FERRARI RISE AGAIN
(Image taken from BBC)
The Turkish Grand Prix is one of the more recent additions to the F1 calender, having only started up back in '05. Already though it's picked up a reputation, with it's Turn 8 in particular seen as mission impossible. It was also the last best hope for Ferrari to start getting their act together, the Scuderia were under orders to pull off 1-2s for the rest of the season, starting off at Istanbul Park. Me, I was in Ireland, managing to pick up the ITV feed from a hostel in Mayo.
Well qualifying didn't go that well for the Brits. OK, all of then survived into Q2 with Schumacher the only serious name to get eliminated early on but both DC and Jenson got knocked out in Q2. DC would start in P14 with Jenson scheduled to start in P15...untill an engine change forced him to the back of the grid! So once again, Lewis was the only Brit in Q3 but it was the Ferraris that came in hot, first Raikonen then Massa grabbing provisional pole! Lewis managed to beat both of them but even then he had to settle for P2 when Massa grabbed pole at the last second.
Well Jenson didn't get anywhere from the back of the grid immediately but that slowly changed as, helped by one one retirement in the entire race, he made his way through the lower half of the pack, including overtaking Barrichello and both Toyotas to make it up to 13th by mid race. He made it into 12th by the time of his second stop but still had to settle for 13th by the end of the race. Still a solid performance given the circumstances which should keep the doubters quiet for a while.
DC had a good start, taking care of both Webber and Davidson to put him up to 12th early on but then that looked to be as far as he would get. He went on to become another of the guys that Jenson overtook with the advantage of a lighter fuel load. A long second stint certainly didn't help the Scotsman in terms of mid race speed but it did allow him to get up to 10th which David was pretty satisfied with, saying that he gave it his best efforts.
Lewis didn't have the motthest race though, getting overtaken by Raikonen at the start didn't help matters and from there on in he was just the 'best of the rest', spending most of the race in a distant, if fairly comfortable 3rd, even if he did get to lead for the odd lap when the Ferraris had pitted. As it was, he wasn't even able to get the chance of a podium, he was running in second when one of his tyres punctured and not only did Raikonen repass him but Alonso and Heidfeld made it through as well, the unluckiest race of Lewis's career so far left him finishing 5th.
Up front though, the race always looked like a Ferrari 1-2 and furthermore, it always looked like a win for Massa, this was the Ferrari's most dominant race for a while while made it mission accoomplished as far as the tifosi were concerned with Massa picking up his third win of the season and Ferrari their second 1-2 of the season with Raikonen finishing 2nd. Alonso completed the podium by finishing 3rd while Hwidfeld grabbed 4th, the latest in a batch of solid results for the German.
So the championship looks like this. Lewis still leads, now with 84 points but his lead has been cut down to five points though he's still garunteed to be the first Brit to finish in the top 5 of the world championship(and in his rookie year) since Jenson peaked with 3rd place in '04. Further down, DC falls down to 12th with 8 points(but no podiums) and further down, Jenson remains in 16th with 1 point(but more top fifteen finishes than 17th place Vettel).
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