This was race that could have been a little boring, but with Lewis Hamilton on a 3 stop strategy and more passing and re passing on the track than usual, there was plenty to watch. In the end, Felipe Massa does own Istanbul Park as he won his 3rd consecutive Turkish Grand Prix.

The race started in typical fashion with the cars bunching up into the first turn. Kovalainen and Raikkonen had a minor touch which slightly damaged Raikkonen’s front wing and punctured Kovalainen’s left rear causing a slow leak. Kovalainen after going in for a tire change re entered the circuit way back. Being loaded heavy with fuel and at the back of the grid, Kovalainen spent the rest of the day fighting hard to move up.

Even though bad luck hit Kovalainen, he put on a good show for us with some great passing. He and Timo Glock went back and forth for a while including a pass and re pass before Kovalainen’s faster McLaren got rid of Glock on the long straight. It was a bitter pill for Kovalainen because in the end 11th was all he could manage.

After Jarno Trulli was almost stopped after being held up in the first turn, Fisichella came storming up behind everyone and before he could even think of stopping his car, he was hard into the back of Nakajima and then up in the air and over top stopping dead in his tracks in the gravel trap. Nakajima with horrible damage to the rear of his car initially thought he could continue, but in the end, both he and Fisichella were the first lap casualties. There was something new however, Sebastian Vettel made it past lap one and actually finished the race.

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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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After dealing with my host Network Solutions and tearing my hair out, it’s time to lighten things up a bit. Man, I need it for sure.

If you haven’t seen this video of Nick Heidfeld showing off the much improved F1.08 to the employees who helped produce it, have a look. Poor old Nick is much better on an F1 track than he is on a road.

Tags: bmw sauber, nick heidfeld

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Are BMW-Sauber and McLaren Mercedes evenly matched? That depends on who you talk to I guess.
4 races down and the drivers championship standings Ferrari, McLaren, and BMW-Sauber look like this

1. Kimi Raikkonen 29
2. Lewis Hamilton 20
3. Robert Kubica 19

5. Nick Heidfeld 16
6. Heikki Kovalainen 14

In Australia Lewis Hamilton dominated with Heikki Kovalainen finishing 5th 18 seconds back of Hamilton and set the fastest lap of the race. Nick Heidfeld finished second 5.4 seconds back of Hamilton and Robert Kubica finished 9th with a retirement.

In Malaysia, Raikkonen was dominant winning the race easily, but second belonged to Robert Kubica 19.5 secs back and quite a bit ahead of Kovalainen who was third and 38.4 secs back. Lewis Hamilton qualified poorly in 9th and finished 5th 46.5 secs back. Nick Heidfeld finished 6th 49.8 secs back of Raikkonen, but set the fastest lap of the race.

On to Bahrain. Again, Ferrari dominated this race with Massa winning and Raikkonen 2nd. 3rd place was Robert Kubica 4.9 secs back of Raikkonen and 4th place to Nick Heidfeld who was 8.4 secs back. Heikki Kovalainen, the best of McLaren once again finished 5th behind both BMW-Saubers a full 26.7 secs back of Raikkonen. We can safely say that Lewis Hamilton didn’t figure in any leader stats in this race.

At the Spanish Grand Prix, Hamilton bounced back finishing 3rd behind both Ferraris 4.1 secs back of Kimi Raikkonen, but only 1.5 secs behind Felipe Massa. Unfortunately Kovalainen had a bad crash, but until then was keeping good pace with a fastest lap time of 1:22.453 and was in 6th place at the time of his crash ahead of Nick Heidfeld.
Robert Kubica finished the race in 4th after starting 4th only 5.6 secs back of Raikkonen. Robert Kubica was pushing Hamilton and both cars pitted together and came out the same way. In this race it was pretty clear that as the race progressed BMW-Sauber and McLaren Mercedes were running pretty much the same pace as the gaps didn’t change through to the end.

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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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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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First test session out of the way and second under way. Some new and interesting changes are being tried out as we thought might be the case and the new nose from Ferrari is the first to catch the eye of everyone. A nose with one hole is better than a nose with no hole is the thinking I guess and if this new nose had anything to do with their times yesterday, watch out. Yesterday it was Felipe Massa who was testing for Ferrari and indeed he was fast.

Today, in an effort to bring their car up to par, Renault are looking strangely like Red Bull by sporting their version of the Red Bull fin over the engine cover which is designed to improve stability under breaking. As of yet, no results on how this improved handling, but we’ll know shortly. If you can’t beat them, join them as they say.

Times on the day (Monday April 14th)

Felipe Massa Ferrari 1m18.613 67
Alex Wurz Honda Racing 1m21.059 70
Pedro de la Rosa McLaren 1m21.566 103
Nick Heidfeld BMW Sauber 1m22.109 93
David Coulthard Red Bull Racing 1m22.193 59
Kazuki Nakajima Williams 1m22.431 72
Timo Glock Toyota 1m22.590 85
Nelson Piquet Renault 1m22.629 78
Tonio Liuzzi Force India 1m22.846 79

Tags: alex wurz, barcelona, bme, David Coulthard, f1 testing, f2008, felipe massa, ferrari, force india, mclaren, nick heidfeld, pedro de la rosa, r28, red bull, renault

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Great driver he is! Wonderful young man that Lewis. He’s making the right decisions for a great F1 career. These are just a few things influential F1 people said about Lewis Hamilton only 6 months ago, but oh, what a difference 6 months can make.

No question this season hasn’t been what Lewis Hamilton though it would be. In 3 races so far this year, he has won one of them, but as he himself said, it was an easy race to win and now after a poor outing in Bahrain, his status as a number one driver is faltering. Yes, it’s early yet and you can’t make a serious decision just yet, after all, Kimi Raikkonen had a tough start to last season as I remember and of course went on to win the championship.

Aside from some suspect driving this year, Hamilton has been facing criticism for a number of things and even from some of his strong supporters.

Last season, Hamilton was urged to join the GPDA (Grand Prix Drivers’ Association) as an influential driver, but decided it wasn’t the time. Now this year, he is again facing questions about not joining and he says he is too busy.
Think what you want about the GPDA, but as an association it has been influential in some serious improvements in safety over the years and is necessary as an avenue for drivers to be organized officially and professionally present concerns and solutions.

As far as being too busy? Sure he is busy, but so are a lot of the members and the only regular commitment is one meeting per grand prix. Hamilton aught to re think his position on this one.

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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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