The folks in Maranello are breathing a bit easier this week now that Ferrari has shown they haven't completely forgotten how to build a race car. Kimi Räikkönen attempted to appease some of his critics by taking the fight to Lewis Hamilton and then nipping his team mate on the last round of pit stops to have his first win since the season opener. The Finn more or less made it look easy. And, he has not lost any form; it still looked like he was in a coma during the press conference.
Massa dominated the race by capturing pole and setting the fastest lap. But, with about 20 laps to go, he was held up by traffic and his team mate got by on the stop. The Brazilian wasn't too happy with the result, but eight points are eight points.
Kimi Räikkönen and Felipe Massa
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It would be wrong for me to make any statements suggesting that Hamilton's shine is gone. If we see this result several more times in the season, then all bets are off. The McLaren was off the pace during the race and you'd have to imagine that the team told him to back off slightly since they still didn't completely diagnose Alonso's gearbox failure by the start of the race. The last spot on the podium extended the Brit's lead in the championship.
BMW had a good weekend finishing in fourth and fifth, but the team is still the best of the also rans. Unless there is some ungodly breakthrough with the ex-Sauber team, expect the blue and white cars to end the season in third place in the constructor's championship. Kubica showed that he'd recovered from his shunt in Montreal, and Nick Heidfeld justified his pay check for an additional week.
Felipe Massa
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Giancarlo Fisichella had to be laughing about finishing in sixth place. The championship winning team from last year has all but flat out sucked this season. But the Italian finished ahead of his ex-team mate and reigning world champion Alsonso.
The last points of the weekend went to Jenson Button to score Honda's first points of the season. It probably will not be a good enough performance to save his job. More money being thrown away in Japan.
The last car to finish on the lead lap was Rosberg's Williams. Only Sir Frank's immediate family noticed.
The start
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Ralf Schumacher wasted another week's worth of funding by finishing in tenth and a lap back. Is this proof that Toyota is starting to have GM's problems when they became number one? Jarno Trulli crashed out early so that he didn't have to stay the whole time to see how badly he would finish the race.
Rubens Barichello didn't do anything. Again, and as usual. Expect an unfavorable contract negotiating position for the also-ran.
Red Bull is becoming a bit of a joke, but Luizzi tried to make it interesting by leaving the pit box half way through the scheduled stop. Not a good way to win friends among the mechanics.
Michael Schumacher and Zinédine Zidane
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With Ferrari back on top form, McLaren is praying that the gap they built up earlier in the season is strong enough to survive a real challenge from Maranello. The show isn't over yet. Racing returns to Silverstone next weekend.
Will Ferrari spoil it for the home crowd, again?
Race Results
