Valencia European Grand Prix: Massa Dominant on New Street Circuit
August 2/3 Mixed Fortunes for Ferrari: Heartbreak in Hungary, Success at Spa
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro: Out of luck again in Germany
Valencia European Grand Prix: Massa Dominant on New Street Circuit
Victory for Felipe Massa at the end of a perfect weekend for the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro driver, who led from pole and was never headed apart from during the run of pit stops to take his fourth victory of the season, the ninth of his career. However, it was a bitter sweet day for the Scuderia, as there were two negative points, with Kimi Raikkonen's race ending in a huge cloud of white smoke that saw him park his F2008 alongside the main straight with a handful of laps remaining. In addition, during the Finn's second pit stop, a member of the pit crew was knocked to the ground as Kimi tried to drive off while the fuel line was still attached. Fortunately, he was not seriously hurt.
In terms of the championships, Felipe now moves up to second place, six points off Lewis Hamilton who brought his McLaren-Mercedes home in second place. Robert Kubica joined these two on the podium, third for BMW-Sauber. Ferrari heads the Constructors' classification, although its lead over the Anglo-German squad has dropped from eleven to eight points.
August 2/3 Mixed Fortunes for Ferrari: Heartbreak in Hungary, Success at Spa
Kimi Raikkonen on the podium in third place and Felipe Massa seventeenth. These official results do not tell the heartbreaking story of the race victory that eluded Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro's Brazilian driver. From third place on the grid, he went straight into a lead he never relinquished apart from during the two runs of pit stops, but then with only three laps to go to the chequered flag, a large puff of smoke from the back of his F2008 saw him park alongside pit wall to retire. The race was won by Heikki Kovalainen, taking his maiden F1 victory. The result means Ferrari retains its lead in the Constructors' Championship, eleven points clear of McLaren-Mercedes who have now moved ahead of BMW-Sauber. Lewis Hamilton heads the Drivers' classification on 62 points; five points clear of Kimi with Felipe third, three points adrift of his team-mate.
Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali said that Felipe Massa's strong performance in Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix was probably his best race ever - even if it ended in a late retirement. But he underlined that the team would stand shoulder-to-shoulder to recover from the disappointment and to find a cure to the team's recent performance.
"I have to say that we are very sad for Felipe," said Domenicali, "because in my view he drove the best race of his career today. It was fantastic the way that he attacked when he had to attack, and he managed the race right up to the final laps, so we are very disappointed.
The eagerly awaited and most important appointment on the FIA GT International Championship calendar, took place this weekend at Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium, with the 61st running of the 24 Hours, one of the oldest and most fascinating races in the history of motor sport and the only one to count for double points.
Victory in the GT2 class went to the BMS Scuderia Italia F430, driven by Matteo Malucelli, Paolo Ruberti, Joel Camathias and Davide Rigon, who finished the race having completed 555 laps, totalling 3887.22 kilometres. They had to fight hard throughout the 24 hours to get the better of the second placed Porsche 997, crewed by Collard-Westbrook-Lieb. A well deserved trip to the third step of the podium went to the AF Corse crew of Gimmi Bruni, Tony Vilander, Jaime Melo and Mika Salo, who were front runners despite having to start from pit lane after having to change engines during qualifying and having to make an unscheduled stop to fix a broken hydraulic jack, which cost them a few laps.
Ferrari maintains its lead in the championship thanks to AF Corse, BMS Scuderia Italia and CR Scuderia, solidly heading the classification on 79, 50 and 35.5 points respectively.
Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro: Out of luck again in Germany
Maranello, 21st July 2008 - Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro headed back to Maranello on Sunday evening determined to solve the mysteries that hindered their performance in the German Grand Prix at Hockenheim on Sunday. Felipe Massa finished third to Lewis Hamilton and rookie Nelson Piquet, while Kimi Raikkonen finished sixth.
Ferrari were simply unable to exploit their usual race pace and strong disciplines such as economical use of tyres, as team principal Stefano Domenicali explained after the race. "This was one of the most critical points of this weekend. Normally we know that McLaren are fast over a single lap and that this is a trade-off with consistency and pace during the race.
"Unfortunately today we have seen that that was not the case. In qualifying of course they were really strong, but if you consider the fuel that they had for Lewis and Kovalainen Felipe's lap was really good. This time, if you think that in the first stint we were slower by half a second it shows that there is something that has to be really understood and we need to go deeply into the details without making any quick solutions because that's the mistake that we shouldn't make at this moment."
Felipe Massa: "It was a difficult race. Right from the beginning, Hamilton's pace seemed unbeatable and I understood that it would be very hard to beat him. I never had good grip and, in the final stages, I also had brake problems and was not even able to attack Piquet, whom I congratulate on the first podium of his career. We must try and understand why, this weekend, we have not been a match for our rivals. They have definitely improved, but I think this was more a case of us having taken a step backwards. However, we are still confident: we have the ability to get out of this situation, right from the next race."
Kimi Raikkonen: "This was definitely not the kind of race we had been hoping for. We have struggled all weekend and we have to try and understand why. Usually, our race pace is always good, but today that was not the case, because I almost always suffered with a lack of grip: only in the final stages did the situation improve a little bit, but it was never enough to be competitive. We have a test in Jerez, where we will try and improve the car so as to arrive in Budapest in better shape. This is definitely not a crisis, but we have to study carefully the handling of the car to understand if we have taken the right road in terms of development."