Grand Prix of Spain

Kimi Raikkonen stretched his world championship lead by beating Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa in a comfortable one-two in the Spanish Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton salvaged third on a difficult day for McLaren, with his teammate Heikki Kovalainen airlifted to hospital for precautionary checks following a violent accident in the early part of the race.

After his sensational front row qualifying effort, crowd favourite Fernando Alonso was unable to deliver the result the Spanish fans craved. An engine failure took him out of fifth place after 33 laps.

Alonso immediately lost second place to Massa at the start of the race, while Hamilton squeezed past BMW’s Robert Kubica to take an early fourth.

While Raikkonen proceeded to edge away from Massa in the opening laps, both Ferraris pulled clear of Alonso, who had Hamilton and Kubica close behind him.

As widely expected, the Renault was the lightest car amongst the front-runners, but ran until lap 16 before making its first pitstop. Massa was the next to pit three laps later, with Raikkonen, Hamilton and Kubica all stopping over the next two laps.

The heavier Kovalainen therefore picked up the lead, only to plunge off the track at the fast Turn 9 after his left front tyre suddenly deflated. The McLaren went deep into the tyre wall, and the safety car was called while the medical crew attended to Kovalainen. Despite the substantial damage to the car, the initial indications were that the Finn had escaped injury in the accident.

The race resumed on lap 28 with Raikkonen still leading from Massa, but Hamilton and Kubica up to third and fourth having jumped Alonso in the first pitstops.

Although the top four remained in close company and lapping at a similar pace for the remainder of the race, there were no changes in the order, and Raikkonen was able to clinch a straightforward second victory of 2008, extending his championship lead and putting Ferrari on top of the constructors’ table.

Alonso dropped back from this group before retiring with an engine failure on lap 33. That allowed Red Bull’s Mark Webber to take a strong fifth place after a very competitive drive that took him clear of the rest of the upper midfield.

Jenson Button benefited from a long second stint and late final stop to jump out of the pack and emerge in sixth place, claiming Honda’s first points of the year. Williams’ Nico Rosberg had been on course for the position before retiring with an engine failure, but his teammate Kazuki Nakajima provided some consolation with seventh.

The final point went to Toyota’s Jarno Trulli, who had been chasing Webber until having to make an additional pitstop. He fended off the charging Nick Heidfeld, who had been forced to the back of the field when he had to take a penalty for stopping while the pits were closed during the safety car period.

Giancarlo Fisichella completed the top ten for Force India, having been in contention for the last point before losing ground when he pitted several laps earlier than the rest of the midfield group.

The race saw unusually high attrition for Barcelona, starting on the first lap when Adrian Sutil (Force India) tried an ambitious move on David Coulthard’s Red Bull and ended up spinning into the path of Toro Rosso’s Sebastian Vettel – prompting a brief safety car period.

Renault driver Nelson Piquet did not last much longer, dropping to 18th when he ran wide across the gravel, then tangling with Vettel’s teammate Sebastien Bourdais at Turn 10 as he tried to recover, breaking both cars’ suspension.

Debris from Piquet’s trip off the road then punctured the radiator in Anthony Davidson’s Super Aguri, ending the Briton’s race.

Honda’s Rubens Barrichello retired after a pitlane incident that deranged his car’s nose section, while Timo Glock and Coulthard made the finish in 11th and 12th despite the Toyota running into the back of the Red Bull as they fought for the final top ten places after their second stops. The incident, which broke Glock’s front wing and left Coulthard with a puncture, will be investigated by the stewards after the race.

Takuma Sato completed the finishers for the troubled Super Aguri team. The Japanese driver ran as high as ninth after gaining places when he pitted just before the second safety car, but an early second stop returned him to the back of the field.

Classified:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time
 1.  Raikkonen     Ferrari               (B)  1h38:19.051
 2.  Massa         Ferrari               (B)  +     3.228
 3.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  +     4.187
 4.  Kubica        BMW Sauber            (B)  +     5.694
 5.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault      (B)  +    35.938
 6.  Button        Honda                 (B)  +    53.010
 7.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota       (B)  +    58.244
 8.  Trulli        Toyota                (B)  +    59.435
 9.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber            (B)  +  1:03.073
10.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari   (B)  +     1 lap
11.  Glock         Toyota                (B)  +     1 lap
12.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault      (B)  +     1 lap
13.  Sato          Super Aguri-Honda     (B)  +     1 lap

Fastest lap: Raikkonen, 1:21.670

Not classified/retirements:
Driver        Team                      On lap
Rosberg       Williams-Toyota       (B)    42
Alonso        Renault               (B)    35
Barrichello   Honda                 (B)    35
Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes      (B)    22
Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda     (B)    9
Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)    8
Piquet        Renault               (B)    7
Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)    1
Sutil         Force India-Ferrari   (B)    1

Win number 17 for Kimi:  a triple of pole, fastest lap and victory – wonderful! He drove a smooth, flawless, and unchallenged race despite all the crazy interruptions of accidents. Hats off to Heidfeld and Coulthard who were the only two drivers who managed to pull off some decent overtakings in what was such a dull race at Barcelona.

The start was crucial as Kimi said, he successfully led into turn 1 and Felipe Massa managed to get infront of Alonso. The Renault driver’s race was only to end in tears as his engine gave up infront of his army of fans. They still cheered for their local hero though! Hamilton’s race was hard, he kept pushing to stay as close as possible to the Ferraris’. They even seemed to be cruising and Hamilton still couldn’t give a big enough challenge to Massa.

BMW’s Kubica stayed behind the sole McLaren on track, as Heikki Kovalainen’s race came to a bad end with a nasty 140mph crash into the tyre barriers. Of what is becoming a common problem for McLaren, their front wheel/brake mechanic structure exploded and sent Heikki flying off track. Lewis had a very similar accident during qualifying in last year’s Nurburgring race. Heikki has been confirmed as stable and well and is currently having check ups at a hospital in Barcelona.

Otherwise, there were odd situations between some drivers when it came to overtaking – some looked as if they totally forgot how to pull one off (Timo Glock and Nelson Piquet for example). That may be due to the difficult layout of the Spanish track – the cars were evenly spread out from the start for the most part of the race, which wasn’t very exciting to watch. Even during the safety car laps, the field still weren’t close enough to have an overtaking prospect in sight. And the TV coverage didn’t help, we missed half of the little action during adverts and ITV didn’t even show Kimi and Felipe’s comments in the press conference and just skipped to Lewis instead!

All in all, a very frustrating race to watch but Kimi saved the day as I got to see him on the top step, smiling, with the nearly bald head he seemed reluctant to reveal all weekend. Jenni was also at the track to support her husband, she must be delighted too. Keep Flying Kimi!

| Race Quotes – "I Could Have Gone Faster" – Kimi

"We didn’t get the perfect start but it was good enough to stay in front," said Raikkonen. "For sure we could have run a bit faster but no point to push when you don’t need to. It was closer than we expected.

"It was a good day and I am happy that Heikki seems to be okay after his accident so I cannot ask for anything more. The guys did a perfect work. In the second pitstop I had a bit of traffic and had to wait, but it was okay."

"This circuit is very difficult to overtake and the start is the best place and if you have a lot of things with the safety car you might be lucky or unlucky, but the best place to try and win is from the front.

"We had the speed all weekend," the world champion added.

"I think our car should be quite strong in Turkey and it is a great circuit. I am looking forward to going there and do the best we can. We had a great weekend here and we try and repeat it in Turkey, whatever it brings we need points."

Ferrari Team Quotes

…Kimi Raikkonen – 1st: "It would be hard to do
better than this! Yesterday pole, today the win, rounded off with a
second place for Felipe. We are leading both championships which I’m
happy about. The whole weekend went well and we managed to get the
result we came here for. It was not an easy win, but what matters is
the ten points, not the lead you have when you cross the line.

"I did not get a perfect start, but it was enough to keep the lead
and then we tried to control the situation. The two Safety Car periods
complicated things slightly, wiping out the lead we had built up in the
first part, but we never lost the lead of the race.

"The car handled very well and had a great balance. We are leading
the world championship, but we know we cannot let up at all: it takes
nothing to drop down the order. Heikki’s accident? I was very happy
when the team told me he was alright and that’s the most important
thing."

| Videos – Race Press Conference, Start Lap, Heikki’s Crash, Race Finish

 http://www.viddler.com/simple/be8d64e7/

 http://www.viddler.com/simple/b16ab541/  http://www.viddler.com/simple/2e658b40/  http://www.viddler.com/simple/dcb52bbf/

| Saturday Qualifying – Kimi Takes Pole Ahead of Alonso!
Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen narrowly beat home hero Fernando Alonso to pole position in an extremely close qualifying session for the Spanish Grand Prix.

Felipe Massa had to settle for third on the grid in the second Ferrari after holding provisional pole following the first Q3 laps, while Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen ended up only fifth and sixth for McLaren, behind Robert Kubica’s BMW.

Raikkonen had been fastest by over half a second in Q1, but a poor first Q3 lap left him a provisional fifth on the grid, half a second slower than Massa.

But the Brazilian then failed to improve on his second flying lap, and was knocked off the top spot by Alonso – showing superb form in the revised Renault.

The home crowd seemed set to celebrate a shock pole position for their hero, only for Raikkonen to improve by a second on his final lap and beat Alonso to pole by 0.091 seconds.

Kubica came close to taking third from Massa, lapping just 0.007 seconds behind as he claimed the outside row two spot and pushed Hamilton back to fifth place. Just over 0.2 seconds covered the top five.

Kovalainen was sixth, ahead of Red Bull’s Mark Webber and Toyota driver Jarno Trulli.

Nick Heidfeld could only manage ninth in the second BMW, half a second slower than Kubica.

Alonso’s teammate Nelson Piquet completed an extremely encouraging session for Renault by making it into Q3 for the first time in his Formula One career. He will start 10th.

Honda narrowly missed out on the top ten start that had been their target for this weekend. Rubens Barrichello came within 0.065 seconds of making it through to Q3 but will have to start 11th, with teammate Jenson Button taking 13th.

They were split by Kazuki Nakajima, as the Japanese rookie outqualified his Williams teammate Nico Rosberg for the first time. The German driver was 0.2 seconds slower in 15th position, behind Toyota driver Timo Glock.

Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais made his second consecutive Q2 appearance and claimed 16th, having beaten teammate Sebastian Vettel by 0.6 seconds in Q1. Vettel was eliminated in the first session and will start 18th.

David Coulthard failed to get beyond Q1 again. Traffic on the Red Bull driver’s out-lap prevented him from getting his tyres fully up to temperature and he could only manage 17th.

Despite breaking into the top ten in Friday practice, Force India continued to struggle in qualifying. Giancarlo Fisichella beat Adrian Sutil by 0.7 seconds as they took 19th and 20th.

Unsurprisingly given their difficult build-up to the weekend, Super Aguri remained on the back row of the grid, with Anthony Davidson taking 21st ahead of teammate Takuma Sato.

Pos  Driver        Team                 Q1        Q2        Q3       Laps
 1.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              1:20.701  1:20.784  1:21.813  17
 2.  Alonso        Renault              1:21.347  1:20.804  1:21.904  18
 3.  Massa         Ferrari              1:21.528  1:20.584  1:22.058  16
 4.  Kubica        BMW Sauber           1:21.423  1:20.597  1:22.065  13
 5.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     1:21.366  1:20.825  1:22.096  14
 6.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes     1:21.430  1:20.817  1:22.231  15
 7.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault     1:21.494  1:20.984  1:22.429  19
 8.  Trulli        Toyota               1:21.158  1:20.907  1:22.529  19
 9.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber           1:21.466  1:20.815  1:22.542  20
10.  Piquet        Renault              1:21.409  1:20.894  1:22.699  18
11.  Barrichello   Honda                1:21.548  1:21.049            12
12.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota      1:21.690  1:21.117            15
13.  Button        Honda                1:21.757  1:21.211            12
14.  Glock         Toyota               1:21.427  1:21.230            16
15.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      1:21.472  1:21.349            15
16.  Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1:21.540  1:21.724            15
17.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault     1:21.810                       6
18.  Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari   1:22.108                      10
19.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari  1:22.516                      11
20.  Sutil         Force India-Ferrari  1:23.224                       8
21.  Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda    1:23.318                       9
22.  Sato          Super Aguri-Honda    1:23.496                       9

*Out of breath from kicking legs and pumping fists* Wow! Kimi’s first pole of the season and what a way to do it. After finally sorting out his qualifying demons, Kimi takes his 15th career pole position. Kimi wasn’t as dominate as we thought he would be in the earlier sessions – he worked hard in Q2 despite being safe to go through to Q3, but still needed to find something else and during Q3 he struggled a bit with understeer and had that amended in the pits. Then he got it right, only to upset the huge army of Alonso supporters who saw their hero go fastest for just 3 seconds until Kimi crossed the line. When you watch the video below, you’ll love the sounds of the engine with he crowds in the distance. Personally, this has been even more satisfying than his win in Malaysia. Although it’s just qualifying, we have seen Kimi struggle and never too comfortable over one lap and now that he has finally improved this, there’s no holding him back. This season is going to get better and better. Keep Flying Kimi!

| Qualifying Quotes – Kimi: Start will be crucial

"Qualifying is one part but tomorrow is where we get the points," said Raikkonen, who leads the championship after the first three races. "Last year we couldn’t finish the race. We should have good speed in the race as long as we get a good start.

"We are confident in ourselves. We need a good clean first few corners and then try to maximize our position. This is the best place to do our job."

"We just changed the set-up quite a bit so it’s easier to work," he added. "We wanted to try something in the test and we had a rainy day so didn’t get a good idea, few laps in the dry gave me a good feeling we decided to keep it and so far so good."

"I’ve been more happy with the car than in previous races. We changed a bit the starting point and it seems to be working quite well. Of course it is a bit more tricky here but it is a nice circuit and they changed the outside in a few places so if you run wide it makes life a bit more difficult."

Ferrari Quotes

Kimi Raikkonen – 1st: "I’ve been chasing pole for a while now, but for one reason or another, it always escaped me. But today I got it. There is no better place to start so I will try and make the most of that tomorrow. It will be important to get off the line well, getting through the first corner without any problems. Then it will be down to exploiting the car’s potential and that is definitely good.

"The race is what matters and tomorrow I want to bring home a nice result. So maybe it was not too bad doing so few laps in the dry in last week’s test, as we were able to work on set-up with a different approach. On my first run in Q3, I lost a bit of grip in the final sector, but then on the second set of tyres everything went well. The perfect lap? You can always do better."

Felipe Massa – 3rd: "I got a good lap with my first set of tyres in Q3, but that was not the case on my second, especially in the final sector of the track and that meant I could not improve on my time. When qualifying is as close as this it only takes the smallest of things to lose or gain a few places.

"I think we will be very competitive tomorrow, but we can expect a tough race. Anything can happen and we will have to give it our best shot to bring home the best result possible. We can count on a car that is good over a long run, which has been the case from last week’s test up to and including yesterday."

Luca Baldisserri: "This was an incredibly close fight. Once again it demonstrated that you have to pay close attention to the smallest detail if you aspire to the top places, especially in qualifying. From what we have seen, for the race, we can run at a good pace over a distance and we will try and make the most of our grid positions. The crucial elements will be the same as ever: the start, the strategy, reliability and tyre performance. Our mood of cautious optimism from yesterday remains the same today."

Read additional press conference comments here.

| Videos – Onboard Kimi’s Pole Lap, Last Minutes of Q3, Press Conference 

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