“Kimi (Raikkonen) had bad luck, but instead of McLaren, now it is Ferrari’s problem,” wrote the Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport.
A glance at the global press’ reaction to the Spanish grand prix shows increasing support for the former ‘number twos’ at Ferrari and McLaren, as the pressure on Raikkonen and Fernando Alonso rises still higher.
“(Lewis) Hamilton leads the championship and (Felipe) Massa is the favourite for the title,” Italy’s Tuttosport said, and ‘Corriere dello Sport’ added that Raikkonen was “out of the fight” in Barcelona in more ways than one, following his alternator failure.
“Never say again that Felipe is a number two,” the newspaper added.
“Massa does a Schumi”, La Nuova Venezia observed of the Ferrari driver’s performance in Spain, and ‘La Stampa said: “Now a Brazilian is in our hearts”.
German news magazine Der Spiegel said Massa and Hamilton have turned the F1 hierarchy “upside down”, while the Cologne newspaper Express referred to 26-year-old Massa as “Schumi’s apprentice”.
‘Bild’ called rookie Hamilton “black lightening”, and another German publication, Focus Online, likened him to a “black Schumacher”.
Spanish newspapers, however, were unhappy with Massa; El Mundo Deportivo observing that his tactics against Fernando Alonso at the first corner were “not illegal but not refined”, while ‘Diario As’ went a step further, calling the incident “unsporting”.
