Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro
secured its first podium finish of the season, thanks to Kimi
Raikkonen’s determined drive to third place and Felipe Massa finished
right behind him, to give the Scuderia its best finish of the season.
This solid result sees the team move up to fourth in the Constructors’
Championship. Jenson Button’s incredible season continues as the
Englishman took his fifth win from six starts and his Brawn team mate,
Rubens Barrichello was second.
As the cars lined up on the grid, Kimi was on the front row in second
place and Felipe was on the pole side in fifth place. Button was on pole
in the Brawn and Kimi was starting with a lower fuel load than the
Englishman. Glock was starting from the pits in the Toyota.
Button and Barrichello led the field away, with Kimi down to third,
followed by Vettel and Felipe, the German almost squeezing past the
Ferrari off the line. Then came Rosberg, Kovalainen, Webber, Alonso,
Nakajima, making up the top ten. Lap 3 and Kimi was 3.1 down on the
leader, Felipe was 5.6 down. Lap 6 and Massa, definitely quicker than
Vettel pulled alongside the Red Bull on the exit to the tunnel, but
could not get past. One lap later he tried again, overshot the chicane
and in letting Vettel past again to avoid a penalty, he also let Rosberg
go by, thus losing a place for the Ferrari man. Vettel’s tyres were in
trouble and he was holding up the entire field, allowing the two Brawns
and Kimi to pull away, with the Finn 4.7 seconds down on the leader
Button. Vettel pitted on lap 10, so that Rosberg and Felipe moved up.
The yellow flags came out on lap 11 when Buemi crashed into the back of
Piquet putting both men out of the race.
Lap 12 and Kimi was putting the pressure on Barrichello, trailing by
just 0.2 seconds. One lap later, Felipe in fifth set the fastest race
lap so far, until Rosberg in fourth, did the same a lap later. Kimi made
his first refuelling stop on lap 15, rejoining in seventh. Vettel
crashed at Ste Devote on lap 16 and retired. Barrichello pitted then.
Button pitted from the lead on 17, promoting Rosberg to the lead, but
more importantly, the Englishman had managed to get out ahead of Felipe,
so the top three was now Rosberg, Button and Massa. Button and Felipe
moved up to first and second as Rosberg came down pit lane. Kovalainen
was now third followed by Webber, Barrichello, Raikkonen sixth.
Felipe refuelled on lap 20 and it was a well timed stop as he it brought
him out in seventh, getting him ahead of Rosberg again. Kovalainen
pitted from third on 21 so Felipe was now sixth, two places behind his
team-mate. On lap 20, the order was Button, 16.7 ahead of team mate
Barrichello, with Kimi third 3.0 behind the Brazilian. Next was Alonso,
yet to pit, with Felipe 5th, 23 seconds down on the leader, followed by
Webber, Rosberg, Kovalainen, Nakajima and Bourdais tenth.
When Alonso finally refuelled, Felipe moved up to fourth. On lap 31,
Barrichello, Kimi and then Felipe all set the fastest lap. From now on,
the two Ferraris were the fastest cars on track and by lap 39, Kimi was
2.7 off second placed Barrichello, while Felipe was 2.8 behind the Finn.
Button had a comfortable lead of 15.2. Fifth was Webber, then came
Rosberg, Kovalainen, Bourdais, Fisichella and Alonso completing the top
ten. By lap 48, Kimi had cut the gap to Barrichello to 1.9.
Barrichello and Button pitted so that on lap 52 Kimi led from Button,
with Felipe third ahead of Webber. Then Kimi refuelled on lap 53
dropping to fifth, losing a bit of time with a sticking wheel, so that
Felipe was now second, 0.9 behind Button, but yet to make his second
stop. The Brazilian finally refuelled on lap 56, at the same time as
Webber. With the leaders all fuelled to the flag, the order was now
Button, Barrichello, Raikkonen, Massa, Webber, Rosberg, Alonso, with
Bourdais eighth in the last of the points positions.
With ten laps to go, the Brawns looked invincible in front of Kimi,
while Felipe was closing steadily on his team mate. Webber was 4.0
behind Felipe, with Rosberg, Alonso and Bourdais in the remaining points
places. From then on the order remained the same to the flag.
Stefano Domenicali: “The most
important thing to come out of today is the confirmation that our car is
back to being competitive, thanks to the great amount of work that
everyone at the Scuderia, both back home and at the track, has put in
over these past few weeks, without getting distracted by everything
going on around us. It's not easy to work in these conditions and I want
to thank everyone for what they are doing. Today, we got a third and a
fourth place which, given the difficult start to our season, is a nice
result, but it’s still not the one we want. Our aim is to be ahead of
everyone and we will do all we can to achieve that as soon as possible.
Of course the others won’t remain idle but we must continue to push as
we have done in these recent times.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “I can’t be happy with third place, as my aim is
always to win, but all the same, this podium is very satisfying for the
entire team after a very difficult start to the season. However, I am
happy that we are back competing at the front again. Over the past few
weeks we have made a real step forward in terms of performance and this
result confirms it. We still have work to do to catch up with the best,
but we are moving in the right direction. This weekend, if some details
had worked out differently, the result could have been different – I’m
thinking of missing out on pole by a whisker or of my second pit stop
when I lost a few seconds. But overall, we have to be pleased.”
Felipe Massa: “I am very happy with today’s performance. The car
was very competitive: it’s clear we are on the way up and hopefully we
can soon be back to fighting for the win. At the start, I lost a lot of
time behind Vettel and then, because I made a mistake, I was also passed
by Rosberg. But after that I quickly got back up the order and I think I
could also have passed Kimi. In the three laps I had longer than him, at
the second pit stop, I found myself right behind Button and so I wasn’t
able to exploit the opportunity. Starting on the hard tyres was the best
choice: we still lack a bit of aerodynamic downforce to be up with the
Brawns, but it is too early to claim to be the second best team in the
championship. What is sure is that we are working well and I am sure we
will see further results of that soon.”
Chris Dyer: “That was a very interesting race today. In the end,
we are a bit disappointed, but that’s a good sign, both because it shows
how much we want to get back to being ahead of everyone and also
because, when you begin to think you should have been able to do better
than a third and fourth place finish, it means that you are back to
being really competitive again. If we had not lost position at the
start, probably we could have attacked Rubens, if we hadn’t encountered
a problem changing the right rear wheel at Kimi’s second pit stop. What
is reassuring is the pace shown by the F60, especially in the second
part of the race, when despite having more fuel than the leaders, we
were always quicker. We are very happy with the performance of the car
and we are confident we can improve it further with coming
developments."
Source - Ferrari Media |
