F1-Blog

Massa makes the top step

A good afternoon's racing for another first time winner, Filipe Massa.

"It's like a dream come true," he said. "I've worked so hard during my career for this moment. It's amazing. Looking back to everything I'd done in my life to get here, there are lots of emotions.

"I did a very good start and had a very good first lap. The car was well balanced during whole race.

"Every single part of the race the car was responding in a fantastic way and I could just keep the gap and not drive too aggressive."

The surprise however is not that Massa won, but how Michael Schumacher made a mistake and ended up third.

The problems started for Schumi Saturday in qualifying, he made a mistake on his first flying lap at the first corner, and had to put a banker lap in on his second and last run, forcing him to start behind the Brazilian.

This was then impacted early on in the race when a safety car was brought out when Tonio Liuzzi spun at corner 1, the teams all decided to pit, with the two Ferrari's lining up behind each other, this allowed Alonso to get out ahead of the seven times world champion.

The start of the race was an untidy affair as well, with Giancarlo Fisichella spining so to avoid Alonso at the first corner, and in the process taking out some of the field, Heidfeld and Fisi needed new nose cones, and Kimi Raikkonen was forced to retire after the incident due to damage caused to the car after a rear tyre deflated.

Alonso managed to gain enough space behind him to Schumacher, this allowed him to  come out ahead of the Ferrari after the pit stops, even though the Ferrari was carrying more fuel and ran longer, it was however close, and Michael was now right on the tail of the Spaniard.

Schumacher tried all he could to overtake the Renault, that seemed to be struggling in the slow corners with blistered rear tyres, however critically, Michael's aero package through the mighty turn 8 has not been good all weekend, and today was no different, all the time he made up in the first part of the lap, was lost in that one section of corners, and Michael could then not get close enough to Alonso to put a move on him.

Whilst this was going on, Filipe was holding his distance in front of the dueling pair, just in case his team leader managed to overtake Alonso, as if he did then there would obviously be some form of issue with his car that allowed Michael to overtake.

Luckily for him though, the Renault ace drove a great final few laps, holding of the Ferrari allowing Massa to take his first win.

Jenson drove what he described as a 'boring' race finishing fourth, the car just not pacey enough to keep up with the Renault and Ferrari's, Pedro de la Rossa finished in a great fifth place, after battling hard all race.

One of the best drives though was Giancarlo Fisichella, clawing back from the rear of the back to finish in 6th, with the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher coming in seventh, and Barrichelo finishing in the last points place.

The result gives Alonso the edge on the championship. He is now 12 point's ahead of Michael, with four races remaining.

It's going to be a great end to the season, especially with the next race at Ferrari's home track, and Ferrari announcing next years line-up.

It's going to be a cracking end to the season.

1. Felipe Massa Brazil Ferrari 58 1h28m51.082
2. Fernando Alonso Spain Renault 58 5.575
3. Michael Schumacher Germany Ferrari 58 5.656
4. Jenson Button Britain Honda 58 12.334
5. Pedro de la Rosa Spain McLaren-Mercedes 58 45.908
6. Giancarlo Fisichella Italy Renault 58 46.594
7. Ralf Schumacher Germany Toyota 58 59.337
8. Rubens Barrichello Brazil Honda 58 1m00.034
9. Jarno Trulli Italy Toyota 57 1 Lap
10. Mark Webber Australia Williams-Cosworth 57 1 Lap
11. Christian Klien Austria Red Bull-Ferrari 57 1 Lap
12. Robert Kubica Poland Sauber-BMW 57 1 Lap
13. Scott Speed United States Toro Rosso-Cosworth 57 1 Lap
14. Nick Heidfeld Germany Sauber-BMW 56 2 Laps
15. David Coulthard Britain Red Bull-Ferrari 55 3 Laps
R Christijan Albers Netherlands MF1-Toyota 46 Accident
R Takuma Sato Japan Super Aguri-Honda 41
R Nico Rosberg Germany Williams-Cosworth 25 Water Pressure
R Sakon Yamamoto Japan Super Aguri-Honda 23 Spin
R Vitantonio Liuzzi Italy Toro Rosso-Cosworth 12 Spin
R Kimi Raikkonen Finland McLaren-Mercedes 1 Accident
R Tiago Monteiro Portugal MF1-Toyota 0 Spin
FASTEST LAP: Michael Schumacher Germany Ferrari 55 1:28.005