MASSA'S WINNING AGAIN
The European Grand Prix. An interesting name for a motor race and one that's generally political. It allows a country to either occasionally hold two races or, in the case of last year, the Nurburgring to hold a race despite not having the rights to the German Grand Prix. In this case, it allows the introduction of a new track in Spain. Valencia's a regular pre-season testing spot but the track used for the 2008 European Grand Prix was a street circuit in the middle of the city. Forget Monaco, this was a bit wider despite a dodgy looking bump coming off a bridge. The biggest laugh is that the reason Spain's been given two Grand Prix this season is due to Fernando Alonso, a driver now on the fade.
Well this race had one of the more insane qualifying sessions around and both Jenson and DC fell victim to it in Q1 and would start P16 and P17 while other bigger names were dodging bullets as well. The bigger names started to get their act together in Q2 but not all of them made the cut, the biggest shock being local hero Alonso having to settle for P12. We went into Q3 with Trulli setting the first flyer only for Vettel, who'd been one of the shocks of qualifying all the way through, to take provisional pole himself. Lewis then joined the party with a pole lap of his own before both Ferraris outgunned him with Massa taking P1 only for Lewis to beat with with seconds on the clock...then Massa countered to take his fourth pole of the season.
DC had a disasterous start to the race. Firstly he was hit from behind by Piquet and then had a second collision with Sutl which forced him into the pits early. From there on in he was never on anyone's radar and had yet another forgettable race. The problem was that Red Bull had been banking on a safety car period at some point during the race due to unfamiliarity with the new track. That did not happen so the team came away empty handed. DC finished 17th and with this run of form, who can blame him for retiring? Six races to go and there's no garuntee he'll get anything out of them. It's really a case of one race at a time for the veteran Scot.
Jenson had a solid first lap and made it up to 13th due to some good skills. His race plateaued after that though but he made use of a one stop strategy to keep up the pace and make it up to 11th before going into the pits. He spent the rest of the race cruising around midfield but like DC, never looked like picking up any points. Honda, like Red Bull, had been banking on a race of attrition that never matierialised and Jenson had to settle for finishing 12th. It was another iffy race for Jenson but Honda claim to be relatively satsfied with the performance of the team. It would have been nice to have seen better from Jenson though, maybe next time around.
Lewis failed to take the lead at the start of the race and soon found himself getting blitzed. However he soon hit full throttle to get rid of any further competition and so the race was between him and Massa. Lewis took the lead after the Brazilian pitted but it was only a brief stint in front as the Brit pitted the following lap. From there on in it looked as though the race was gone for Lewis, by half way point it became pretty obvious that there would be no carnage. However, the world championship leader had a solid enough race and finished 2nd to grab a good helping of points. Six races to go and the car in front generally speaking is still a McLaren.
This weekend in particular however belonged to Massa. Not only did he take pole(once he'd gotten the hang of the circuit) but he pretty much dominated the race. Other than a spell immediately after his pit stop, he led every lap and after an iffy spell in the last few races badly needed a win anyway. Well he did the business this time around and picked up his fourth win of the season. That doesn't means that Lewis has to be too worried about him just yet but it does make Felipe best of the rest with the races running down. At the very least, the race for second place has become white-hot. Congrats to Felpie and lets see where the title race goes from here.
As it is, Lewis is still leading the championship with 70 points and has actually increased his lead to six points thanks to the individual inconsistancy of the Ferrari drivers. Further down, DC has falen to 16th place with 6 points while even further down, Jenson remains 17th on three points.
Comments go here
Click here to return to sports homepage
Click here to return to Matt G's homepage