Is it really only May? It is, and the start of ’silly season’ may have begun already for one driver anyway at least. The talk is around BMW-Sauber driver Robert Kubica and who wants him? BMW-Sauber have him this year and have an option on him for 2009, but now Ferrari and Renault have started early and are knocking on his door.

Kubica has driven his BMW ‘to the max’ so far this year and has out driven Nick Heidfeld in just about every race so now his stock is beginning to go up substantially. This hasn’t escaped the eyes and ears of Ferrari and Renault and they have begun poking him to see where he’s at with BMW.

This could all be ‘bogus’ and a ploy on the part of Kubica’s agent Daniele Morelli to ‘up’ his salary and it probably is, but 2009 is an option year for Kubica and maybe a better offer will swing him one way or another.

Problem is, Ferrari have Kimi Raikkonen and don’t plan on sending him packing any time soon. Renault have Fernando Alonso and they hope to not have him packing any time soon either. Where would this leave Robert Kubica then? BMW-Sauber, that’s where.

Kubica is showing a great talent with his aggressive driving style and will to win and with the stats to back him. This doesn’t jive with being a second driver to anyone. BMW-Sauber have a no number one driver policy and so far it works for them. Ferrari and Renault on the other hand have a history of number one drivers and blatantly so, despite weak attempts on their part to convince us they don’t. Felipe Massa is suffering with this and Fernando Alonso certainly wouldn’t take driver equality or number two status under any circumstance.

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Luca Baldisserri, Ferrari Sporting Director isn’t happy. He says Ferrari could have easily finished one - two in Turkey if Felipe Massa kept Lewis Hamilton behind him for a couple of more laps. Lewis Hamilton caught and passed Massa on lap 23 in a much lighter car. Later of course Massa re took the position.

I’m not sure Baldisserri really knows how much faster a car is when light on fuel. After watching the pass a few times, Massa didn’t fight to the death over the position, but did keep his line as long as he should have before giving in to Hamilton and his faster car.

After the pass, Lewis Hamilton who was on a 3 stop strategy was 7 laps through his 16 lap session. That meant that he had 22 kilos of fuel left. Felipe Massa was only 4 laps into a 21 lap session and therefor his car had 48 kilos left. That’s 26 kilos more than Lewis Hamilton. That means that Hamilton is just about 9/10ths of a sec per lap faster than Massa. That’s just about a full second and in F1, that’s a lot faster.

Short of blocking Hamilton or maybe taking too many chances, he couldn’t hold Hamilton up. Massa was out to win the grand prix and compromising that position by continually defending against a faster car that in the end would not challenge him for the win is never a good idea.

Felipe Massa has turned his season around after 2 retirements in the first 2 races and up to now, but despite this turnaround (a turnaround where he has been better than Raikkonen over the last 3 races) his performance and results are pushed aside in favor of criticism.

Last 3 races:

Raikkonen

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1. Massa Ferrari (B) 1h26:49.451
2. Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes (B) + 3.779
3. Raikkonen Ferrari (B) + 4.271
4. Kubica BMW Sauber (B) + 21.945
5. Heidfeld BMW Sauber (B) + 38.741
6. Alonso Renault (B) + 53.724
7. Webber Red Bull-Renault (B) + 1:04.229
8. Rosberg Williams-Toyota (B) + 1:11.406
9. Coulthard Red Bull-Renault (B) + 1:15.270
10. R.Schumacher Toyota (B) + 1:16.344
11. Button Honda (B) + 1 lap
12. Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes (B) + 1 lap
13. Glock Toyota (B) + 1 lap
14. Barrichello Honda (B) + 1 lap
15. Piquet Renault (B) + 1 lap
16. Sutil Force India-Ferrari (B) + 1 lap
17. Vettel Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) + 1 lap

Fastest lap: Raikkonen, 1:26.506

Not classified/retirements:

Bourdais Toro Rosso-Ferrari (B) 25
Nakajima Williams-Toyota (B) 1
Fisichella Force India-Ferrari (B) 1

Tags: felipe massa, fernando alonso, kimi raikkonen, lewis hamilton, nick heidfeld, robert kubica, turkish grand prix

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“I own Istanbul Park” is what Felipe Massa says and so far he’s showing it. Mass claimed the pole for the Turkish Grand Prix in fine style after he really did command this weekend. His final lap of 1:27.617 was best and gives him his thrid consecutive pole in Turkey.

Beside him is Heikki Kovalainen who clearly has bounced back from his crash 2 weeks ago. Kovalainen will start 2nd next to team mate Lewis Hamilton who starts 3rd. At first it did seem strange, the tire choices for Lewis Hamilton was the hard compound which had shown up until that point to be the much slower tire. Hamilton wasn’t happy with how his car handled with the softer and chose the hard for his final flying lap. It was 1 10th slower than Kovalainen, but good enough for 3rd on the grid.

The McLaren still seems a bear to drive especially for Hamilton. Ever lap he was sliding and correcting, pushing, and correcting. The car looked all over the track at times, but Hamilton still managed a pretty good result.

Kimi Raikkonen on the other hand couldn’t get it together and never challenged for pole and starts 4th. He’s not going to like starting behind both McLarens and is going to have to push to get past them before Massa runs away.

Neither BMW-Sauber driver could come to grips with the track in qualifying with Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld starting behind both McLarens. Kubica couldn’t do better than 5th and Heidfeld 9th. At one point is was tight for Heidfeld to get into Q3 and his last lap in Q2 was the only lap that got hm into Q3.

Red Bull had a great outing with both Webber and Coulthard getting into Q3. Not bad. Webber should be strong starting from 6th and Coulthard in 10th.

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Ferrari once again showed their dominance by finishing 1 - 2 in the second practice session today. Raikkonen who had gearbox problems in session 1 and only did 3 laps, had it repaired successfully in time for this second session.

Massa who was setting the fastest lap times early ended up with the 3rd fastest time on the day at 1:27.682. It was Lewis Hamilton who snuck into 2nd spot on a late fast lap just .036 seconds back of Raikkonen.

Hamilton is quick, but the McLaren still looks slow and clumsy through the slow speed corners suffering still from poor mechanical grip.

David Coulthard was a surprising 4th and didn’t have a crash with anyone, but Mark Webber did. Webber spun after riding the curbs and planted his car head on into the wall. This car is fragile. The impact wasn’t that great, but the damage to the car was pretty substantial. It was a curious crash because he buried the front end axle deep in the wall, but when bounced off, the front nose seemed totally in tact.

Robert Kubica who was typically quiet in practice finished with the 6th fastest time.

Although Hamilton pulled off the 2nd fastest time, the car doesn’t look great especially in the slow speed corners. I saw Lewis and Heikki lock the breaks a couple of times and saw lot of steering wheel correction, certainly more than Ferrari or BMW-Sauber.

Fernando Alonso was pretty quiet through practice, much quieter than in Spain obviously and maybe they aren’t quite where they were 2 weeks ago.

Friday Practice 2 Times

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Felipe Massa wants to win in Turkey to make it 3 years in a row. He has had a pretty good run there not only winning the last 2 races, but also getting poll and he is pretty clear saying it’s a special circuit to him and that there is ‘no 2 without 3′.

His car may complain a little having to use an engine for the second race and his gearbox on it’s 4th race. Massa doesn’t think this is an issue though and isn’t hiding his desire to win.

If Massa finds himself in 2nd place on the track behind Raikkonen will he try and get into position to attempt a pass or will ‘team orders’ prevent him?

I see something to this. In 2005 at the US Grand Prix, Rubens Barrichello was told on radio to slow and let Micheal Schumacher get close enough to pass him. This, as he says was the last straw and he left Ferrari at the end of the season.

Felipe Massa has faced criticism this year for erratic driving and his seat next year has been rumored to be available. Given that Massa wants to win and really isn’t passive enough to only be Raikkonen’s aid, it is conceivable that if ‘team orders’ prevent him from winning this race, Massa may want out himself at the end of 2008.

Tags: felipe massa, ferrari, kimi raikkonen, turkish grand prix

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Another race of attrition today along with a serious looking crash by Heiki Kovalainen. In turn 9 what looked like a left front wheel rim broke sending Kovalainen straight and hard into the tire barriers. Thankfully he will be ok with what looks like no serious injuries.

Kimi Raikkonen led the race from start to finish with perfect pit stops, smooth driving, and a fast (not fast enough according to him) car winning the Spanish Grand Prix in fine style.

As I said, this was a race of attrition with only 13 cars finishing the race and that’s got to be disappointing to many of those teams. This track has seen kilometers and kilometers of testing by all of the teams including just last week. Brand new aero packages as well as other improvements yet crashes and failures littering the track.

The race started with Massa getting the best start moving quickly past Fernando Alonso and right up behind Raikkonen, but predictably backed off of a pass attempt on Raikkonen.

Heart break kid Sebastien Vettel was again knocked out of the race in a first lap crash. David Coulthard and Adrian Sutil bumped, Sutil spun and Vettel had no where to go but into the side of Sutil. Three first lap dnfs for Vettel is hard to take. Sutil, who had been squeezed onto the grass, but had plenty of room to get back to the track bumped Coulthard, was sent spinning, taking out Vettel. Too bad for Sutil with a dnf as a result, but to me, the crash was his fault and bad luck continues for Vettel.

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First qualifying since all the new aero parts and there certainly is some improvements and changes in the top 10. First is Renault and wow, Alonso 2nd after holding pole until Raikkonen pulls out a last lap to squeeze by Alonso. It’s a good bet that Alonso was light on fuel and will be one of the first to pit in the race. Both Renault in Q3 with Piquet in 10th. Now that’s an improvement for Renault with their new fin and Alonso driving.

BMW-Sauber’s Robert Kubica looked great throughout, but last laps of Q3 send him to 4th when Raikkonen and Alonso battled for pole. BMW sits 4th with Kubica and 9th with Heidfeld.

It was up and down for McLaren all through qualifying and in the end, they still need some speed from that car. Hamilton finishing 5th with Kovalainen in 6th.

Down the grid a bit and disappointment for Honda who had hoped for at least one car in Q3, but not today. Barrichello just missing in 11th and Button 13th.

Both Williams made it to Q2, but that’s as far as they got. Nakajima out qualified his team mate Nico Rosberg by 3 places and starts 12th with Rosberg in 15th.

Mark Webber did his job well today covering for a David Coulthard who failed miserably. Webber into Q3 and will start 7th ahead of Jarno Trulli in 8th and Heidfeld in 9th. His team mate Coulthard, the fast Coulthard in morning practice didn’t even make Q2 and will start 17th in more crash territory. Coulthard did have trouble with traffic and said he wasn’t able to get his tires up to temperature.

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What’s up with the weather in Barcelona? I read reports that light rain is forecast for some of the weekend, but looking at the weather widget on my right sidebar, the weather forecast looks good. I’ll wait a little longer to be sure. Anyway, time to have a quick look at the 3 top teams and their drivers coming into the Spanish Grand Prix.

At the top of the leader board Ferrari, BMW-Sauber, and McLaren seem to be a little psyched out by each other and really don’t know what to expect. Who knew McLaren would stumble out of the gate and who knew BMW-Sauber would charge to the front. So far the only sure bet is Ferrari.

Kimi Raikkonen looks good to go now after his shaky drive in Australia finishing 1st in Malaysia and 2nd to his team mate in Bahrain. Maybe he had an ear infection in Bahrain that bothered him and maybe he didn’t. I see no reason Kimi won’t be 1st or 2nd this weekend.

Felipe Massa has narrowly escaped the media after easily winning in Bahrain in what seems like years ago now. It’s not unlike Felipe to bounce back after a shaky start to the season and if he has the form of Bahrain he may get some believers back. I think he’ll be in the fight this weekend.

Is the new Ferrari ‘hole in the nose’ effective? I couldn’t tell in testing because Ferrari is fast anyway.

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It was Felipe Massa’s day to silence his critics by winning the 2008 Bahrain Grand Prix over teammate Kimi Raikkonen. This was a day that belonged to Ferrari from the get go and they never looked back.

McLaren wanted to bounce back after Malaysia, but it was a disaster. Lewis Hamilton couldn’t get his McLaren off the line and felt the wind of 7 drivers pass him by. Not a good way to come back. It didn’t end there when he ran into the back of Fernando Alonso out of turn 12, braking his front wing and wounding his car for the rest of the race. After a pit to replace the wing, he sat in a dismal 18th place a full minute behind Massa. 13 is all he got in the end. Heikki Kovalainen drove a consistent race finishing where he started, but had no pace to match either Ferrari or BMW-Sauber.

The collision between Hamilton and Alonso initially looked like Alonso was ‘brake testing’ Hamilton when Hamilton crashed into the back of him. After the race, Hamilton sort of took responsibility when asked what happened:

“I have no idea. I was behind him, I went to move to the right, he went to the right and I ended up in the back of him somehow. It´s racing.”

Pole sitter Robert Kubica of BMW-Sauber was beaten off the line by Massa and by the end of lap 3 Raikkonen took him for 2nd. That’s the way the top 3 ended up at the end, but interestingly enough, Ferrari were only able to shake Kubica during the middle pit stint and Kubica closed the gap once again.
Now for the first time, BMW Sauber leads the Constructors Championship by a point over Ferrari.

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