Home| Felipe Massa takes Turkish Grand Prix hat trick |
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 Felipe Massa, Scuderia Ferrari, Winner -1h26m49.451 Lewis Hamilton, McLaren-Mercedes, 2nd - +3.7secs Kimi Räikkönen, Scuderia Ferrari, 3rd - +4.2secs Felipe Massa took his third consecutive Turkish Grand Prix victory today, after a tense and thrilling race in Istanbul. Despite several lead changes as McLaren-Mercedes tried to outwit Scuderia Ferrari during the pit stops, the pole-sitter kept his nerve magnificently, relegating Lewis Hamilton (McLaren-Mercedes) to second, with team-mate and defending World Champion, Kimi Räikkönen, in third place. "Four wins from the first five races for Scuderia Ferrari, what a great start to the season!" said Lisa Lilley, Shell Technology Manager for Ferrari. "We are very pleased with the performance of our fuel and lubricants this weekend, particularly our Shell Spirax gearbox oil. Under the new regulations, the gearbox must now last four consecutive races. We have just reached the end of our first lifecycle, which neatly coincides with Ferrari's four-race winning streak. The oil is key to gearbox reliability." Today's result sees Räikkönen retain his lead in the Drivers' Championship on 35 points, with Massa jumping from fourth to second on 28 points. The Brazilian is now ahead of Hamilton, also on 28, by merit of having won two races so far this season, compared to Hamilton's one victory. Across in the Constructors' Championship, Scuderia Ferrari stretched its lead, reaching 63 points, 19 points ahead of its nearest challenger, BMW Sauber, on 44, with McLaren-Mercedes just behind on 42 points. Monte Carlo, Monaco, will host the next round of the season on Sunday 25 May, 2008. |
| Selected comments from Scuderia Ferrari after the race: |
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 Luca Baldisserri: "All in all, a really good result. We had the potential to get a one-two, but after what happened at the start, we could have ended up with one car outside the points. The choice of when to use which tyre was based on data gathered in free practice and on past experience at this track, as well as a logical prediction of how the track surface would evolve. With hindsight, it is easy to say that we could have gone for a different choice. The team worked well and the cars ran trouble free, which included amongst other things, successfully completing the usage cycle of four races for the gearbox: for this and for their usual technical contribution I would like to thank Shell especially. Now we can expect two tricky races, where last year we were not competitive enough to win. We have worked a lot to remedy the problems which we had there and now we will find out if we have worked in the right direction." Stefano Domenicali: "We are very happy with this result, but we know it was a tough one to get. Felipe drove a great race and made the most of yesterday's pole position, but given what happened at the start, Kimi's result in managing to get onto the podium, could have been a lot worse. It was yet another example of the fact that, in this sport, it takes very little for the pendulum to swing one way or the other. We wanted to continue down this winning path which started as a reaction to the heavy hit we took in Melbourne and we have managed it." Felipe Massa: "It's fantastic to have got the hat trick here in Istanbul: it might really almost be worth asking for a Turkish passport! It was a very tough race but the team work magnificently, giving me a great car. When Hamilton came underneath me at an incredible pace, I preferred not to take too many risks: the pit wall informed that he was clearly running a lighter fuel load even if we were not certain he was on a three stop strategy. When that became clear, we were calmer, knowing we had everything in place to go for the win. My engineer, Rob, guided my pace and I drove in such a way as to keep ahead of Lewis. Maybe the hard tyres worked better today, but from what we saw over the weekend, the softs were more competitive and in any case, the difference was not that great." Kimi Raikkonen: "It was a difficult weekend for me but six points are definitely better than nothing. At the start, I was almost alongside Heikki (Kovalainen, McLaren-Mercedes) but then he slowed and I had to brake to avoid a heavy crash. We touched just enough to damage the end plate of the front wing on my car: it was not a very serious problem, but it definitely didn't help my race. My first set of soft tyres worked very well, but the second was not as good: for the rears, maybe it would have been better to switch immediately to the harder, but that's easy to say with hindsight. After a less than great qualifying yesterday, we knew the race would be an uphill struggle. Now we must ensure we are as well prepared as possible for the Monaco Grand Prix, where we struggled in 2007. This winter we worked a lot on the car to concentrate on those shortcomings which we saw at tracks like this. Now we will see if we did enough to be competitive." |
Turkish Grand prix news
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