2007 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix, news & video

Massa wins, Hamilton 2nd, and Kimi 3rd

What a great race, definatly the best out of the three so far! Why? Because Alonso, Hamilton and Kimi all share 22 points in the championship. The start was perhaps not as exciting as Malaysia, however, Kimi was under pressure from Alonso but the Finn managed to take turn 1 from the outside and get a chance at Hamilton. Massa had a clean hassle free start from Hamilton this time, however out of turn 1 Alonso brought up speed to get ahead of Kimi at turn 4 and thus the first few laps were spent in that order.

Massa and Hamilton then pulled away from the field together, while Alonso appeared to be holding up both Raikkonen and Heidfeld in the first stint – this trio dropping 10 seconds behind the leaders.

McLaren chose to put their drivers on long middle stints to maximise their time on soft tyres, but the tactic did not pay off.

Hamilton quickly dropped away from Massa, while Alonso lost out to Raikkonen in the pitstops, then came under heavy pressure from Heidfeld before the BMW drove around the outside of the McLaren at Turn 4 to take fourth on lap 31.

Raikkonen closed to within a second of Hamilton before the final stops, but three extra laps on low fuel helped the McLaren to stay in front.

Hamilton then gained substantially on Massa in the last laps of the race, getting the Ferrari driver’s lead down to two seconds as they took the flag, but never getting close enough to try and pass.

Alonso could not make as much ground, and had to follow Heidfeld home for a low-key fifth place.

The result means that Alonso, Raikkonen and Hamilton now share the championship lead on 22 points, with Massa just five points adrift.

Robert Kubica could not match teammate Heidfeld’s pace and spent the entire race in a very solitary sixth place.

The Red Bulls should have claimed the final two points positions – David Coulthard having made superb progress from the back of the grid on an aggressive strategy.

A series of determined early passing moves put him on course for seventh, until a lap 36 driveshaft failure.

Teammate Mark Webber then inherited the place, only to also pull off five laps later.

Jarno Trulli therefore moved up to seventh, having overtaken both Renaults during the race. Giancarlo Fisichella came back at the Toyota in the closing stages, but despite getting alongside his compatriot on the penultimate lap he was unable to take the place.

Heikki Kovalainen and Nico Rosberg completed the top ten, finishing nose to tail.

Both Super Aguris retired, but only after a long first stint had allowed Anthony Davidson to run as high as sixth.

They comfortably outpaced the sole works Honda of Rubens Barrichello, whose teammate Jenson Button retired on the first lap after an incident with Scott Speed and Adrian Sutil that prompted a brief safety car.

Results:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time
 1.  Massa         Ferrari              (B)  1h33:27.515
 2.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  +     2.360
 3.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              (B)  +    10.839
 4.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber           (B)  +    13.831
 5.  Alonso        McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  +    14.426
 6.  Kubica        BMW Sauber           (B)  +    45.529
 7.  Trulli        Toyota               (B)  +  1:21.371
 8.  Fisichella    Renault              (B)  +  1:21.701
 9.  Kovalainen    Renault              (B)  +  1:29.411
10.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      (B)  +  1:29.916
11.  Wurz          Williams-Toyota      (B)  +     1 lap
12.  R.Schumacher  Toyota               (B)  +     1 lap
13.  Barrichello   Honda                (B)  +     1 lap
14.  Albers        Spyker-Ferrari       (B)  +    2 laps
15.  Sutil         Spyker-Ferrari       (B)  +    4 laps

Fastest lap: Massa, 1:34.067

News: Raikkonen: Ferrari must keep on pushing

"This whole weekend has been quite difficult," said Raikkonen. "Hopefully at the next test we will find something and some parts that improve the situation for me so we can try to start being at the front again.

"I think we are going to get more parts for the next step. I am pretty positive it is going to change things a lot. I think they are closer than the first race but Australia is a special race. I think we have the edge on them but we will keep working."

Raikkonen has enjoyed one of his best starts to a Formula One season, having scored 22 points in the first three races, but the Finn admits he wanted more.

"It is better than previous years, but we wanted to have all 30," he admitted. "We are in a good position for three races, but we need to improve our situation and then we are going to have a good season.

"Everyone is very close to each other so it is going to be a difficult season."

>Post-race press conference – Bahrain<

Hamilton makes F1 history with podium

Alonso sorry to miss out on podium

Massa glad to leave bad races behind

Q & A with Almondo and Domenicali

Ferrari urge Raikkonen to improve restarts"…Despite Ferrari’s feelings about that specific incident, the team praised Raikkonen’s calm approach to racing – and believe his position as joint championship leader reflects how well he is doing.

Stefano Domenicali, sporting director, said: "Kimi’s best characteristic is that he’s always cool, he’s always looking behind the fence. He’s not emotionally involved, at least, apparently, because he’s a thinker and so you can see that. If you look at the numbers, Kimi’s leading the championship with the others of course. But he’s there, so that’s his strength."

What a great race! I really enjoyed it, by far the best of the 3 races so far!

So many great drives, and probably the best race from all the British drivers, Hamilton just drove impeccably good again, Coulthard just showed why he is the probably the driver with the most class in the field, Davidson really doing a job job for Super Aguri, but Button sadly didnt get far, but I’m sure he was actually quite relieved he didn’t have to have another dreadful race hehehe.

Alonso had a good start, Kimi did well to fend him off into the turn 1, but things just went more downhill for them both since then, as Kimi couldn’t make a move on Hamilton (grrrrr not another pitstop pass!) and Alonso struggled so we couldnt really see a battle between the two rivals.

And OMG I’m BMW’s biggest fan *takes out my bro’s BMW jacket eventhough it has out of date sponsors*, I’m not a glory hunter because I knew they’ll be doing big stuff this season and Heidfeld did a great job! That move on Alonso was sweet, and so was many others such as DC on Fisi. Nice little battles here and there too. Some were plain stupid like Ralfie boy and Fisi couldnt make a move on Trulli, ugh. But the competition in F1 is looking really good right now, and I can’t wait till we get back to racing at Spain in a month’s time.

As for Massa, I’m happy for him, he needed a win badly just to fend of media criticism and get his confidence back up to the right level.

Kimi, I know you are hardly bothered after the race if you’re not on the top step, but hey, 3 podiums isnt bad and even if the commentators said you dozed off in the safety car in-lap, I don’t think you did, it was clear you wanted clean and open air to get up to speed and rhythm, and until you got close enough you would make a move then and there, but even that didn’t work out after a few attempts. So, you need to think of other ways of setting the car up during those laps to get a good run at the car infront. Good job anyway, keep it up and Keep Flying!

Saturday, Qualifying:

Kimi gets P3

Felipe Massa secured his second successive pole position in qualifying at Sakhir, fending off Lewis Hamilton as the McLaren rookie secured his first front row start.

Massa, fastest in both Q1 and Q2, and Hamilton monopolised the battle for pole position, with the Brazilian taking provisional pole with a 1:33.090 on his first soft tyre run, and Hamilton lapping just 0.028 seconds slower.

The pair were evenly matched in the first two sectors on their next runs, but Massa found a lot more time in the final third of the lap and improved to a 1:32.652, three tenths clear of Hamilton.

Their teammates were overshadowed, with Kimi Raikkonen beating Fernando Alonso to third by a few fractions.

The BMWs were unable to infiltrate the battle for pole despite their strong practice pace. Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica filled row three again, though.

Giancarlo Fisichella showed improved form to take seventh for Renault, ahead of Mark Webber, Jarno Trulli and Nico Rosberg.

Alex Wurz and Heikki Kovalainen both lost out in the extremely tight battle to reach the top ten. They were 0.1 and 0.046 seconds respectively slower than teammates Rosberg and Fisichella in Q2, and therefore missed the cut.

Although Anthony Davidson could not repeat his practice form, he made it through to the second session and qualified 13th, ahead of Ralf Schumacher’s understeering Toyota, and the struggling Hondas of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button – the latter pair both a second slower than they needed to be to reach Q3.

Davidson was the only driver from F1’s bottom three teams to escape Q1, as his Super Aguri teammate Takuma Sato joined the Toro Rossos and Spykers in early elimination.

David Coulthard will start amongst the backmarkers in 21st after gearbox problems struck the Red Bull in Q1.

Results:

> Post-qualifying press conference comments <

Kimi’s post-qualifying comments:

Q. Kimi, we’ll see tomorrow what fuel loads everybody is on, but it looked as though you had a bit of a moment with Giancarlo Fisichella early on in Q3.

Kimi Raikkonen: Yeah, on my first try in third qualifying he was in front of me through Turn One, and then I had big traffic on my second run, so it wasn’t the best. But looking back I think it’s OK because I wasn’t certain I’d be in the top three. We’ll see how the race goes. We have a good race car but need to improve a little bit in qualifying. We’ll see what happens.

Q. You were quickest yesterday, when you too spoke about how difficult conditions are here in Bahrain.

KR: Yeah, yesterday was more difficult. Conditions today have been quite similar all day. It hasn’t been so bad but the wind here can always make a big difference. We know a little bit about the wind from testing, so I think we came here knowing what to do about race set-ups.

Q. You and Felipe both spent a bit of time behind the McLarens in Malaysia. How do you feel the battle will go tomorrow?

KR: I think it will be close, but it depends on a lot of things – including how things work out at the first corner.

Videos:
Full press conference > here

Great qualifying effort from Hamilton and Massa. I’m anxious about if we get a repeat of Malaysia’s start! Kimi and Fernie share the second row which is interesting, I wonder which one is heavier and what not. Great job guys, pity that Kimi couldn’t get pole but I’m looking forward to the race nonetheless! And its worth to comment on how the No1’s at McLaren and Ferrari have been out qualified by their new teammates, but they end up regaining position over them in the races. Hamilton can win this race tomorrow, and so can Massa. But not if Kimi and Fernando have something to say about it! They are the ones in the championship lead fight afterall…

Oh and I hope all that blue smoke from Hamilton’s engine won’t be disastrous for him, as in ruin his chances for victory, because that would be out of order. Afterall, we Kimi fans have experience in being let down from that department eh?

Will Massa get eaten up by Hamilton again? Can Kimi get both Massa and Hamilton out his way? Will Alonso hassle Kimi? Which of the two is heavier on fuel? Who will win?! Find all this out tomorrow!

Keep Flying Kimi!