All of a sudden it feels kinda like the old days.
Nice job by Massa to hold off Kimi. Alonso obviously wanted to take away some of Ferrari's constructor points. Another great race for Ferrari! Can they now pull of the HUGE upset in Spain next week? New engines...
Alonso seemed to be seething on the podium. Not a happy camper (probably thinking "That b@stard Flavio...he guaranteed that Ferrari would drop back this race") As far as next week is concerned, FA hasn't done that well in Spain the last two years (i.e. hasn't won). There will be a lot of pressure, but that's also one of the venues MS has owned during his Ferrari tenure.
Michael and Ferrari definitely can work some pit stop magic. That was a huge gap they built up. Amazing.
HAHA!!!!!!! W0000H000 WE DID IT!!!! Ferrari is back! I love it when SHUMI just started pushing so hard and kept on setting the fastest lap, when just moments before he started to seem a little slow. What do you guys think happened? I thought it might have been a strategy to stop pushing since it's not the right time to pass (possibly even giving renault a false idea that there might be something wrong with the car?) and it's not a good idea to stay too close behind another car for too long?
This was simply fantastic-FA on the pole and he stilll got spanked by MS and the "tired" Ferrari engines. Massa was an excellent third on his "old" Ferrari engine. In addition, wasn't this track supposed to favor Michelin??? The Scuderia is going to have to some luck (read:some Renault DNFs); McLaren, Bar, and the remaining teams are basically useless. Think Schumey is thinking about retirement now? Think Alonso is having second thoughts about signing for McLaren last year??? McLaren is missing Adrian Newey bigtime...
Well, this is what he has been told by his race engineer: (f1racing.net) And Alonso didn't expect that much from Ferrari at this track as well: (f1racing.net) So I can imagine Alonso being somewhat upset at seeing Schumacher cranking out 32.0's and taking it easy in the lead at about 7 s I suppose this Ferrari win and the way they did it, has come as a blow for Renault and Alonso.
It was a nice bluf by Ferrari and Renault got fooled. MS pitted one lap after FA even though he had 2-3 laps more fuel. Renault thought the same will happen again since both cars took the same amount of fuel on the 1st stop, but MS had enough fuel from the start of the race to run another 2-3 laps after FA pitted. It was just perfect. Did you see the look on FA face on the podium... Its priceless... Hahaha
GREAT RACE !!! (in my head during the podium, I kept hearing the old Thin Lizzy, song the "Boys are Back in Town) Do you think that Massa is better than Kimi for Ferrari as long as Schumi is there ? I don't think that Kimi and MS would make a great team, fast yes, "team" no, Massa is proving to me that he has what it takes to run with the big dogs, and is clearly happy to take a 2nd seat to MS, he's just happy to be on podium, where as I don't think Kimi would be the same. Don't get me wrong I like Kimi, ALOT. And I want to see him at the Scuderia, just not while Michael, is still there.
I think Kimi would be better than Massa to provide better support for MS. He won't be a threat to MS anyways when they have the same car under them. It wont be even close between them and by time he will know his place as 2nd in the team and back up MS. As i said last year about all the hype concerning FA and Kimi.... They had a waaaaaaaay better car than MS, but that doesn't mean they are better drivers... I can compare FA and Kimi, but it would be an insult to compare them to MS.
That was my read, too. Michael didn't say anything about it post-race, but it did seem he pulled some extra fuel from somewhere. Maybe the FIA will make Michael turn out his pockets before the next race. Or maybe those slower laps early in stint 2 were on "economy" settings. Massa did a pretty good job holding onto 3rd when he got mugged exiting turn 1 by Kimi and the Hondas.
