Felipe Massa takes victory in the Turkish Grand Prix at Istanbul Park as the Ferrari sweep the race with a 1-2.

The race was shaped in it's early phase by the start. Massa led comfortably into turn 1 and Kimi Raikkonen who started from P3 on the clean side of the track jumped Lewis Hamilton, who dropped to Third place. Fernando Alonso also started from the dirty side of the track in P4 and was jumped by both BMWs of Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld.

Things remained static until the first pitstops. The big mover was Alonso who moved up from 6th to 4th. The BMWs pitted earlier than him, and he was able to get some green sectors and laptimes in to emerge ahead of both of them as he rejoined after his first stop, albeit a long way down to the leading trio.

Through the second stops the top 4 order remained the same. It was beginning to look like a static run to the end with no position changes, but then with 12 or so laps to go we had real drama as we cut to a Mclaren off the road which turns out to be Hamilton with a front right puncture. He crawleed round for half a lap to the pits with the flat tyre and emerged from the pits in 5th place behind Nick Heidfeld.

The remaining 7 laps saw the top 5 order unchanged, and Felipe wins the Turkish Grand Prix ahead of Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso on the podium in Third place, Heidfeld holds onto Fourth, Hamilton Fifth, and Heikki Kovalainen with a very good fighting drive to Sixth place and 3 points.

Here is the full result from Istanbul Park......



So what stood out for you today? The championship race has now closed up a bit of course giving us even more excitement for the remaining 5 races in the 2007 season. Please, share your thoughts and feelings on the 2007 Turkish Grand Prix

Fight for title thickens.

Good weekend for Massa, great qualifying made it possible for him to beat Kimi for the first time in ages. Seems like a good track for him since he won Schumacher last year as well. What a typical race for Raikkonen, stuck behind a slower car again. Would have needed more fuel to make use of his superior race pace. Finally some bad luck for Hamilton!

Good job by Massa and Ferrari. Next race at Monza should be interesting.

I´m disappointed to be honest. Both Felipe and Kimi drove a solid race but apparently team did not allow those two to fight even a bit. It seemed that prior to second stops Felipe was losing it big time - but to no avail.

Well -fight is still open. Kudos to Heikki and Nico for driving well ahead of their temmates.

Excellent drives from Massa, Kimi, Kova and Button

Unlucky Hamilton - had his closest rival easily covered - can't legislate for that.

Lucky Alonso. The race that put to rest the stupid " road block" accusations and told us a lot about the ultimate pace.

The end of the season will be very interesting.

Massa, Kova and Rosberg

heidfield Alonso Hamilton lewis was a bit faster than fernando though

Kubica Bad strategy


Kimi Should have won.

And only one DNF! Now that's amazing! Sadly it was Webber.

FA looks happier on the podium than after some of his wins. Wonder why.

1 -2 Ferrari Filipe,Kimi

Kova
Button
Trulli

wow - Williams again doing well - they made my day. Boring race otherwise. Kimi - making a routine out of getting the fastest lap in the end.

In hindsight - great job by Hamilton in qualifying. Also great job of damage control in the end. That 1 point can be very hard to earn as the races go by.

Did you expect an on track pass [between them]...
...they are not Toyota you know

What a terrible race. The new rules have forced the cars to be even more reliable than ever so you cant even rely on some surprise DNFs anymore. The cars just start then drive around to the finish with 98% of the race totally out of the hands of the drivers because you just cant overtake no matter how fast you are. Really sucks. Hamilton is lucky even when hes unlucky. 5th place was great result for what happened to him.

Congrats to Massa

And Kovy

The race for the win was over yesterday. Massa qualified better and always had that one extra lap to cover Räikkönen, who threw all his chances away by losing 2 tenths in last sector.

Tough luck for Hamilton!



I was napping during the race (again), despite of doing dishes and mopping the living room floor to keep myself awake. Missed most laps after the 2nd stops, as the race was over by then.

IMO F1 of 2007 is little more than bland version of chess, where you can predict 90% of the moves after the first pawn is pushed. Chess...exciting. F1...not. Sorry!



Hopefully next year will be better.

(Yeah, right...)

Lots of booing for Alonso during the ceremony.

Ok race, but not much action except outside top 10

Massa, KR did good job, important win for Ferrari

Alonso start decided his race, too bad for Hamilton, but good for WDC

2 guys were amazing today, namely Kovalainen and Button

Except for all the people who did overtake.

Yeehaw, great race from Massa!
And it wasn't all decided in qualifying!

A study in contrasts on the podium, Alonso looks as if had won, Raikkonen look like he'd sucked down an unripe lemon, and Massa - trying his best to emulate Schumacher with his 'conduction' and his leap (although he got the timing wrong - he'll learn...).

Great race for Ferrari, great race for the championship, sadly an utterly tedious race for fans of actual racing.

Man this race was boring, I think I'll just stop getting up early for them now. I'll sleep in and just read the results. Overall I don't care what happened up front not excited at all by this championship fight, don't know why, just don't really care. Kubica went backwards, the boy is going to have another excuse of course, I'm getting tired of hearing them though.

Why?

That's totally false

We didn't get to see all the overtaking moves JB made...!

Good solid weekend by Massa
Kimi clearly the fastest Ferrari-guy, making a point with his fastest lap. To bad the team probably told them to take it easy, and too bad it's so hard to overtake. Had Kimi been infront, the race would've been over by the first stops.
However, he made that mistake in qualy (Too bad it seems impossible to make up for it.)
Good for the WDC & WCC that Hamilton had that puncture. Good race by him anyway
Alonso probably just as quick as Hamilton, but couldn't show it. Made the most of his race.
Kova
BMW strategy

Perfect result,

But what a boring race.

Massa seems to have learned a lesson from MS on how to control a race, and be fast only when it really matters.

I didnt notice any. Between the top cars its basically impossible and thats where all the attention is. Qualifying and the start is where drivers do 98% of their work for the weekend these days. A very small window so anyone can beat anyone almost.

Fisichella had a better pace than Kovalainen from the second stint (or even before), the whole thing was ruined by Trulli at the start. Should have deserved the 7th.

Hamilton.... now he shared his bad luck this season, but again faster than Alonso.

Race was mega-boredom again.

First step of the mission is accomplished. Istanbul, Monza and Spa should suit the longer wheelbase.

Istanbul 1-2...CHECK
Monza 1-2...
Spa 1-2...

NASCAR just looks better and better everytime an F1 race is on.

It's really sad the way it has gone, the races are bland and boring at best.

Super weekend for the Scuderia.

Trulli hade a couple of spectacular overtakes..First on Button than on his teammate...so not that boring a race!
You people need to watch the race not only think about your championship hopefulls race..

So Raikkonen is now 16 points behind Hamilton, and Massa 15 points behind, with 5 races to go.

5 more Ferrari 1-2's and either of them can win the WDC.

Part of me wants just to vent a bit. I have less admiration towards FM as a racing car driver that I did before. He was not fast when needed - strategy gave him the advantage and Kimi closed the gap in both cases - when Kimi got closer, Felipe´s times went gradually worse. To me that is not sign of a racing driver.

Sorry if offended, was not the point

Oh I don't think he was that bad. He had most of the race to show his ultimate pace, and I sat there wondering where that extra speed was you keep telling me about.

Looked mildly embarrassed at the end there though on the podium.

the one thing I've noticed about Massa from the very beginning of this year is that he totally gears his weekends around the best possible strategy and, in current F1, that's what its all about. No good being faster with an inferior track position......

again... LH pace = FA pace this race

Massa said he had a crack in his helmet and that's why you saw him 'putting it straight' on the long straight at some stage...

As much as I like Nascar, it goes too far the other way. Passes are meaningless because they're too easy at most circuits.

If you're referring to Nascar road racing, that's superb, would be better if they learned what a local yellow was. If this race had been nascar we'd have had full course cautions for Trulli, Hamilton, probably Webber...

You didnt see how Fisi bumped Trulli in the back and ruined his race

Kimi either has killer hayfever or he is destroyed... he looks terrible!

I was just thinking the same thing. I was afraid of posting it, never thought I'd be thinking such blasphemous thoughts. Maybe I'll look into pick-up trucks next.

He is too cool

This was no control but clinging to a small lead and winning because of better strategy. A small blip at the pitstops and he would have lost it. Not saying it was not a good race from Massa.

New Drivers Championship standings
01 Lewis Hamilton 84
02 Fernando Alonso 79
03 Felipe Massa 69
04 Kimi Räikkönen 68
05 Nick Heidfeld 47
06 Robert Kubica 29
07 Heikki Kovalainen 19
08 Giancarlo Fisichella 17
09 Alexander Wurz 13
10 Nico Rosberg 9
11 Mark Webber 8

Ferrari and Renault team mates swap positions. And yahoo - now both Williams drivers in Top 10 with Rosberg displacing Webber for No. 10

You never disappoint.

And you claim I single you out?
Hamilton had good race pace for once. He was able to match Alonso which is a great effort. Time will tell if he can do it consistenly or just once in a blue moon like Fisi did. I doubt he was as embarresed as Hamilton was at Hungary with his win bought and paid for by his British connection.

Yeah. Michael like would have been, to pit a lap earlier than the driver in front, and still win.

...Me winning the lotto will be alot easier and more likely, Than 5x1,2 for this Ferrari. Though I wont complain if either happaned.

Anyone can control the race these days with the knowledge the car behind them loses half their downforce and has no hope in overtaking. Nice attempt to spin things though. Taking lessons of airwise I see

Ignoring the pure flamebait of the last sentence he's already done it more times this year than Fisi did in 2 years with him.

Yeah, I noticed that. But it would be nice if it happened at the front too.