800 GPs - An evening of Ferrari history
Well, That Didn’t Work
by Erik Nielsen
Photos courtesy and copyright Ferrari Media
It was said that the only way Red Bull would lose in Turkey is if they threw away the race. McLaren was hoping that the “ask and ye shall receive” plan was going to work. It seemed for a while that there was no way that anyone was going to catch Mark Webber who led most of the opening laps and was on pole.
There was even money that his team mate Sebastian Vettel was quick and could catch him, but with less than 20 laps left, the German had only his team mate to race and attempted to pass, taking himself out in the process and knocking Webber out of contention for the pole. There was much finger pointing in the pit lane and some wild gesticulations (what else do you expect from a team whose main sponsor sells sugar and caffeine?), but after all of the brouhaha settled down, the team principal attempted to calm the team down and wrote the incident off as a racing incident. As we went to press, we were still unable to confirm if there were Australian boot marks on the back side of Vettel.
The Woking team was the true winner in all of this, pun intended. Lewis Hamilton partially made up for all of his whining, and was able to prove that Jenson Button can only walk on shallow water and it helps if it is snowing outside. Once the Red Bulls were gone from contention, the silver arrows were left to duke it out amongst themselves. Not wanting to fall into the same fate that Vettel had, both kept the racing close and exciting, but they never really banged wheels. Maximum points allowed the gap to be closed, but Webber’s third place was enough to keep him in the lead of the driver’s championship.
Felipe Massa
Even with all of the Red Bulls taking each other out, Schumacher could do no better than an also ran and finished in fourth place and ahead of his team mate. Now before the hate mail really starts flowing that Mercedes is wasting their money investing in Schumacher, put it in the context of Mercedes’s last big purchase. Chrysler. Dieses ist nicht so schlecht. Rumors of his second retirement are premature. After all, he does own a home in Texas and has likely shaken his head watching Bret Farve flip flop.
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro was doing their best to forget their 800th grand prix race. Neither driver did much in qualifying and both were happy to finish in points with Massa ahead of Alonso. They both finished behind Kubica who drove a rather uneventful race.
Fernando Alonso
The last two points paying positions went to Sutil in the Force India and Kobayashi-san in the Sauber. Only the powers that be in allocating the TV money were paying attention to those two positions.
Earlier in the week, Philippe Defechereaux made his predictions pretty much went zero for four. Having watched this sport since the late 70’s, I can say that if it was predictable, no one would watch it. That said, glancing at the stands, it seems like some of the locals also felt that this was going to be a predictable race, one that would be more comfortable to watch in an air-conditioned space.
Fernando Alonso, Stefano Domenicali, Felipe Massa
F1 takes a break and returns to the North American continent in two weeks for the Grand Prix of Canada in Montreal. The circus seems to have survived the trials and tribulations and there is enough of the faithful that cut their teeth watching Villeneuve to keep the only race in North America going. There was great fanfare that the next USGP will be in Austin, Texas. I’m not betting on that one at even odds. I have doubt that it will happen. Bernie will get some money and someone is going to say, “Hey, maybe that wasn’t such a great idea.” That part of the sport is predictable.
Race Results
| 1 | HAMILTON | McLaren-Mercedes | 1h28m47.620s |
| 2 | BUTTON | McLaren-Mercedes | + 2.6s |
| 3 | WEBBER | RBR-Renault | + 24.2s |
| 4 | SCHUMACHER |
Mercedes GP | + 31.1s |
| 5 | ROSBERG | Mercedes GP | + 32.2s |
| 6 | KUBICA | Renault | + 32.8s |
| 7 | MASSA | Ferrari | + 36.6s |
| 8 | ALONSO | Ferrari |
+ 46.5s |
| 9 | SUTIL | Force India-Mercedes | + 49.0s |
| 10 | KOBAYASHI | BMW Sauber-Ferrari | + 65.6s |
| 11 | DE LA ROSA | BMW Sauber-Ferrari | + 65.9s |
| 12 | ALGUERSUARI | STR-Ferrari | + 67.8s |
| 13 | LIUZZI | Force India-Mercedes | + 1 lap |
| 14 | BARRICHELLO | Williams-Cosworth | + 1 lap |
| 15 | PETROV | Renault | + 1 lap |
| 16 | BUEMI | STR-Ferrari | + 1 lap |
| 17 | HULKENBERG | Williams-Cosworth | + 1 lap |
| 18 | GLOCK | Virgin-Cosworth | + 3 laps |
| 19 | DI GRASSI | Virgin-Cosworth | + 3 laps |
| 20 | CHANDHOK | HRT-Cosworth | + 6 laps, fuel pump |
| 21 | SENNA | HRT-Cosworth | + 12 laps, fuel pressure |
| 22 | VETTEL | RBR-Renault | + 19 laps, accident |
| 23 | KOVALAINEN | Lotus-Cosworth | + 25 laps, hydraulics |
| DNS | TRULLI | Lotus-Cosworth | + 26 laps, hydraulics |
| Fastest Lap | PETROV | Renault | 1m29.165s |
Driver’s Championship Standings
| 1 | WEBBER | RBR-Renault | 93 Points |
| 2 | BUTTON | McLaren-Mercedes | 88 Points |
| 3 | HAMILTON | McLaren-Mercedes | 84 Points |
| 4 | ALONSO | Ferrari | 79 Points |
| 5 | VETTEL | RBR-Renault | 78 Points |
| 6 | KUBICA | Renault | 67 Points |
| 7 | MASSA | Ferrari | 67 Points |
| 8 | ROSBERG | Mercedes GP | 66 Points |
| 9 | SCHUMACHER | Mercedes GP | 34 Points |
| 10 | SUTIL | Force India-Mercedes | 22 Points |
| 11 | LIUZZI | Force India-Mercedes | 10 Points |
| 12 | BARRICHELLO | Williams-Cosworth | 7 Points |
| 13 | PETROV | Renault | 6 Points |
| 14 | ALGUERSUARI | STR-Ferrari | 3 Points |
| 15 | BUEMI | STR-Ferrari | 1 Point |
| 16 | KOBAYASHI | BMW Sauber-Ferrari | 1 Point |
| 17 | HULKENBERG | Williams-Cosworth | 1 Point |
Constructor’s Championship Standings
| 1 | McLAREN-MERCEDES | 172 Points |
| 2 | RBR-RENAULT | 171 Points |
| 3 | FERRARI | 146 Points |
| 4 | MERCEDES GP | 100 Points |
| 5 | RENAULT | 73 Points |
| 6 | FORCE INDIA-MERCEDES | 32 Points |
| 7 | WILLIAMS-COSWORTH | 8 Points |
| 8 | STR-FERRARI | 4 Points |
| 9 | BMW SAUBER-FERRARI | 1 Point |