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Felipe Massa put in a fantastic drive
at Silverstone to finish the British Grand Prix in fourth place, quite
an achievement from eleventh on the starting grid. His Scuderia Ferrari
Marlboro team-mate, Kimi Raikkonen, picked up the final point for eighth
place, having started ninth. Possibly because of the slightly warmer
conditions today, the F60 performed better than yesterday and better
than expected. On the podium, it was the Red Bull Renaults that
dominated the event, securing a one-two courtesy of Sebastian Vettel and
Mark Webber. On the last step of the rostrum was Rubens Barrichello for
Brawn McLaren.
It was a chilly 16 degrees as 19 cars lined up on the grid, with Sutil
starting from the pit lane, having to race with a spare chassis after
his qualifying crash. As the lights went out, the top three were in grid
order, while Trulli dropped four places, Alonso was also slow away and
Kimi had a minor moment, going off the track.
On the second lap, Felipe was passed by Button for eighth place. At the
front, Vettel pulled out a lead over Barrichello at the rate of about a
second a lap in the early stages, with Webber not really challenging the
Brawn. Behind them on lap 10, the order was Nakajima in fourth, then
Kimi, Rosberg, Trulli, Button, Felipe in ninth place, with Glock
completing the top ten. The best battle at this point was for 12th place
as Heidfeld, with a damaged front wing on the BMW fought off Alonso in
the Renault.
The first man to refuel was Nakajima in the Williams on lap 15, followed
one lap later by Kimi. On lap 18, Rosberg, Trulli and Button all pitted,
with the Italian Toyota driver coming out just ahead of Kimi, which
slowed the Ferrari man. When Barrichello came in, it promoted to Webber
to second, 19.4 behind his team-mate. The key moment for the leading
trio came on lap 20, when Webber refuelled and managed to come out just
ahead of Barrichello. When Vettel pitted on lap 21, this temporarily
promoted Felipe to the lead. The Brazilian was the last of the lead
group to refuel, which proved to be a good strategic call, as he
rejoined in a promising sixth place. Showing what an unusual
championship this is proving to be, most of the excitement came from two
world champions, Alonso and Hamilton scrapping in the minor positions.
By lap 30, Felipe had moved up to fifth behind Rosberg, with Kimi
seventh ahead of Button. On lap 34, Bourdais’ Toro Rosso hit the back of
Kovalainen’s McLaren and both men would eventually retire a few laps
later. Eight laps later, while the two Red Bulls were unchallenged in
front, a three way battle developed for third place between Barrichello,
Rosberg and Felipe, the three men separated by under two seconds. Kimi
was the first to make his second refuelling stop on lap 42, fitting the
harder Bridgestone tyres. Three laps later, it was Felipe’s turn to come
in for the harder tyres for his final stint to the flag and Massa now
gained a place, moving up to fourth ahead of Rosberg.
On lap 49, championship leader Button came in and unlike most of his
rivals, he was now on the softer tyres and began lapping quicker than
everyone, closing rapidly on Rosberg, but he never managed to get past
the Williams.
So after 60 laps, Vettel took his second win of the year, ahead of
team-mate Webber and Barrichello in third. Felipe finished fourth, 3.8
seconds behind his fellow countryman. Fifth was Rosberg, followed by
Button and Trulli, with Kimi picking up the final point for eighth
place. The result means that while still fourth in the Constructors’
championship, Ferrari has closed the gap to Toyota to 8.5 points, Felipe
has moved up from eighth to sixth in the Drivers’ while Kimi stays
tenth.
Six points in the bag for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro in the British Grand
Prix, thanks to a fourth place for Felipe Massa and an eighth for Kimi
Raikkonen. With this result, Felipe has moved up to sixth place in the
Drivers’ classification, while Kimi stays tenth: the Scuderia has
consolidated its fourth place in the Constructors’ Championship.
Stefano Domenicali: “After the
less than brilliant qualifying yesterday, our aim was to get both cars
home in the points and we did it. Felipe drove a fantastic race:
starting eleventh and finishing fourth with no one in front of him on
the grid retiring is a great performance. Kimi got a great start, making
the most of the KERS, but after that he was unable to make the most of
having moved up the order, because of traffic. Today, we saw one team
clearly ahead of the rest, but we showed we could match the pace of all
the others, including those who only two weeks ago, were clearly better.
We will have to study in depth everything that happened this weekend to
understand how the performance level can change so suddenly, one way or
the other, without there having been any changes made to the cars.”
Felipe Massa: “I almost feel as though I won the race! To start
eleventh and finish fourth is a really great result. We weren’t
expecting it and so we are doubly happy. We had a good strategy and I
pushed to the maximum at the key moments. Today, the KERS was a great
help, especially at the start, but the whole car was also working well.
The team did a great job and the results speak for themselves. We have
to continue down this route. It will be interesting to understand how
the car’s performance improved from one day to the next. Maybe it just
needed those few extra degrees of track temperature to get the tyres
working better.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “I got a good start, but then I was unable to
push as much as I could have done because I was always in traffic.
Obviously, my grid position, given my fuel load, penalised me in terms
of strategy. After the first run of pit stops, I found myself right
behind Trulli and from then on, my race was pretty much over. I tried to
pass him getting very close sometimes, but it wasn’t really on as
overtaking is still very difficult. I ended up fighting with Glock but I
could defend my position comfortably, both thanks to the KERS and to the
fact that I actually had quite a good pace. It’s a shame, because given
where I was at the end of the first lap, I could have got a better
result. A single point is definitely nothing to get excited about, but
it’s better than nothing. The car wasn’t bad today, much better than it
had been in qualifying yesterday.”
Chris Dyer: “We got the most out of a weekend that was definitely
not brilliant in terms of performance. Both our drivers had great
starts, getting the most of out the KERS. Then Felipe picked up a good
pace that, along with the strategy, allowed him to move up quite a few
places. As for Kimi, he was slowed by traffic and the key moment in his
race was when Trulli came out on track ahead of him when he made his
first pit stop. He was unable to pass him on the track and then, during
the run of pit stops, other drivers were able to get ahead of him.
Yesterday, we were rather disappointed both with our result and with our
performance, but today things were definitely better: however, we have
to admit there is still a great deal of work to do to be competitive at
the highest level, which is where we want to be.”
Source - Ferrari Media |
