate and to push: I am sure we
can soon return to fighting for the top
places. It won’t be easy but I have
confidence in this team.”
Felipe Massa: “A
very difficult day for us. We have to
accept the fact that sixth place was the
best we could do, because we were not
quick enough to fight against those in
front of us. We must continue to push on
the car development front to make up for
what we lack in terms of performance,
starting with the race at Silverstone.
From Friday it was complicated to find a
way to make the tyres work well: for
example, today the softs seemed to go
better than on previous days, but using
them right from the start would have
been a risk because the degradation, up
to yesterday seemed to be pretty
significant.”
Chris Dyer: “We
are very disappointed because we
expected to be in the fight for better
places. We have to really understand why
we lost so much speed from one day to
another. Today we weren’t competitive,
not just up against Brawn GP and Red
Bull but also when compared with Toyota
and Williams. On top of that, the way
the first lap went cost us dear: it’s
not by chance that the classification of
our cars at the end of lap 1 was the
same as they passed the chequered flag.”
Race Details F. Massa: 6th 1:27.04.844 + 39.996,
58 Laps, Chassis 276
K. Raikkonen: 9th 1:27.15.094 +
50.246, 58 Laps, Chassis 279
Weather: air temperature 31/30 °C, track temperature 50/47
°C, sunny
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