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Last night, in
the beautiful setting of Sait Halim Pasa,
the former residence of the Egyptian Prince
Abdulhalim, in Istanbul, on the European
banks of the Bosphorus, Scuderia Ferrari
curiously chose to celebrate its 800th Grand
Prix with owners, sponsors and all the media
who turned up for this special event. The
honour of explaining what this celebration
meant to the Maranello marque fell to team
principal Stefano Domenicali. He said that,
irrespective of the result of the 2010
Turkish Grand Prix, today’s race at the
Istanbul Speed Park would have a place in
the Ferrari history book, representing the
Prancing Horse team’s 800th participation in
a Formula 1 World Championship event.
Attending the evening were the Ferrari
drivers, who joined Domenicali on stage, in
a Ferrari 458 Italia, followed by team
members, Technical Director Aldo Costa,
Sporting Director Massimo Rivola, Head of
Engines, Luigi Fraboni, Chief Engineer Chris
Dyer and the coordinator, Diego Ioverno, who
all joined in for the cake cutting ceremony. |
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Celebrating Scuderia Ferrari’s eight hundredth Grand
Prix in glory was always going to be difficult with
Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso starting from eighth
and twelfth places on the grid respectively and so it
proved, as The Brazilian came home seventh and the
Spaniard one place behind his team-mate. The race was
dominated by McLaren, with Lewis Hamilton winning from
Jenson Button, but only after the two leading Red Bulls
of Webber and Vettel collided, forcing the German to
retire and the Australian to move down to third for the
final podium position. Today’s result sees Scuderia
Ferrari lie in third place in the Constructor’s
Championship.In
very high temperatures, the cars formed up on the grid
in a heat haze and when the lights went out, Webber led
from pole, Vettel briefly got ahead of Button, but the
McLaren retook his starting position of second on the
opening lap and then began closing right up to the lead
Red Bull. The two F10s were still in their original
starting positions. Behind the leading three on lap 3,
came Button, Schumacher, Rosberg, Kubica, Massa, Petrov,
Sutil, Kobayashi, Alonso, De La Rosa, Alguersuari,
Liuzzi, Barrichello, Trulli, Kovalainen, Senna, Glock,
Chandock, Di Grassi, Hulkenberg and Buemi last, having
already pitted to change tyres after an opening lap
incident. The gaps around the two Ferraris were fairly
constant in the early stages — Felipe trailing Kubica by
0.7s and Fernando 0.6 behind eleventh placed Kobayashi.
The duel for the lead was still going on, Hamilton only
0.4 behind Webber, with Vettel a further two seconds
down.
Kobayashi was the
first driver to pit to change tyres, coming in on lap 10, thus
promoting Fernando to eleventh, but only briefly as the
Spaniard made his stop next time round. Petrov, Sutil
and De La Rosa all changed tyres on lap 12. Felipe
pitted on lap 13, as did Kubica and Liuzzi. Vettel came
in from third on lap 14, followed by Schumacher and
Alguersuari. The two leaders came in together on lap 15
and left in the same order, with Hamilton not having the
best pit stop and dropping behind Vettel. Button was the
last of the lead group to change tyres on lap 17, which
meant that the newly established order on lap 18 was
Webber, Vettel, with Hamilton trying to make up for his
poor stop, then came Button, Schumacher, Rosberg, Kubica,
with Felipe still in eighth, while the run of pit stops
saw Fernando move up into the points in tenth place.
Both Ferrari men were having lonely races, not
particularly close to the car ahead of them, nor
threatened by anyone behind.
All the excitement was
at the front, as the top three were all within 1.3
seconds, Webber, almost a second ahead of team-mate
Vettel, who had Hamilton breathing down his neck. In
fourth place, Button was just over a second behind the
other McLaren and then came a big 25 second gap to
Schumacher in fifth place, who had his Mercedes
team-mate Rosberg behind him. This had an effect on
Felipe’s race as he trailed Kubica who was stuck behind
the second of the Mercedes: the three of them and Petrov
in the second Renault were in a train, with Alonso 10th
over two seconds down on this group. Lap 28 marked the
halfway distance by which time Fernando had closed the
gap to Petrov to 0.6, as Rosberg continued to slow those
directly behind him.
At the front, the
order was still Webber, Vettel, Hamilton, with Button
not far behind, but at this point, the interest switched
to skies as it seemed there was a strong chance of rain
making its first appearance of the weekend. With 20 laps
remaining, Felipe had dropped back a bit from seventh
placed Kubica, while Fernando was now glued to Petrov’s
gearbox. There was drama on lap 40 at the front, as
Vettel tried to pass Webber, the two Red Bulls collided
and spun off. Vettel retired immediately, but Webber
continued in third place behind Hamilton and Button who
now led for McLaren. This promoted Felipe and Fernando
to seventh and ninth respectively. Webber pitted for a
new nose as a few drops of rain appeared but he still
maintained third spot. With ten laps remaining the
McLaren duo produced a spectacular fight as Button the
2009 world champion got ahead of Hamilton, the 2008
title holder, but it did not last long and the places
were reversed again a bit further on the lap.
Having pursued Petrov
all race long, Fernando finally got past him to move up
to seventh on lap 54. At the flag, the order was
Hamilton, Button, Webber on the podium, followed by
Schumacher, Rosberg, Kubica, Felipe, Fernando, Sutil and
Kobayashi tenth for the final point.
Stefano
Domenicali: “This was
definitely a very poor weekend for us and it’s a
shame we were unable to celebrate our 800th Grand
Prix in a worthy manner. We did not have the
performance level we expected and we were definitely
inferior to the two teams which dominated the
Turkish weekend. We are at the level of the second
group of drivers; those who were fighting throughout
the Grand Prix, all within a few seconds of one
another. But we know what an influence qualifying
has on the final result and yesterday we struggled
even more than usual in this area. This afternoon,
we did what we could: Felipe didn’t make any
mistakes and Fernando managed to make up a few
places with the pit stop and by passing Petrov. Now
we must make a step forward to close the performance
gap: our engineers are capable and ready, as they
have shown so often and I am sure they will be able
to do it again, improving the performance of the
F10. We are entering the crucial phase of the
championship and we have to do everything to tackle
it in the best possible shape.”
Felipe Massa:
“It was a very boring race for me, from start to
finish, but it was also very difficult. I was always
stuck behind Kubica and the two Mercedes, who were
running at a similar pace to me. Very often I
managed to get close, but I never had a real chance
of overtaking Robert. I knew that, starting from
eighth, it would be tough and so it proved. Now we
must stay calm and try and quickly improve the car,
starting with the very next race in Canada. Here we
lacked performance, especially in the fast corners.
The rain? The few drops that fell in the final laps
had no affect on my driving.”
Fernando
Alonso: “It was a case of
damage limitation in what was a very difficult
weekend for us. Our aim in this championship is to
fight with McLaren and Red Bull for the podium,
definitely not with a Renault for eighth place, with
all due respect to my former team. We have to
improve our performance: in Valencia we will have an
important update on the car, which we hope will put
us back to where we should be. I am convinced that
right from Canada things will be better, because the
track characteristics should better suit our car.
The hierarchy in the field can change from race to
race, as we saw in Monaco, where we had the
potential to fight for victory. At the end, I
attacked Petrov and I hope the two points this
brought me could turn out to be useful come the end
of the year: I am sorry he got a puncture that
stopped him finishing in the points, because he
drove a good race. Despite everything, we are still
in a good position to fight for the title. However,
now is the time to react.”
Chris
Dyer: “Given the position
of our two cars on the starting grid, this is an
acceptable result. What is not however, is our
performance level this weekend, given that it
definitely did not match our expectations. Felipe
was always in traffic and never had a chance to
overtake those immediately ahead of him. Fernando
drove a good race, making up a few places thanks to
the strategy and pulling off a nice passing move on
Petrov at the end. When he made contact with the
Russian driver’s Renault, he also damaged a wheel
rim, but luckily he was able to finish the race and
take points that are definitely valuable on a
weekend like this.”
Weather: air
temperature 29/28 °C, track temperature 50/39 °C,
partially cloudy then overcast with a few drops of rain
at the end of the race.
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