F1 - Massa takes Turkish GP hatrick

Michael Schumacher was the last driver to win three in a row

Felipe Massa cemented his reputation as the Istanbul Park maestro by completing a hat-trick of Turkish Grand Prix wins to put himself firmly in the world championship hunt.

The Ferrari driver once again proved unbeatable at the circuit he loves to close to within seven points of his title-leading team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.

But his latest Turkey win proved the hardest yet, as he had to fend off an audacious challenge from Lewis Hamilton, who cut his own deficit to Raikkonen to seven points with second place.

McLaren put the Briton on an unorthodox three-stop pit strategy due to concerns over the longevity of his tyres around the demanding anti-clockwise track.

And although that enabled him to pass Massa with a lighter car in the middle stages of the race, in the end he had to settle for narrowly beating Raikkonen to the runner-up spot.

But the weekend still belonged to Massa, who showed that once again on his day, and more specifically on his track, he has the better of his world champion stable-mate.

He set himself up for the victory at the start by converting pole position into the race lead, although there was plenty of jostling for position behind.

Hamilton immediately beat front-row starting team-mate Kovalainen off the line into second place, with the Finn also losing out to a fast-starting BMW of Robert Kubica at turn one.

Raikkonen too attempted to take a place off the returning McLaren driver down the inside, but got squeezed out and was instead relegated to fifth by Fernando Alonso.
Further back there was the inevitable first-corner collision with Giancarlo Fisichella involved in the chaos for the third consecutive year.

The Force India driver steamed into the braking zone and clouted the back of Kazuki Nakajima’s Williams, ripping off its rear suspension and sending both cars spiralling into retirement.

The safety car was deployed and would stay out for two laps while the stranded cars and shards of carbon fibre were cleared from the road.

Kovalainen wouldn't be in line for the restart, however, after pitting to replace a left-rear
tyre that had been punctured by Raikkonen's front wing at the first corner.

While he fell to the back of the pack, the man who had inflicted the damage quickly picked off a compliant Alonso down the back straight into turn 12 to move up to fourth.

Massa, meanwhile was steadily building up a small early cushion over Hamilton and enjoyed a 1.5s lead by the end of lap five.

But that is as much as his advantage would get in the first stint, as Lewis, looking comfortable on the harder compound tyres, began eating into it.


Hamilton dogged Massa to the end

After matching the Ferrari’s time for the first occasion on lap six, he was within 1.1s of the Brazilian after clocking the fastest lap five tours later.

He would get very close to the back of the F2008’s gearbox before he made his surprisingly early first visit to the pit lane at the end of lap 15.

This pit stop would change the race’s complexion and bring it to life in the second phase.

McLaren had opted, in a bid to protect its tyres following Hamilton's costly blow-out here last year, to put its star driver on a three-stop strategy.

After a short six second service, the Briton rejoined and set about using his lighter fuel load to make the adventurous plan work.

Massa made his first stop three laps later and duly rejoined just ahead of the charging Hamilton.

Lewis knew he had to pass his rival to give his strategy a chance of paying off and went for the jugular on the downhill run to turn 12 on lap 22.

After getting into the Ferrari’s slipstream, he dived into the car-and-a-bit size gap that Massa had left on the inside and robustly seized the place under braking into the left-hander.

Now in clear air, he would use the next eight laps to build a 8.3s advantage as he attempted to beat one, if not both, of the Scuderia’s cars.

But Massa wasn’t in the mood to let his his hat-trick chances slip.

After making his own second, but crucially final, stop eight laps later he rejoined 11s back on Hamilton, meaning he had the extra-stopping MP4-23 well covered.

So Hamilton’s sights turned to splitting the Ferraris by beating Raikkonen to second place.

The Briton had rejoined just behind the world champion, who had moved up to third during the first round of stops, following his second pit stop with both needing to make one more visit to the pit lane.

After Raikkonen pitted first on lap 43, Hamilton used his two laps of extra fuel to successfully take second place off the title leader after stellar work from the McLaren pit crew.

And although, on the softer tyres he had avoided using all afternoon, he had Raikkonen chasing him to the flag, he held on to cross the line 3.7s behind the deserving winner Massa.

Behind the fight for the podium positions, BMW had its most disappointing race of the season so far, finishing over 20s adrift of its chief rivals.

Nevertheless Kubica picked up another handy five-point haul with fourth, ahead of team-mate Nick Heidfeld after the canny German raced strongly from ninth on the grid to fifth at the flag.

Renault couldn’t reproduce its Barcelona form and Alonso finished best of the rest in a fairly lonely sixth.

Red Bull’s Mark Webber stretched his points-paying streak to four races with another seventh place, with Nico Rosberg taking the final point for Williams.

Webber’s team-mate David Coulthard just missed out on his first points of 2008 in ninth, while Kovalainen ended a thoroughly entertaining, if eventually fruitless, afternoon a lapped 12th.

The Finn was involved in numerous dices with the midfield runners during his recovery drive but simply had too much work to do to pick up any points following his early puncture.

Turkish GP result - 58 laps
1. MASSA Ferrari
2. HAMILTON McLaren +3.7s
3. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +4.2s
4. KUBICA BMW +21.6s
5. HEIDFELD BMW +38.7s
6. ALONSO Renault +53.7s
7. WEBBER Red Bull +64.2s
8. ROSBERG Williams +71.4s
9. COULTHARD Red Bull +75.2s
10. TRULLI Toyota +76.3s
11. BUTTON Honda +1 lap
12. KOVALAINEN McLaren +1 lap
13. GLOCK Toyota +1 lap
14. BARRICHELLO Honda +1 lap
15. PIQUET Renault +1 lap
16. SUTIL Force India +1 lap
17. VETTEL Toro Rosso +1 lap
R. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso +34 laps
R. NAKAJIMA Williams +57 laps
R. FISICHELLA Force India +58 laps

Fastest lap: RAIKKONEN 1m26.506s

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