F1 – Massa fights back in Bahrain
- 21 May 2013
Despite having a contract till the end of 2009 Felipe Massa may have just saved his Ferrari career with a dominant win in the deserts of Bahrain.Massa was the dominant driver all weekend and led from the first turn to the flag apart from his pit stops and give Ferrari the first 0ne-two of the year. He showed just how good he can be when he doesn’t make silly mistakes and if he could eliminate them……….
Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen had a difficult weekend unable to get the handling to his liking. He still managed to rise from his fourth place on the grid to a comfortable second place at the finish and take the lead in the World Championship title race.
About the only timeMassa wasn’t at the front of the pack was in the final qualifying session when Robert Kubica became the first Polish driver and the first BMW driver to score pole position with a scintillating lap. BMW again totally outclassed McLaren with Kubica and Heidfeld finishing third and fourth behind the Ferraris. In so doing BMW now lead the Constructors Championship by a point over Ferrari and two ahead of McLaren. Nick Heidfeld now sits second in the drivers title standings.
McLaren had another shocker of a weekend with only Heikki Kovalainen finishing in the points, in fifth, the same position that he started. Hamilton started in third place but lost a whole handful of places with an awful start and then plowing up the back of Fernando Alonso’s Renault at the start of lap two. Despite the ridiculous hysteria of the English commentators who claimed that Alonso brake tested him, it was quite obvious that Lewis had just made another rookie mistake. A pit stop to replace his missing front wing was the end of Lewis as he put in a fairly lack-lustredrive to finish down in 13th place behind the Force India of Giancarlo Fisichella.
Renault had an even worse weekend with Alonso’s handling being upset by the sizeable chunk that was removed from his rear wing by Hamilton, he struggled home in 10th place. Poor Nelson Piquet just can’t take a trick at the moment and his race was effectively over on the warm-up lap when he reported that he could not select 2nd gear. Surprisingly he made it to lap 40 before the gearbox finally gave up. Just six points from three races and Giancarlo Fisichella is starting to think that maybe he has actually stepped up with his move to Force India.
Toyota had another decent meeting with Jarno Trulli coming home in 6th after trailing Kovalainen for the entire race. Timo Glock finally finished a race just out of the points in 9th place and both drivers were happy with the cars balance.
Mark Webber recovered from a disappointing qualifying to take two points from seventh place after starting 11th on the grid. Avoiding the mess which took out Hamilton and Jenson Button in the Honda and delayed Alonso certainly helped jump Webber up the field but the Red Bull’s race pace was good anyway and had he started in his normal top ten grid spot he probably would have finished in a similar position. David Coulthard had a messy meeting. He started back in 17th, got caught up in the second lap carnage, had a bingle with Button and finished down in 18th and second last place.
Williams looked on for a good finish after Malaysia’s disaster and Rosberg lining up 8th on the grid. Rosberg held a comfortable 7th place through the first stint but his pace dropped away on the second set of tyres and he struggled home to take the final point with 8th place. Nakajima was never in the hunt, qualifying only 16th and finishing 14th.
Honda squandered a reasonably quick car to again leave with no points. Button started in 9th but got caught up in the mess behind Hamilton, stopped to repair the damage and charged back only to run into Coulthard and remove himself from the race. Barrichello was occasionally running in the points but finished down in 11th place in front of Fisichella, Hamilton and Nakajima.
Oddly enough, Max Moseley did not attend the race. Perhaps that was for the best.
Sam Snape
9-4-08