Felipe Massa has won the Turkish Grand Prix for the third time in row. Lewis Hamilton, who made thee pitstops, finished second. World Champion Kimi Raikkonen completed the podium.
At the start Massa kept his first place, Hamilton followed with Robert Kubica behind him. Kovalainen lost two places. Alonso moved up and passed Kovalainen and Raikkonen.
At the back of the field Fisichella collided with Kazuki Nakajima. Both drivers had to retire. The safety car had to come out to clear all the debris from the track.
Kovalainen immediately enters the pitlane for an unscheduled pitstop and returns to the track in 18th position. Alonso meanwhile is repassed by Raikkonen, taking back his 4th place.
8 laps after the start, Massa is leading on option tyres, just 1.5 seconds ahead of Hamilton who started on the harder compound. Thanks to the more durable tyres, Hamilton is just started to regain some ground that he lost mainly in the first few laps. Behind them is a pack of 3, lead by Kubica. Raikkonen follows closely without really attempting to pass.
In the 15th lap, Alonso is in the pitlane and is fitted with the prime compound. Hamilton follows suit in the 16th lap after reducing the gap to Massa to only several tenths of a second.
In lap 19, Massa is also pitting, again for new option tyres. Indeed it is remarkable how differently the teams use their tyres. At Ferrari, both drivers start with 2 stints on the softer compound, while BMW Sauber and McLaren start with consecutive stints on the prime compound.
After the stops, Hamilton is again just behind Massa, with most importantly an out lap that was a full 2 seconds faster than Massa’s. Such is surprising, especially since their different tyre compounds. It also gives a partly explanation why Massa often appears less impressive during the race compared to his qualifying pace. In lap 24, Hamilton eventually passed the leader on the back straight, displaying the dominant braking performance of the McLaren. In the laps that follow, Hamilton is able to pull away from the Ferrari by almost a second a lap.
One lap later, Bourdais brakes too late for the final corner complex and ends up in the gravel trap.
31 laps in the race and 28 to go, Hamilton is 8 seconds ahead of Massa. Third is Raikkonen, followed distantly by Kubica. Further down are Heidfeld, Alonso in 6th and Webber 7th.
Hamilton then somewhat surprisingly enters the pitlane again and fits the prime compound, confirming that he will pit one more time. He rejoins the track in third and is onto his way to Raikkonen.
Lap 36 marks a couple of nice battles between places 11 and 14. In two laps time, Button lost two places, first to Piquet and 3 turns later one more to Kovalainen who had just passed Glock.
After both Ferrari’s stopped, Hamilton ratakes the lead 15 laps from the end and does not look to be in a position to win any more. With 13 laps to go, Hamilton pits for his option tyres and rejoins ahead of Raikkonen only to see the World Champion close in on him again in the following laps.
In the end, Massa is the expected winner with clearly the better car of the field, ahead of Hamilton and Raikkonen. Just like in Barcelona, the gap in between the top three is very small and totals 4.2 seconds.
Turkish Grand-Prix, race
1 F. Massa Ferrari 1:26:49.451
2 L. Hamilton McLaren + 3.779
3 K. Räikkönen Ferrari + 4.271
4 R. Kubica BMW + 21.945
5 N. Heidfeld BMW + 38.741
6 F. Alonso Renault + 53.724
7 M. Webber Red Bull + 1:04.229
8 N. Rosberg Williams + 1:11.406
9 D. Coulthard Red Bull + 1:15.270
10 J. Trulli Toyota + 1:16.344
11 J. Button Honda + 1 lap
12 H. Kovalainen McLaren + 1 lap
13 T. Glock Toyota + 1 lap
14 R. Barrichello Honda + 1 lap
15 N. Piquet jr. Renault + 1 lap
16 A. Sutil Force India F1 + 1 lap
17 S. Vettel Scuderia Toro Rosso + 1 lap
