Massa’s Championship Minute

From the Archives, November, 2008

By Erik Nielsen
Photos by Ferrari Media

The title race went down to the last lap of the last race. Filipe Massa did everything that was asked of him this weekend by Scuderia Ferrari by finishing first in front of his home crowd, but it wasn’t enough to keep Lewis Hamilton from becoming the youngest F1 drivers champion ever. Hamilton needed to finish 5th or better if Massa won to bring the #1 graphic back to the front of the McLaren-Mercedes.

The race was a nail biter, unlike some season finales that have happened in the last decade. The first sign of stress came when a quick shower drenched the field with just a few minutes before the roll of lap. This resulted in a 10 minute delay to the start so that everyone legally could change from dry to intermediate tires. Rain would play a huge part to how the final laps played out, but we’ll get to that shortly.

Massa was able to set the pace the entire race and more or less led the entire time, easily converting his pole position into the win, almost completely redeeming himself amongst the skeptical tifosi that had earlier cast their allegiance to Kimi Räikkönen. With race closing in on the final laps, Hamilton had found his way into sixth place and had he finished there, the Brit would have ended up tied with Massa, but Massa would have won the tie breaker with more wins. As it turned out, Hamilton was able to pass Timo Glock’s Toyota after Massa had already clinched the race win.

By moving up to fifth and getting the additional point, Hamilton won the championship by a single point. It made for great TV, but it was gut wrenching for Massa’s family when they realized what had happened, along with most of Italy and all of Brazil. Ferrari did walk away with their 16th constructor’s title, but most of the tifosi wanted both titles. Some of the more passionate fans immediately blamed the issue with the electronic lollipop several races back when Massa tried to rejoin the field with the fuel rig still attached. But cooler heads prevailed and Berlesconi has called for a complete ban on Toyota vehicles within the Republic of Italy.

Fernando Alonso did his best to become part of the picture for the season, but he never was a challenger for the race lead and ended up in fifth place when all of the numbers were crunched. In hindsight, he should have stayed with the Woking based team, but F1 is littered with plenty of poor decisions of former champions convinced that the grass is greener on the other side.

Kimi Räikkönen did drive a clean and fast race, capturing the last place on the podium. The resulting six points were enough to seal the constructor’s championship for the Scuderia and third place for the reining world champion. The pressure will be on the Finn to not end up drunk in someone’s backyard and win more races next year.

One of the shining stars of the season did that once again as Sebastian Vettel. The young German has energized the fatherland like nothing that has been seen since a young Herr Schumacher (the elder) showed up at Jordan in the early 90’s. His fourth place finish in Sao Paulo put him at the head of the also rans list, not bad consideringthat he was in the junior Red Bull car.

Timo Glock finished in sixth. I have nothing else to say that is fit to print.

Kovalainen finished in seventh, but those results were no where near what the silver arrows needed to capture both titles, at the end, it wasn’t even close. Jarno Trulli finished in eight, giving Toyota enough points to finish fifth in the constructor’s race, but most were still mad about Glock not holding off Hamilton.

Now that the season is over, the trends that we saw earlier really did match the results. Ferrari had the better car this year, but was hurt by inconsistent performances by both drivers. Hamilton was consistent with his car, but Kovalainen is a second rate driver in a fast car. BMW did well as the top ranked full constructor behind Ferrari (McLaren is still a garagist in my books, yes, I have been watching the sport for a while now). Alonso is the Hill/Villeneuve of this generation. He’s quick in a quick car, but if the chassis sucks, even rain will not help him. Toro Rosso surprised a lot of people and Vettel has real talent. The question will be which top team will he end up with. Ferrari has provided him the lump that got him to this point, but BMW and McLaren are certainly jockeying for position with him.

With the regime change at Ferrari and the Italians definitely calling the shots, the constructor’s championship will solidify that position. The drivers are safe for now, but let’s hope we don’t see a decline in ’09 similar to the slide that was seen after the 1983 season.

For those suffering already from withdrawals, it’s only a couple of months away before the ’09 cars are displayed to the public for the first time. And to paraphrase the long time Cub’s fan that I married for those that are upset that Ferrari didn’t win both titles, there’s always next year!

Race Results

1	MASSA	Ferrari	1h34m11.435s
2	ALONSO	Renault	+ 13.2s
3	RÄIKKÖNEN	Ferrari	+ 16.2s
4	VETTEL	STR-Ferrari	+ 38.0s
5	HAMILTON	McLaren-Mercedes	+ 38.9s
6	GLOCK	Toyota	+ 44.3s
7	KOVALAINEN	McLaren-Mercedes	+ 55.0s
8	TRULLI	Toyota	+ 68.4s
9	WEBBER	Red Bull-Renault	+ 79.6s
10	HEIDFELD	BMW Sauber	+ 1 lap
11	KUBICA	BMW Sauber	+ 1 lap
12	ROSBERG	Williams-Toyota	+ 1 lap
13	BUTTON	Honda	+ 1 lap
14	BOURDAIS	STR-Ferrari	+ 1 lap
15	BARRICHELLO	Honda	+ 1 lap
16	SUTIL	Force India-Ferrari	+ 2 laps
17	NAKAJIMA	Williams-Toyota	+ 2 laps
18	FISICHELLA	Force India-Ferrari	+ 2 laps
19	PIQUET	Renault	+ 71 laps, accident
20	COULTHARD	Red Bull-Renault	+ 71 laps, accident
Fastest Lap	MASSA	Ferrari	1m13.736s

Driver’s Championship Standings

1	HAMILTON	McLaren-Mercedes	98 Points
2	MASSA	Ferrari	97 Points
3	RÄIKKÖNEN	Ferrari	75 Points
4	KUBICA	BMW Sauber	75 Points
5	ALONSO	Renault	61 Points
6	HEIDFELD	BMW Sauber	60 Points
7	KOVALAINEN	McLaren-Mercedes	53 Points
8	VETTEL	STR-Ferrari	35 Points
9	TRULLI	Toyota	31 Points
10	GLOCK	Toyota	25 Points
11	WEBBER	Red Bull-Renault	21 Points
12	PIQUET	Renault	19 Points
13	ROSBERG	Williams-Toyota	17 Points
14	BARRICHELLO	Honda	11 Points
15	NAKAJIMA	Williams-Toyota	9 Points
16	COULTHARD	Red Bull-Renault	8 Points
17	BOURDAIS	STR-Ferrari	4 Points
18	BUTTON	Honda	3 Points

NOTE: Super Aguri withdrew from the championship after round four.

Constructor’s Championship Standings

1	FERRARI	172 Points
2	McLAREN-MERCEDES	151 Points
3	BMW-SAUBER	135 Points
4	RENAULT	80 Points
5	TOYOTA	56 Points
6	STR-FERRARI	39 Points
7	RED BULL-RENAULT	29 Points
8	WILLIAMS-TOYOTA	26 Points
9	HONDA	14 Points