MASSA TAKES TURKEY AGAIN
(Image taken from Yahoo)
Well, in the most significant change to the schedule so far, the next stop for the 2008 F1 show turned out to be Turkey. We usually head for Istanbul Park in August but this time round it's May and one team has been struck off the guest list. Super Aguri are history, there are now only 20 cars on the grid. Not that that'll matter to Lewis who still needs a good result here.
The biggest impact Super Aguri's demise has is the fact that it forces qualifying to be overhauled. So now it's 20 cars competing in Q1, then five drop out to make 15 in Q2, then five more drop out at that point. Q3 is unchanged though.
All three remaining Brits made it into Q3 with solid performances leaving Piquet as the biggest name not to make the cut. Button was never really competitive in Q2 though and had to settle for P13 though DC made Q3 smoothly enough. Trulli was first on the board in Q3 but Lewis beat him despite using hard tyres which aren't ideal but the Brit apparantly had issues with the softs. Massa then got P1 with Kovalainen beating Lewis to get P2, forcing his teammate to settle for P3. DC didn't put much of an effort in and so could only take P10!
Well Jenson took advantage of a very long first stint to get into the points but after that, got stuck back into the midfield dogfight, specifically one with Kovalainen(who wound up back of the field after an early puncture), Piquet and Glock. Piquet and Kovalainen both mugged him. He did however take advantage of retirements to finish 11th, could have been worse but not exactly a classic.
DC found himself in the mixer for the points with his biggest early battle being with Trulli for 9th. A pitstop dropped him further down though and the Scotsman proved to be another victim of the surging Kovalainen(who half the pack must have mistaken for Lewis). He was still sniffing a point untill the end but just missed out, finishing 9th, matching his best performance of the season so far.
Lewis however was 50/50 for a good performance on this track so what happened in the early stages in particular was nothing short of awesome. The Brit went past Kovalainen and was soon charging after Massa, overtaking him for the lead before flying off into the distance...only to come in for an early pitstop with McLaren putting him on a very conservative three stop strategy due to the dodgy soft tyres. He never had a serious shot at the lead again, but 2nd place here, ahead of Raikonen says that Ferrari should be very worried about the next couple of races.
Massa had no worries though. After Lewis's final pitstop he was never seriously threatened and so he got to put his money where his mouth was after saying before Friday practice "I own Istanbul". The Brazilian is now well in the world championship mixer with his second win of the season and it's now Lewis that needs to get some more wins under his belt.
Either way, the championship looks like this: Raikonen leads with 35 points, Massa's up to second with 28 points(including two wins), Lewis is down to 3rd with 28 points(but just the one win). Further down, Jenson stays in 12th on three points with DC yet to score(best finishes two 9ths).
Monaco next - and Lewis loves the place!
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