Ferrari 1-2, Felipe dominated Turkey weekend.

The summer break is over now begins the push in the final 6 races of the year. In theory the fast flowing track at the Istanbul Park should suite the Ferrari’s in theory. But then not every theory has been proven right...

Coming into qualifying Mclaren drivers Alonso and Hamilton had cleared the air after what is now dubbed “pitlanegate” both insisting they were now friends and have respect for each other. Mclaren however took advantage of the longer pit lane of the Turkish circuit giving there drivers a pit box each for qualifying, Why risk a repeat?

Qualifying.

Q1 Qualifying was a quiet affair compared to the last race. Hamilton had a few tenths over Alonso and both the Ferraris were fast on Friday. In qualifying itself a Good lap from Anthony Davidson put him 9th at the end of Q3 with his team-mate Takuma Sato out in 19th. Sato gained a place however when the Honda of Jenson button dropped from 15th to 22nd and last with an engine change. Ralf Schumacher had a disappointing session being knocked out only managing to set 18th fastest time with a difficult car. So out went from 17th to 22nd Vitantonio Liuzzi, Ralf Schumacher, Takuma Sato, Sebastian Vettel, Adrian Sutil, Sakon Yamamoto.

Q2 Jenson button’s 15th place was little progress for the team and with an engine change dropping him to 22nd the Honda driver must feel like he’s banging his head on the wall. Alex Wurz messed his first run with a moment at the turn 9 cutting the chicane and destroying his lap leaving him 16th. Davidson finished 11th just missing the top 10. Other casualties were both Red Bulls Coulthard and Webber. At the top end Alonso threw a message to his team-mate and the Ferrari’s setting the fastest time in the session with the BMW’s 5th 6th setting identical times. Knocked out this time however was 16th to 11th Anthony Davidson, Mark Webber, David Coulthard, Rubens Barrichello, Jenson Button, Alex Wurz.

Q3 No pit box dramas this time from Mclaren but an odd choice in tyres from Alonso deciding to go for a time on his final run on the harder of the 2 compounds this didn’t work and left him 4th His Team-mate Hamilton was 2nd Just ahead of Kimi Raikkonen who made a small mistake at the last chicane. Taking pole by stealth was Felipe Massa all weekend he had been in the top 6 but had not actually topped a session at the circuit he took his first win at last year. So the starting grid for the race was 1st Massa 2nd Hamilton 3rd Raikkonen 4th Alonso 5th Kubica 6th Heidfeld 7th Kovalainen who again out qualified his team-mate 8th Rosberg 9th Trulli who had easily beaten his team-mate and 10th Renault.

The Race.

Sunday morning began badly for Honda Rubens Barrichello’s engine also needed replacing putting the Honda’s 21st and 22nd on the grid. At the start of the race any driver that was on the dirty side of the grid immediately lost ground at the start. Hamilton dropped behind Raikkonen into p3 even worse for Alonso he went from p4 to p6 behind both Bmw’s the biggest loser of all however was Trulli, A small nudge from Fisichella’s Renault at turn 1 sent the Toyota driver to dead last luckily not being collected by the rest of the field. Massa had managed to make a good start and lead the way.

The Ferrari driver began to try and break away from Raikkonen and Hamilton but Raikkonen managed to stay within a few seconds of his team-mate with Hamilton a 2 seconds further back staying in touch. Alonso who was stuck behind both Heidfeld and Kubica and unable to pass had no choice but to wait until the pit stops. On lap 9 Mark Webbers Red Bull began to run wide on the corners looking completely undriveable he pitted at the end of the lap with hydraulics failure surprisingly though this would be the only retirement of the race. Lap 12 saw Kubica come in for a scheduled pit stop this was surprisingly early as the leaders weren’t expected to pit until the early 20s, It was good news for Alonso however who moved up to p5. At the back of the field Button passed his team mate who he was significantly quicker than Trulli was scraping with Button but was passed by the Honda driver too.

On lap 17 Heidfeld, Rosberg and Coulthard pitted all having smooth stops and rejoining without fuss a lap later and Raikkonen pits followed by Alonso who manages to jump Heidfeld to p4 in the process. Next lap saw Race Leader Massa stop who came out easily in front of Raikkonen but behind the Renault of Kovalainen who had yet to stop. One lap later and Hamilton made his stop and rejoined just behind Raikkonen. Out of the top 3 it was Hamilton who had gained the most time getting the gap to the leader back to 4 seconds. Kovalainen briefly lead the race before he made his stop on lap 21. After the first stops the top 8 was Massa, Raikkonen, Hamilton, Alonso, Heidfeld, Kovalainen, Kubica who was the biggest loser in the first stops and then Rosberg.

Interestingly the Ferrari’s ran with the softer compound with no trouble on the first two stints compared with Mclaren who used the harder tyre instead. It seems the Ferrari is more kind on its tires and therefore could run the softer compound longer than the Mclarens could. Hamilton had an ace up his sleeve however. He had gone an extra 2 laps in the first stint and had taken on more fuel for the second. If he could jut keep in touch with the Ferrari’s then maybe he could at least get second off Raikkonen only time would tell. Alonso was 15 seconds behind Hamilton and interestingly the team were showing Alonso his pit board with the gap to Hamilton each lap not the leaders. They had also done this when he was behind the Bmw’s perhaps trying to point out his championship nemesis was ahead of him. By lap 30 Massa had got his head down and was pulling away from Raikkonen by a tenth or so each lap... Hamilton was struggling to stay in touch. The gaps gradually began to grow until a few laps before the second round of stops when Raikkonen decided tat it was now the time to push and closed right on the back of Massa who was lapping the slower cars. Over the next few laps Raikkonen would duck dive and try his best to pass the other Ferrari, causing Massa to lock up in places. The days of the undisputed No.1 driver in the Schumacher years were long gone at Ferrari. Raikkonen failed to pass the Brazilian and pitted on lap 41 as did Heidfeld. Raikkonen stopped in his pit box a bit short of the mark causing the mechanics to shuffle back slightly, the Ferrari mechanics still managed to get him out quickly though but Massa too had a quick stop the following lap and Maintained the lead when he got back on track. The question now was how far could Hamilton go? In truth we won’t actually know as one lap later on his 43rd tour the right front tire punctured whilst he was breaking into turn 9 blowing any chance of moving up and instead endangering his chances of any points at all. Hamilton limped around the final part of the lap with the flat Bridgestone. A large part of the rubber had come away from the main part of the tyre and was flaying round threatening to smash off his front wing or his suspension or any of the small parts of aero that make a complex F1 car today. There was almost a hint of deja vu as Hamilton struggled into the pit as Alonso was in the pit box having his scheduled stop. Alonso didn’t hang around this time and sped off as Lewis came into the box. The Mclaren mechanics did a god job doing both stops quickly one after the other. It seemed that Hamilton’s car had suffered some damage to the barge board and a few of the front wing endplates were missing but no major suspension damage luckily for him. He rejoined 5th and would stay there until the flag. On the penultimate lap Raikkonen who has dropped 5 seconds behind Massa set the fastest lap of the race with a 1m 27.295 second lap But it was too little too late as Massa won repeating his first win the previous year at the circuit Raikkonen 2nd Alonso 3rd Heidfeld 4th Hamilton 5th Kovalainen 6th Rosberg a strong 7th and Kubica 8th after poor pit strategy that didn’t pay off.

Race Bits

• Spyker are a B (spec) minus.
  Hungary was meant to mark the last race for the current Spyker chassis and the Turkish race was meant to see the new b spec car which featured new wings suspension and a whole new rear end of the car. Unfortunately it turned out that the new back end of the car wasn’t strong enough failing the FIA impact test in the 3 week break meaning no new car this weekend. The team hope to have the problem sorted and we should see the new car at the next race in Monza.



• Great job lads now repeat 5 more times.
  Ferrari had a strong and problem free weekend to score its 2nd 1-2 of the season. Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo giving the Ferrari workers a sterling speech, "We can win all the remaining races, because we have the capacity to do it," He went on to say "The team has to believe in it." So far so good then but the team has to do this if it is to win the world titles. It cannot afford any more mistakes.
  
  
• Super Aguri drivers 1st corner race wrecker.
  After a strong qualifying for Anthony Davidson in 11th he had hoped for a top 10 finish but this seemed to end before the second corner after Trulli’s spun Toyota got in the way. "It was a good start, but then I got sandwiched going into Turn One between Coulthard and Fisichella. Fisichella and Trulli touched, Trulli spun and I had to go on the outside of him off the track and when I rejoined I touched another car and damaged my front end, which definitely affected the balance of my car Takuma Sato also blamed turn 1, “It was a tough race. I did not have a very good start off the line, but I held my position. I was optimistic that I would be able to gain some positions in the back of the queue into Turn One, but just in front of me one of the Toyota cars spun and completely blocked my line. I had to brake really hard and to avoid him I had to go round the outside and I lost many places.” Fair enough Takuma but how many places can you lose from starting 19th on the grid?



• Bmw drivers confirmed Renault not so sure however.
  During the summer break Bmw announced it was staying with its driver line up of Kubica and Heifeld for 2008 being pleased with there form this season. With 3rd place looking a certainty this season with 77 points to 4th placed Renaults 36 whose driver line up is still not confirmed. Rumors persist that Alonso may rejoin the team being reportedly unhappy at McLaren. Kovalainen put in another good performance this weekend beating his more experienced team mate Fisichella who must be starting to feel a bit uneasy about his 08 prospects if he loses to Kovalainen again. Renault team principle Flavio Briatore is expected to make some sort of announcement at Monza.

Next stop is Monza the fastest circuit on the calendar. The teams will all be running one off low down force aero kits as there is now no other circuits that is the same type of configuration. If one of the top two teams gets it wrong it could have a big effect on the championship table. Stay tuned...

Champ of the race: Massa. Bounced back from a poor Hungarian race to take the pole and win.

Chump of the race: “Clear the air meetings” This is what both apparently Hamilton and Alonso attended to sort things out. Well see how good these meeting workout next time there neck and neck on the race circuit...