F1-Blog

Turkish GP

Massa made it two in a row at Turkey this weekend, by beating both of the McLaren’s and his team mate.

He actually made it look fairly easy in the end, Kimi got close a couple of times, but really didn’t seem to have the edge over his Brazilian team mate.

The race was quite a boring one as a result, with the only real action taking part on lap 43 with Hamilton’s front right tyre exploding, and him having to nurse the car back to the pits for a change. He did a good job and did not damage too much of his car, and still finished 5th.

The Turkish people did not turn out in the numbers that they have in previous years either, perhaps they thought F1 was dead now there is no Schumi to go and watch?

Kimi drove a decent race, managing to get into second spot before the first corner, as it seemed the Ferrari’s were capable of running the softer tyres on the longer stints, giving both of the scarlet cars a slight advantage off the start line.

Turkish GP Qualifying

First off apologies to my regular readers on the lack of postings recently, real life has been dragging me away, but enough of that an on with the qualifying session.

The Turkish GP is a track where everyone including Ferrari thought they would do well, and as it turns out they have, but probably not as well as they were hoping for.

Massa takes the pole position, but it’s behind him where things get interesting.

Q1 was interesting for two reasons, 1 Ralf Schumacher again struggled a lot more than his team mate in the Toyota, even after both cars had been showing good pace in practice sessions, and Anthony Davidson made his car look way and above what it should have done, and made it through easily into Q2.

Q2 again showed that Anthony was quicker than he should be, he showed great character, pushing the SA as hard as it is possible in the famous corner 8. He was only just not able to get through to Q3, setting a time of 1m 28.002s, posting better times than both of the Red Bull drivers.

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.