|
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro finished the
Turkish Grand Prix with a sixth place and 3 points for Felipe Massa and
a ninth place for Kimi Raikkonen. The team remains fourth in the
Constructors’ championship, 12.5 points adrift of Toyota. An incident
packed opening lap is what upset the race for the two Ferrari men,
followed by a race pace that was far from optimum. The race was won by
Jenson Button, who has now been victorious in sixth out of seven races.
It looked for a while as though the Red Bull cars might challenge him,
but an early mistake from Vettel saw the German end up third, behind his
team-mate Mark Webber.
Race day was the hottest of the whole weekend, with air temperature over
30 degrees as the cars lined up on the grid, with Kimi Raikkonen and
Felipe Massa in sixth and seventh places on the grid for Scuderia
Ferrari Marlboro.
As the lights went out, Vettel led from pole, chased by Button, while
Barrichello, third on the grid, dropped all the way down to 13th. Trulli
passed Webber to go third, but on the opening lap, Vettel ran wide at
Turn 9, so that Button led, as Webber went back past Trulli. Felipe
started well, moving up to fifth, but as he lined up to pass Trulli at
the end of the straight, Rosberg got by him. As for Kimi, after Alonso
got past him, the F60 front wing was damaged as it touched the back of
the Renault and that allowed Kubica to steal by too. Barrichello was
fighting hard, scrapping with Kovalainen, but spun on lap 8, dropping
back again. On lap 10, the order was much the same, with Felipe trailing
the leader by 16.9s and Kimi was 23.3 off the lead Brawn. Barrichello
was still causing most of the excitement, damaging his front wing while
trying to pass Sutil, so he pitted for a new nose. Alonso was the first
to make a scheduled stop coming in on lap 14 from seventh place, moving
Kimi up one. One lap later and Vettel, evidently on a three stop
strategy, pitted from second and rejoining sixth, as Felipe moved up,
before making his own stop along with Button on lap 18. Webber, Rosberg
and Raikkonen all pitted next time round, so that Button was back in the
lead. Felipe was now eighth, while Kimi was passed by Hamilton dropping
to 14th.
Lap 31 and Felipe was back up to sixth, but Kimi was still thirteenth.
Ten laps later and Felipe had gone up to fifth with Kimi having moved up
to tenth with the run of pit stops, with a mix of one, two and three
stops being used today. Lap 43 saw Felipe make his final stop, fitting
the softer tyres for the remaining 15 laps to the flag. As for the
leaders, Vettel in second was putting Button under real pressure, except
that the German had an extra stop to make.
On lap 48, Glock pitted from sixth, while Vettel came in on lap 49,
rejoining third, behind Button and Webber. With eight laps to go, Felipe
was 51 seconds behind the leader, in sixth spot, while Kimi was now over
a minute behind and the order remained unchanged to the flag. Behind the
podium trio, the rest of the points went to fourth placed Trulli,
Rosberg, Massa, Kubica, and Glock.
Stefano Domenicali: “We
definitely expected more from this weekend, especially given what we had
seen up to the end of Saturday morning, when our level of
competitiveness was pretty good. We have to understand why the
performance of our car evolved in a negative fashion over the course of
the three days: the race pace we saw this afternoon was not only not up
to the level of the best but it was also not as good as many of the
others. We must continue to work on the development of the car to try
and make up ground, by continuing to stay focused and without getting
discouraged by this setback.”
Kimi Raikkonen: “It was definitely not the race we were expecting
or the one we wanted. The first lap was decisive for me: I lost valuable
places and then it wasn’t possible to get them back because today we
weren’t quick enough. Over recent weeks, we have improved our
performance a lot, but we are not yet at the level of the best,
especially at tracks like this one. It is never easy to catch up,
because in the meantime, the others are not exactly stopping their own
development. We must not be negative about this after a weekend like
this one, but we should continue to concentrate and to push: I am sure
we can soon return to fighting for the top places. It won’t be easy but
I have confidence in this team.”
Felipe Massa: “A very difficult day for us. We have to accept the
fact that sixth place was the best we could do, because we were not
quick enough to fight against those in front of us. We must continue to
push on the car development front to make up for what we lack in terms
of performance, starting with the race at Silverstone. From Friday it
was complicated to find a way to make the tyres work well: for example,
today the softs seemed to go better than on previous days, but using
them right from the start would have been a risk because the
degradation, up to yesterday seemed to be pretty significant.”
Chris Dyer: “We are very disappointed because we expected to be
in the fight for better places. We have to really understand why we lost
so much speed from one day to another. Today we weren’t competitive, not
just up against Brawn GP and Red Bull but also when compared with Toyota
and Williams. On top of that, the way the first lap went cost us dear:
it’s not by chance that the classification of our cars at the end of lap
1 was the same as they passed the chequered flag.”
Source - Ferrari Media |
