Massa keeps his cool for the Istanbul hat trick.
Felipe Massa has claimed his third straight victory at Istanbul Park, taking the chequered flag four seconds ahead of Lewis Hamilton in a race of tyre and fuel strategy. Kimi Raikkonen finished in third position to retain his lead at the head of the championship standings.
Massa drove a great race, keeping his cool when Hamilton breezed by him to take the race lead. The McLaren driver also had a good race, opting for an unconventional three stop strategy to challenge for the race win and ultimately only lose out to the flying Massa by a small margin. Massa’s victory moves him second in the championship from fourth, tied with Hamilton.
The start of the race saw Massa convert his pole into the race lead while Raikkonen lost ground to Robert Kubica. Front-row starter Heikki Kovalainen was the man to lose out as Raikkonen’s front wings caught Kovalainen’s rear tyre forcing the Finn to make an unscheduled stop for a new set of tyres.
As Massa and Hamilton pulled away at the front, Raikkonen tailed Kubica but did not make any real impression until the BMW Sauber driver pitted. A string of fast laps from the championship leader saw him regain third position but even then he seemed comfortable with the position and did not continue to push.
Hamilton’s third and final stop saw him exit the pits just ahead of the second Ferrari, holding the position to the chequered flag.
It was an impressive performance from Hamilton while Raikkonen could - and probably should have pushed to ensure he finished second to his team-mate.
It was a pretty lonely race for the BMW Sauber duo as Kubica finished fourth, 17 seconds behind Raikkonen while team-mate Nick Heidfeld made a good start and then picked up another two positions in the first round of stops to finish an equally distant fifth. It was a pretty good result after a tough weekend for the Swiss-based team.
Fernando Alonso got the jump on Mark Webber at the start of the race and had a relatively trouble-free run to sixth position in his Renault, ten seconds ahead of the leading Red Bull Renault. For Webber, seventh position was a solid result, with points now in the last four Grand Prix.
After a poor showing in qualifying, Nico Rosberg charged hard in the 58-lap Grand Prix to take the final points paying position for Williams Toyota. David Coulthard was ninth in the second Red Bull Renault, crossing the line four seconds behind Rosberg.
Jarno Trulli qualified eighth and finished the race tenth after losing ground at the start while Toyota team-mate Timo Glock finished his day 13th. It was not a good race for Honda with Jenson Button finishing 11th a lap down while Rubens Barrichello’s much publicised 257th Grand Prix start yielded a fairly low-key a 14th position.
After his first lap incident, Heikki Kovalainen had a busy race working his way back though the order, taking the flag less than a second behind Button and five seconds clear of Glock.
Nelson Piquet looked on target for an 11th place finish in his Renault but inexplicably dropped down the order late in the race to finish 15th ahead of Adrian Sutil in the Force India and Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso. For Vettel, 17th position and last at least marks his first race finish of the season.
There were three non-finishers, the first being Giancarlo Fisichella who drilled into the back of Kazuki Nakajima into the first turn on the first lap bringing out the only safety car period of the race. Sebastien Bourdais was having a solid run until a mechanical problem sent him and his Toro Rosso sailing into the gravel trap.
From the sweeping turns of Istanbul Park, Formula One now heads to the confines of Monte Carlo.
Earl ALEXANDER
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