Planet-F1

Turkish GP: Winners and Losers

Sunday 11th May 2008

Felipe Massa was a clear winner, Heikki Kovalainen the clear loser, while the Turkish GP organisers will clearly be asking themselves - who let the dogs out...?

Star of the Race
Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 1st
Massa gets the verdict for Star of the Race based on Saturday and Sunday performance. In the race he was good, but he had a car that was widely predicted to be out of McLaren's reach. Hamilton's driving proved that not to be the case, but Lewis had already compromised his position by failing to get pole on Saturday. Massa made no such slip-up in Q3 and had a perfect start.

It is a tremendous result for the circuit owner. Bernie Ecclestone thought he had the title deeds to the track, but Felipe announced "I own this track" before the race. Now if that wasn't setting yourself up for a fall we don't know what is, but Massa delivered. Three poles converted to three wins in three years fully justifies ownership. But Massa really ought to do more to stop stray dogs getting onto his land. Who let the dogs out? Bruno Senna would like to find out.

Overtaking Move Of The Race
Lap 24, Lewis Hamilton on Felipe Massa
Though Heikki Kovalainen did more personal overtaking in one race than is seen in five years of the Spanish Grand Prix, most of the time he was overtaking cars where there was a quite disparate level of fuel. Otherwise he wouldn't have had such trouble overtaking Adrian Sutil's Force India early in the race.

That could also be said of Lewis Hamilton's move on Felipe Massa, but Lewis didn't have time to hang around, he had to overtake Massa immediately and get on with building a lead. It was reminiscent of Hamilton's move on Kimi Raikkonen at the Italian GP at Monza in 2007 when he came from a long way back and launched himself up the inside into Turn 1. For sure, Massa thought he was in trouble and tried his very hardest to outbrake the McLaren into the final complex of turns - to no avail.

WINNERS

Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 1st
The win is just what Massa needs as we head towards Monaco and a track he's never really looked comfortable at. Felipe had to halt Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari charge and now with 28 points from three races he has certainly done that. A perfect weekend.

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 2nd
In Barcelona McLaren were fortunate to finish as close to the Ferraris as they did. In Istanbul Ferrari were flat out and only beat them by a few seconds. What's more, the McLaren team demonstrated that they've put some distance between themselves and BMW.

Given that Hamilton's strategy was dictated by Bridgestone advice about how long his tyres would last (Lewis having punctured last year) it was a fantastic performance.

Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 3rd
Kimi is a lucky lucky boy. At the start going into Turn One he only just got his Ferrari stopped in time to avoid losing his front wing against Kovalainen's rear tyre. As it was, he hit the McLaren tyre hard enough to puncture it and ruin his fellow Finn's race. Had he lost his nose, there would have been no way back to the points with 17 out of 20 cars finishing.

Raikkonen is very pragmatic about these things and will probably view his race as six points saved rather than two lost to Lewis and four to Felipe. He knows his races will come.

Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld, BMW, 4th and 5th
This was more like one of the races from 2007 where BMW were streets ahead of the mid-grid but had lost contact with the pace of Ferrari and McLaren. Ron Dennis had predicted this might happen and the Ron Prophecy was coming good.

Yet again BMW were having trouble with their radio communication, as witnessed by the big block capitals on Kubica's pitboard NO RADIO. You'd have thought he might have sussed that by the lack of voices in his helmet. Either that or they could speak to him but he couldn't speak back, at which point they could have used the coded message: "Zere is no radio!"

Fernando Alonso, Renault, 6th
Alonso did well to nab a place off Webbo at the start and despite coming in very early managed to keep ahead of the Red Bull.

Kovalainen's demise meant that the 7th place they were targeting was exceeded.

Mark Webber, David Coulthard, Red Bull, 7th and 9th
Webbo brought his car home in the points again and it will be a relief to see the team's reliability problems of last year slipping into the shadows. What's more, despite some close racing, David Coulthard managed to bring his car home without hitting anyone or being hit by anyone. And he made it into Q3 on Saturday...

Nico Rosberg, Williams-Toyota, 8th
More points for Williams, but better still they are outpacing the factory team.

Sebastian Vettel, Toro Rosso, 17th
Uncork the champagne, Sebastian finished a race.

Herman Tilke, Istanbul Otodrome Circuit Designer
The wheel-to-wheel duels through the final complex of corners were the best F1 action we've seen on televison this year. Thanks to Kovalainen, Glock, Piquet, Coulthard and Button for making it an entertaining race.

Though it has to be said that if McLaren hadn't suffered a puncture with Kovalainen and been forced to put Hamilton on a three-stop strategy it could have been a lot more snoozy than it turned out.

LOSERS

Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren, 12th
McLaren CEO Martin Whitmarsh came out and said that Heikki could have won the race today. It's a bit of a stretch of the imagination considering the Finn's poor getaway meant he would likely have been stuck behind Robert Kubica till the first pit-stops - by which time Massa was already eight seconds in front of the BMW driver.

What it does reveal is that McLaren think of themselves as a two-driver team. If Heikkii is as fast as Lewis at Monaco that could be very interesting.