After two lackluster races in Monaco and Canada, Scuderia Ferrari was back in its dominant form in France. Felipe Massa led the team's third 1-2 finish of the season with no other car on the grid able to challenge the two scarlet cars. With the victory, Felipe Massa now leads the drivers standings with 48 points ahead of Robert Kubica's 46 points and Kimi Raikkonen's 43 points. Lewis Hamilton, plagued by penalties during the race, was once again scoreless and dropos to fourth place in the standings with 38 points.
Felipe Massa has become he first Brazilian driver since Ayrton Senna to lead the championship standings.
However, the race wasn't all smooth sailing for Ferrari. Kimi Raikkonen's F2008 suffered from exhaust problems. The regning champion was running strong from pole and built a lead of more than six seconds in 38 laps. But after the mechanical problem, Raikkonen's pace dropped significantly and he had no choice but to let Massa through. With 30 more laps to go, it was uncertain whether Raikkonen would have the pace to keep his second place, or worse, be forced to retire for the day.
Raikkonen stayed on track. He was nearly 20 seconds down to his teammate. However, he still managed to finish almost 20 seconds ahead of the nearest rival. By the time Raikkonen parked his car, his F2008 looked as if it was shot by a cannon with a gaping whole at the car's body work. It could be said that Raikkonen was fortunate to come away with 8 points.
The drive of the day however should be Jarno Trulli's performance to bring Toyota back to the podium. A week after former Toyota Team Boss Ove Anderson was killed in a classic rally incident, Trulli drove an inspired drive fending off the much quicker cars of Heikki Kovalainen's McLaren and Robert Kubica's BMW Sauber. The three would finish nose to tail with Trulli leading the trio. After Trulli got out of his car, he pointed towards his black armband indicating that he was dedicating his podium performance to Ove Anderson.
No comments:
Post a Comment