Formula 1 Istanbul GP 2007

[Rockefella]

After a 3-week summer hiatus the Formula 1 calendar brings viewers to Turkey for the Istanbul GP.

FRI Practice 1
Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps
1 6 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:27.988 22
2 5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:28.391 0.403 20
3 1 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes 1:29.222 1.234 20
4 2 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:29.261 1.273 10
5 4 Heikki Kovalainen Renault 1:29.346 1.358 19
6 16 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:29.403 1.415 23
7 11 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:29.414 1.426 24
8 3 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:29.541 1.553 19
9 9 Nick Heidfeld BMW 1:29.641 1.653 20
10 12 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:29.685 1.697 26
11 10 Robert Kubica BMW 1:29.710 1.722 23
12 23 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 1:30.384 2.396 17
13 14 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:30.398 2.410 23
14 7 Jenson Button Honda 1:30.483 2.495 17
15 8 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:30.580 2.592 25
16 18 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Ferrari 1:30.612 2.624 21
17 22 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:30.624 2.636 15
18 17 Alexander Wurz Williams-Toyota 1:30.876 2.888 12
19 15 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:30.917 2.929 22
20 19 Sebastian Vettel STR-Ferrari 1:31.383 3.395 22
21 20 Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari 1:31.445 3.457 31
22 21 Sakon Yamamoto Spyker-Ferrari 1:32.270 4.282 35

[Rockefella]

FRI Practice 2

Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps
1 2 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:28.469 28
2 6 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:28.762 0.293 21
3 11 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:28.773 0.304 23
4 12 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:28.874 0.405 28
5 5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:28.884 0.415 25
6 1 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes 1:28.947 0.478 24
7 16 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:28.995 0.526 27
8 4 Heikki Kovalainen Renault 1:29.025 0.556 28
9 17 Alexander Wurz Williams-Toyota 1:29.093 0.624 27
10 10 Robert Kubica BMW 1:29.368 0.899 31
11 14 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:29.435 0.966 12
12 3 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:29.456 0.987 28
13 9 Nick Heidfeld BMW 1:29.792 1.323 30
14 7 Jenson Button Honda 1:29.945 1.476 26
15 8 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:30.055 1.586 31
16 22 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:30.104 1.635 27
17 15 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:30.315 1.846 25
18 23 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 1:30.530 2.061 24
19 18 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Ferrari 1:30.702 2.233 24
20 19 Sebastian Vettel STR-Ferrari 1:30.801 2.332 16
21 20 Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari 1:31.153 2.684 32
22 21 Sakon Yamamoto Spyker-Ferrari 1:31.175 2.706 32

[Rockefella]

SAT Practice

Pos No Driver Team Time/Retired Gap Laps
1 2 Lewis Hamilton McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.325 12
2 5 Felipe Massa Ferrari 1:27.366 0.041 15
3 6 Kimi Räikkönen Ferrari 1:27.506 0.181 16
4 1 Fernando Alonso McLaren-Mercedes 1:27.743 0.418 13
5 16 Nico Rosberg Williams-Toyota 1:28.056 0.731 16
6 9 Nick Heidfeld BMW 1:28.184 0.859 18
7 10 Robert Kubica BMW 1:28.224 0.899 21
8 3 Giancarlo Fisichella Renault 1:28.261 0.936 20
9 15 Mark Webber Red Bull-Renault 1:28.337 1.012 15
10 4 Heikki Kovalainen Renault 1:28.364 1.039 17
11 17 Alexander Wurz Williams-Toyota 1:28.413 1.088 16
12 14 David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault 1:28.448 1.123 14
13 11 Ralf Schumacher Toyota 1:28.481 1.156 20
14 12 Jarno Trulli Toyota 1:28.520 1.195 21
15 7 Jenson Button Honda 1:28.548 1.223 16
16 8 Rubens Barrichello Honda 1:28.715 1.390 18
17 23 Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda 1:28.755 1.430 16
18 18 Vitantonio Liuzzi STR-Ferrari 1:28.937 1.612 20
19 19 Sebastian Vettel STR-Ferrari 1:29.408 2.083 19
20 22 Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda 1:29.436 2.111 14
21 20 Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari 1:30.044 2.719 22
22 21 Sakon Yamamoto Spyker-Ferrari 1:30.712 3.387 21

[Rockefella]

Qualifying is currently in progress, and I'm sure I wont be the only one watching McLaren try to overcome their Hungarian Qualifying debacle.

[Dino Scuderia]

I'm still laughing at Ralf.

[Rockefella]

I'm still laughing at Ralf.

I know. He continues his stellar form here with a first session knockout in 18th.. what a joke.

[Ferrer]

Davidson finished 11th in front of both Hondas in Q2. Great!

Unfortunately it wasn't enought to get him into Q3, by a whisker. That would've been even better.

[Wouter Melissen]

Davidson finished 11th in front of both Hondas in Q2. Great!

Unfortunately it wasn't enought to get him into Q3, by a whisker. That would've been even better.

Well the Super Aguri was designed when the wind tunnel still worked ...

[ScionDriver]

The Honda Racing meetings must suck for the low end guys who must just be getting beraided I can't believe how un-competitive they are. What a terrible team.

[Lets Gekiga In]

Honda F1 = Biggest disappointment this year in F1.

[Rockefella]

Honda F1 = Biggest disappointment this year in F1.

I'd say they'd be the biggest disappointment of the past decade. It really says something when the Super Best Friends are beating them with last year's package.

[Dino Scuderia]

Honda F1 = Biggest disappointment this year in F1.

Look on the bright side...at least Ralf isn't driving for them.

[Rockefella]

Looks like Captain Lucky Lewis Hamilton himself blew a tire coming into turn 8, in turn, damaging the right-edge of his front wing. As it stands Kovalainen is roughly 3 seconds back but gaining a few tenths a lap with 10 to go.

Seems like the championship race will be a lot closer than most would have suspected.

[Wouter Melissen]

The Honda Racing meetings must suck for the low end guys who must just be getting beraided I can't believe how un-competitive they are. What a terrible team.

They are not a bad team; they screwed up the calibration on the wind tunnel. That's a very delicate process, which has massive consequences. Coincidentally this also happened to Dome in 2005 and they are still not back to 100% accuracy. It's very unfortunate, but I am confident they will set things straight before the next season.

[Jack_Bauer]

Felipe Massa leads home teammate Kimi Raikkonen for a Ferrari 1-2 finish at the Turkish Grand Prix. It was the second year running in which the young Brazilian took a pole-to-flag victory at the Istanbul Circuit, clearly a circuit which he loves. The result allows Ferrari to close the gap to McLaren in both the driver's and contructor's championships as McLaren had a disappointing day with Alonso 3rd and championship leader Hamilton back in 5th. It was a very much needed faultless race from the two Ferrari drivers which they will look to build on as they head to their home race at the Monza circuit in two weeks time.

The start of the race was crucial as ever, and it was where things started to go wrong for McLaren. They may be regretting putting both drivers on the harder tyre while everyone around them were on the softs. The fact they were starting from the dirty side of the track just compounded their traction disadvantage, and after slow getaways Hamilton had lost out to Raikkonen's Ferrari and Alonso was getting swamped by the fast-starting BMWs. Hamilton really needed to at least get between the two red cars to have a chance of fighting for the race win, but it wasn't to be. The Ferraris weren't massively quicker but, they were just a small fraction quicker throughout the first stint and slowly but surely dropped Hamilton's McLaren. Alonso was bunched up behind the BMW of Heidfeld but could not get past until the pitstops, by which point the front three were out of sight.

It was a two horse race at the front and the two Ferraris seemed very evenly matched. Raikkonen got very close on a few occassions, particularly while making their way through the traffic. Massa almost cracked under the pressure at one point, locking his brakes into turn 12. Raikkonen got right onto the gearbox of Massa but the Brazilian just managed to close the door in time. Raikkonen ended up setting the fastest lap of the race in the dying moments, as if to send out a message that he was by no means outclassed by his teammate, but it will count for nothing at the end of the day. Massa has now jumped ahead of Kimi in the standings by one point; Raikkonen must surely be ruing his mistake in the final couple of corners of his qualifying lap which denied him his chance of pole.

The crucial moment of the race in terms of the championship race came on lap 42 when Lewis Hamilton's right front tyre punctured/delaminated on the run down to turn 9. He was forced to limp back to the pits with rubber flapping around on the right front corner, damaging his front wing. Fortunately for Hamilton the damage wasn't significant enough for him to need to change front wing. Ron Dennis has said that Hamilton had 5 laps more fuel than the Ferraris and could possibly have closed up to them in the final stint, but obviously that all went out of the window. In the end Hamilton nursed the car home to 5th place, losing places to Alonso and the strong-performing Heidfeld in the BMW. Disappointing for Hamilton, but in truth it could have been a lot worse under the circumstances.

Outside of the front runners there were good performances by the likes Kovalainen, Rosberg and Button. Kovalainen made it up to P6 and by the end of the race was just a fraction of a second behind Hamilton. Renault clearly put together a good strategy, going much longer in the first stint allowing him to pick up several places. Rosberg too had a strong race up in 7th place for Williams, ahead of the strangely out-of-sorts Robert Kubica. Jenson Button did well to recover to 13th place after starting on the back row after their nightmare day yesterday. He showed decent race pace throughout, made some good passes, finishing four places and half a minute ahead of teammate Barrichello.

Prior to this race Jean Todt reportedly told his Ferrari team that in order to win the titles they will need to score 1-2 finishes in virtually every race from now until the end of the season. They couldn't have got off to a better start to their late season push with a pretty much faultless weekend which will really put the pressure on the McLaren team. Hamilton now leads the title race with 84 pts, Alonso on 79, Massa on 69 and Kimi on 68 as they head to the Tifosi heartland at the ultra highspeed Monza Circuit.

Race Result

1. Massa
2. Raikkonen
3. Alonso
4. Heidfeld
5. Hamilton
6. Kovalainen
7. Rosberg
8. Kubica
9. Fisichella
10. Coulthard
11. Wurz
12. Schumacher
13. Button
14. Davidson
15. Liuzzi
16. Trulli
17. Barrichello
18. Sato
19. Vettel
20. Yamamoto
21. Sutil
ret. Webber