Felipe Massa finally scored points for the first time this season, picking up the three that go with sixth place in the Spanish Grand Prix. The Brazilian appeared to be heading for a fourth place finish, maybe even a podium, but he slithered down to sixth in the closing stages due to a fuelling problem, which meant he had to slow to save fuel. His team-mate Kimi Raikkonen had climbed up the order until he looked set for a points finish, but an accelerator problem forced him to retire on lap 17.

The race was dominated by the Brawn team with Jenson Button winning from Rubens Barrichello, with Red Bull’s Mark Webber joining them on the podium. In warm conditions with temperatures of around 25 degrees, Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen lined up on the grid for the 66 lap Spanish Grand Prix in 4th and 16th places respectively.

As the lights went out, Felipe got a very good start, thanks partly to the KERS on his F60, getting ahead of Vettel in the Red Bull, to go third behind Barrichello, who got ahead of his team-mate and pole man Jenson Button in the Brawn. On the very first lap the Safety Car had to come out, after the two Toro Rosso cars crashed into one another, avoiding Trulli who had been off the track and back on again in the Toyota. Sutil’s Force India was also involved in the incident. The Safety Car was out for 6 laps before the race was on again.

On lap 10, the field had been reduced to just 15 cars and the order was, Barrichello, Button, Massa, Vettel, Webber, Alonso, Rosberg, Glock, Heidfeld, Kimi who had made up 6 places already to be tenth. Then came Kubica, Hamilton, Piquet, Fisichella and Nakajima, 15th and last. Button and Alonso pitted on lap 17 and on the following lap, Kimi’s race ended with a hydraulics problem that brought his car and his race to a stop. Barrichello and Webber came in together one lap later, and Barrichello and Massa did the same on lap 20. Rosberg, yet to stop in the Williams was now second between the two Brawns, with Felipe fourth ahead of Vettel. Rosberg came in on 25, so that the order was now Barrichello, Button, Massa, Vettel, Heidfeld and Hamilton, these two not having refuelled yet, ahead of Webber with Alonso eighth.

Barrichello was on a three stop strategy, therefore coming in again early on lap 30 for his second stop, leaving his team-mate as the new leader, with Felipe now second. Heidfeld and Hamilton also came in on this lap for their first stop. On lap 36, as indeed had been the case for much of the race, Felipe was under pressure from Vettel, just one second behind, with the Ferrari man trailing leader Button by 5 seconds.

Lap 43 and it was a repeat of their earlier stop, as Felipe and Vettel came down pit lane nose to tail, rejoining in the same relative positions. At this stage, the best battle was between Alonso in the Renault and Hamilton in the McLaren. Race leader Button made his second stop on lap 47, rejoining third. Barrichello and Webber pitted from the top two places on lap 50 and this was a key moment for Felipe’s chances of a podium, as the Brawn and the Red Bull duo managed to get in and out of the pits before Felipe and Vettel came by the end of pit lane.

At this point the German lapped four tenths faster than the Brazilian to close right up behind the Ferrari. Unknown to the fans in the stands, Felipe had been told to slow down as not all the fuel that should have gone in did go in. Then along the main straight on lap 63, Felipe appeared to slow dramatically with this fuel problem and Vettel flew by him, relegating the Ferrari to fifth place. Obviously in trouble, Felipe was next caught by Alonso, dropping down to sixth, but that was still the better solution than coming in for a third unscheduled stop which would have seen him fall right out of the points zone.

The order then remained unchanged to the flag, with Button taking his fourth win of the season to consolidate his and his team’s championship lead, with Barrichello making it a Brawn one-two, with the two Red Bulls of Webber and Vettel, third and fourth ahead of Fernando and Felipe. A Ferrari on the podium had been the pre-race target, but at least Felipe Massa has finally got some points – 3 – on the scoreboard and on the performance side at least, the F60 seems to be competitive again.

Stefano Domenicali: “We can take some satisfaction from this weekend, but at the same time, it has thrown up further concerns. On the one hand we saw that the effort expended in recent weeks has born fruit in terms of improving the performance level of the car. Both in yesterday’s qualifying and today, Felipe was competitive at the highest level, as was confirmed on the clock: it’s not by luck that we got the third fastest time in the race, which would have been far out of our reach in previous races this year. Once again, the downside comes from the reliability side. Again today, we had problems which forced Kimi to retire and cost Felipe two places in the final stages, having also robbed him of the chance of getting to the podium, which would have been well deserved. This is unacceptable for a team like Ferrari: we must all react to get back to our usual standard, as indeed we have partially managed on the performance side. There is much to do on all fronts and we will tackle it with our usual absolute determination.”

Felipe Massa: “It’s a real shame to have lost two places in the final stages, even if we’ve finally made it to the scoreboard. We knew we couldn’t match the pace of the Brawns but we had managed to get ahead of the Red Bulls and, but for the fuel problem, I could have certainly stayed ahead of Vettel and Alonso. The final part of the race was a pain. I was already struggling on the harder tyres and then I had to try and save fuel as much as possible, while at the same time staying ahead of Vettel. Then the team told that if I wanted to make it to the finish, I would have to let Vettel by and slow down a lot: if I had made another pit stop I would have finished out of the points. Today, the car’s pace on the softer tyre was reasonably good, even if we’re still lacking a few tenths, but at least we are back to fighting for the top places.”

Kimi Raikkonen: “I am very unhappy because I could have finished in the points. Unfortunately, I had a hydraulic problem linked to the control of the accelerator which meant I had to retire. At the start I managed to make up a few places but then, I found myself behind Heidfeld’s BMW. The car is better, but we must fix these reliability problems. Obviously, when you have to make up ground you can end up making avoidable errors, as has happened to us in this first part of the season, but that doesn’t mean to say the team has lost its way. We are the same people who over the past two years have won three world titles out of the four available.”

Chris Dyer: “The most important thing this weekend is that the car performance is much improved compared to the previous races. Today we were capable of fighting with the best and we had a great chance of finishing on the podium. On the downside, we can only be disappointed about our reliability and the running of our on-track operation. After what happened in qualifying yesterday, Kimi had to retire because of a problem with the hydraulics used to control the accelerator. On Felipe’s car, the front left wheel fairing broke and at both pit stops we had a refueling problem, the cause of which we have yet to find out. Obviously, we have a lot of work to do. We are all very unhappy for what happened and lament the fact that so much work from the team to improve car performance was not adequately rewarded in the final result.”

Source - Ferrari Media