The third race of the 2008 season has finished and Massa claimed his first victory for this year. The race results have mixed up the standings, bringing more than enough drivers close to each other near the top. The same is happening also in the constructors’ championship, where we have the three top teams separated by only two points.
Unfortunately the battle that seems to have started in the standings does not come from battles within the track. For one more time we have watched a race that had nothing special to show. One driver pulls off finishes first, the others follow him without any battles in track. So the promising standings derive from cars reliability, retirements and tactics, rather than in track fighting.
Let’s see what happened during the Bahrain race today. Kubica was starting the race from a great pole position, with Massa in P2 followed by Kimi Raikkonen and Lewis Hamilton. The Briton had a terrible start, resulting in his losing many places down to P9 after the first turn. Massa managed to pass Kubica right in the first turn, and stayed there until the end, as he was not challenged by anyone. Even his teammate, 2007 world champion, Kimi Raikkonen was not able to follow him.
The Finn passed Kubica two laps later, on lap three and that was the point where the podium positions were desided.
A little earlier, Lewis Hamilton made another mistake while trying to pass Fernando Alonso. He crashed his McLaren on the back of the Spaniard’s Renult, breaking his front wing and thus ruining his own race. He dropped to P18 after the pit stop made to repair his damaged front part.
Felipe Massa continued racing very fast, and we all understood that he was going to win right after we witnessed Kimi having a pit stop first. It was a surprising result for the Brazilian as he was faster then his teammate even with a heavier car.
Kubica finished the race in 3rd position followed by his teammate Nick Heidfeld, giving BMW a great result along with the first place in the constructors’ championship. Heikki Kovalainen was fifth giving McLaren some points, while Jarno Truli was 6th showing that Toyota is doing well this season. Mark Webber was 7th, and the last point has been taken by Nico Rosberg with his Williams Toyota.
Total results are as follows:
1) Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:31:06.970
2) Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari +3.3 secs
3) Robert Kubica BMW +4.9 secs
4) Nick Heidfeld BMW +8.4 secs
5) Heikki Kovalainen McLaren-Mercedes +26.7 secs
6) Jarno Trulli Toyota +41.3 secs
7) Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault +45.4 secs
8) Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota +55.8 secs
9) Timo Glock Toyota +69.5 secs
10) Fernando Alonso Renault +77.1 secs
11) Rubens Barrichello Honda +77.8 secs
12) Giancarlo Fisichella Force India-Ferrari +1 Lap
13) Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes +1 Lap
14) Kazuki Nakajima Williams-Toyota +1 Lap
15) Sebastien Bourdais STR-Ferrari +1 Lap
16) Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda +1 Lap
17) Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda +1 Lap
18) David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault +1 Lap
19) Adrian Sutil Force India-Ferrari +2 Laps
Ret Nelsinho Piquet Renault
Ret Jenson Button Honda
Ret Sebastian Vettel STR-Ferrari
