Turkey Round Up

By Catfish
August 28 2006

A Round up from todays Turkish Grand Prix where Fernando Alonso Drove a Brilliant race to finish ahead of the Ferrari of Micheal Schumacher, gaining 2 points on his title rival and every point counts with 4 races to go

The start saw almost immediate carnage as the two Ferrari’s appeared to squeeze Fernando as he tried to go for the gap between them. Fisi managed to spin whilst looking to avoid touching his team mate, which caused a chain reaction involving several cars, including Nick Heidfeld and Kimi Raikkonen who suffered a rear puncture.

Fernando settled into third place whilst Fisi had to pit for a new wing, which dropped him all the way down to 17th place and no doubt into Flavio’s bad books again! The Ferraris’ continued to lead comfortably but unlike some of the recent hot weather races were not disappearing into the distance. On lap three Raikkonen crashed out of his second consecutive race not long after leaving the pits and possibly due to damage caused by the first corner incident. Fernando was losing a bit of time to the Ferraris allowing Button to close the gap on him slightly whilst Michael closed on Massa but with no sign any Ferrari team orders.

Then on lap 13 Luizzi span out by himself and then stalled right on the exit of turn one, causing a safety car situation which changed the entire complexion of the race. All the front runners immediately dived for the pits and rather surprisingly Ferrari called Massa in first. This then delayed Schumacher’s stop for long enough to allow Fernando to steal second place and would prove to be a very costly mistake for the Italian team. The safety car came in on lap 16 and Massa continued to keep a safe gap to Fernando whilst Schumacher began to slowly close but without ever looking like getting past. Almost immediately after the restart Fisi began to fight his way back by passing several cars in quick succession starting almost immediately with Ralf Schumacher and was up to P6 by the time he came in for his second stop on lap 31 at the same time as 5th placed Pedro DeLarosa.

Massa came in for his second stop on lap 40 with a lead of around three seconds and Renault reacted immediately to bring Fernando in on the same lap. Now Michael Schumacher had it all to do to close the gap before his final stop and he started by setting a new fastest lap almost immediately. He had a seventeen-second advantage but pitted on lap 43 without enough of a cushion to keep him in front and the Renault was safely past the pit lane exit before he emerged.

The next 15 few laps produced an epic duel as Schumi tried and failed several times to pass Fernando, who appeared to be struggling a bit for grip, but on each occasion the Spaniard defended superbly. All of Michael’s guile and experience could not find a way past and in spite of appearing to be quicker he seemed to lose out at Turn 8 each time. With three laps to go he was back on the Renault’s gearbox but even with a desperate last lap lunge, which saw the two cars cross the line almost side by side, Fernando just managed to hold on.

Massa was able to cruise to a deserving first career victory and whilst he drove a pretty faultless race he would almost certainly have been asked to move over had Michael managed to get past Fernando. Fisi failed to improve on his 6th place and finished just behind the McLaren of DeLaRosa who stopped only once. But it was a spirited drive from the back of the field particularly in the light of Pat Symonds post race comments and the fact that he was also on a one stop strategy. Unfortunately Ferrari have still gained five points in the constructors title race. However Fernando’s solid drive has pulled his lead in the drivers title back to 12 points and the performance difference without the Dampers was a lot less than many people had feared. We even witnessed an exiting race with several overtaking moves without any rain to help so there’s plenty to look forward to in the last four races!


P. No Driver Team - Engine Tyres Gaps/Laps Average Stops
1. 6 MASSA Ferrari B 1h28'51"082 208.903 Km/h 2
2. 1 ALONSO Renault M + 0'05"510 208.688 Km/h 2
3. 5 M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari B + 0'05"630 208.683 Km/h 2
4. 12 BUTTON Honda M + 0'12"340 208.421 Km/h 2
5. 4 DE LA ROSA McLaren Mercedes M + 0'45"950 207.118 Km/h 0
6. 2 FISICHELLA Renault M + 0'46"560 207.095 Km/h 2
7. 7 R.SCHUMACHER Toyota B + 0'59"370 206.603 Km/h 2
8. 11 BARRICHELLO Honda M + 1'00"080 206.575 Km/h 2
9. 8 TRULLI Toyota B 1 lap(s) 2
10. 9 WEBBER Williams Cosworth B 1 lap(s) 2
11. 15 KLIEN RedBull Ferrari M 1 lap(s) 2
12. 17 KUBICA BMW Sauber M 1 lap(s) 0
13. 21 SPEED Toro Rosso Cosw. M 1 lap(s) 2
14. 16 HEIDFELD BMW Sauber M 2 lap(s) 3
15. 14 COULTHARD RedBull Ferrari M 3 lap(s) 3
16. 19 ALBERS Midland Toyota B 12 lap(s) 2
17. 22 SATO S. Aguri F1 Honda B 17 lap(s) 2
18. 10 ROSBERG Williams Cosworth B 33 lap(s) 1
19. 23 YAMAMOTO S. Aguri F1 Honda B 35 lap(s) 1
20. 20 LIUZZI Toro Rosso Cosw. M 46 lap(s) 0
21. 3 RAIKKONEN McLaren Mercedes M 57 lap(s) 1
22. 18 MONTEIRO Midland Toyota B 58 lap(s) 0