Ferrari Pulls A Massa-stroke In Turkey!

Ferrari Pulls A Massa-stroke In Turkey!

Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen scored a resounding one-two victory boiling hot Turkish Grand Prix on the outskirts of Istanbul on Sunday (26 August 2007).

"This is becoming a special place for me!" said Massa at the finish. "It is a really great win! I maintained my concentration for the whole race, trying to control the situation. Only towards the end of the second stint did I make a small mistake at Turn 7 which cost me the gap I had over Kimi, who closed right up to me. I made a very good start and the car behaved perfectly even though it has to be said it was a difficult race. Today's result is a great encouragement when looking to the final part of the season. It is fantastic to head to Monza after a weekend like this. We must continue to work in this same way and give it our best shot."

With McLaren's Fernando Alonso finishing a distant third, and teammate Lewis Hamilton in fifth place after a puncture, Ferrari's drivers moved to within 15 points of championship leader Hamilton and ten points of Alonso In the Constructors' championship, Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro is just eleven points behind McLaren Mercedes with five races to go.

"Of course I would like to have won but probably the race was decided in yesterday afternoon's qualifying session," said Raikkonen after the race.

"When your main rival is your team-mate, there are less unknown factors and even less room to come up with something. However, the important thing is to have put two Ferraris in front of everyone else and, in any case, we have made up ground on the championship leader. I got a good start then I had a bit of understeer which went away after a few laps. The second set of tyres did not work as well as the first. The quick lap at the end? I was a bit bored with spending the whole race behind another car and so I tried to see how quick I could have been. In Monza I will have to try and do a good qualifying to be in the best possible situation for the race."

The championship duel was almost decided at the first corner, as Raikkonen slotted in behind teammate Massa to lead Hamilton at the end of the first lap. The BMWs of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld pushed Alonso back to sixth place, with Heikki Kovalainen next from Nico Rosberg and the Red Bull Racing Renaults of David Coulthard and Mark Webber, the latter an early retirement and the only unclassified non-finisher with a hydraulic problem.

The two Ferraris were never more than 1.5s apart during the opening stint, but they steadily dropped Hamilton so that they were 3.4s ahead of him when the first pit stops began. Heidfeld also stopped a lap earlier than Alonso, but Alonso still emerged from the pits ahead of both BMW Saubers, Kubica having stopped very early. After the first stops, Massa was 2.5s ahead of Raikkonen, but Hamilton was close behind.

As Raikkonen closed on Massa, so he left Hamilton behind, the McLarens unable to keep pace with the Ferraris. Raikkonen started the stint 2.5s behind Massa, but ended on his tail; he started the stint only 1.4s ahead of Hamilton, but ended it over six seconds ahead of the McLaren. Alonso, however, remained 14s behind his teammate. Raikkonen was the first to pit on lap 41 having closed right up on Massa who pitted a lap later. They rejoined 1.2s apart.

Just after the Ferraris pitted for their final stop, Hamilton's front right tyre punctured on lap 43, sending him slowly into the pits a couple of laps earlier than scheduled and dropping him back to fifth place. That promoted Alonso to third place, but 18s behind the Ferraris. In the closing stages, Raikkonen dropped away as his lap times rose, but with just a couple of laps to go, he suddenly popped in fastest lap of the race, eventually finishing 2.2s behind his teammate in a dominant one-two.

Alonso was 23.9s behind the second Ferrari, with Heidfeld in fourth place. Hamilton salvaged fifth although Kovalainen progressively closed on him during the final laps. Rosberg was seventh, although Kubica was on his tail at the end. Remarkably, given the 30+ heat, Webber was the only retirement, although Adrian Sutil stopped at the end but was classified.

"This was a dream race and a dream result which should make us all happy; drivers, team and fans," said Ferrari Team Director, Jean Todt. "I want to thank all our commercial and technical partners, especially Shell.

As we had expected, it was a very tough and closely contested race right from the start. In this job, you must never give up because things can change very quickly and today that change worked in our favour. In less than two weeks, we will be on track in Monza for our home race.

The effort we will put in will be the same because we will be after an identical result to this one, while remaining aware of the difficulty of the task and the competitiveness of our closest rivals."

ENDS

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