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Turkish GP: Post Race press conference

NEWS STORY
11/05/2008

Felipe, you like winning from pole. The Turkish Grand Prix always results in a winner from pole and everything delivered for you today.
Felipe Massa: It is just fantastic. Today was a very difficult race actually and Lewis was pushing me hard a lot for the whole race. Then when I did my pit-stop he was there straight away, so I thought maybe he had put less fuel in or something. I then realised and my team told me straight away he was on three stops. For sure, that was a little bit of help as he was very strong and I couldn't hold him on the track and he passed me. But then I knew I still had a good chance to win the race as three stops were a little bit optimistic. But anyway I created a reasonable gap to be at the front after the pit stops. It was difficult, but we made it three times in Turkey which is just fantastic. I think I can get a passport here already.

Ferrari were very good on both types of Bridgestone tyre unlike most of the other cars in the field and starting on the option, or softer type of tyre, was unusual as far as rest of the grid was concerned.
FM: Yeah, I was just talking with Kimi. Today was a very difficult day to choose the tyres as the difference was not so big from the soft to the hard, even on the first lap and during the run. The hard was much better on Friday but my softs survived quite well on Friday, so we were really keen to use the softs today. But then I saw Lewis going very quickly with the hards and we thought maybe it was a little bit of a mistake. In the last run I think the car was so easy to run on the hard that maybe it was the right choice to choose the hard.

Lewis, I guess from where you were yesterday, when you weren't too happy, to split the two Ferraris today is a great result for you.
Lewis Hamilton: Absolutely. I am thrilled to have come second from third, but with the strategy we were on as you could tell yesterday I was a little bit disappointed with it. Heikki did a fantastic job and was able to out-qualify me with more fuel. But after looking at the data I realised I was happy with the tyre choice. I lost a little bit of time in my middle sector. Today we started on the harder tyre and knew it was going to be very tough to challenge the Ferraris and to be honest, we were just hoping to get some points. To finish in the top five would have been good. But the balance of the car was great and on the hard tyres I was able to keep up with Felipe and even overtake him. After that I was gone and I was able to keep pushing and pushing. At the end it was quite tough, the softer tyre was definitely the worse tyre but I am much happier.

Do you think your second place is a result of switching to that three stop strategy?
LH: Perhaps. The reason we went with a three stopper was due to Bridgestone being concerned as they thought the tyre was going to fail like it did last year. Therefore, they made us do a three stop as it was the safest route to go. Unfortunately for us, that put us in not such a strong position to win the race. However, I am given a problem and I deal with it and so do the team and that's why I still believe that we are the best. I really have to say a big thank you to the team who did a great job in all the pit stops.

When you were really quick with relatively light fuel it was sector three you were losing ground to the Ferraris, or not gaining ground. Is that a worry going into Monte Carlo?
LH: I don't see it as a worry. In Barcelona, the last sector which was all the tight corners, they were a little bit quicker than us there. It was the same here with the last three corners on the straight where they seemed to take quite a lot out of us. We are going to go back and try to understand exactly why and keep pushing to improve. I have no doubts that we can do that.

Kimi, a good points' scoring day for you. Tell us about that first corner incident with Heikki Kovalainen which resulted in a puncture for your compatriot.
Kimi Raikkonen: I didn't have a very good start. I got to the side of him on the braking. Then I got a little bit squeezed on the inside and I tried to slow down and get behind him, but he just turned in a little bit. The unfortunate thing for both of us is that I broke the front wing and he had a puncture. It didn't help for either of us. We chose to use the front wing for the whole race because it takes too long to change it and it wasn't too bad. The weekend was a little bit difficult but at least we got some good points and we need to get a better weekend at the next race.

What was the handling like with the broken front wing as you did set the fastest race lap?
KR: It wasn't too bad, but it never helps as the end of the wing was damaged. It is difficult to say how much better or different it would have been with the proper wing but for sure it doesn't help you.

Part of that was starting on the slow, the dirty side of the grid, which was the result of a relatively poor qualifying for you. Can you talk us through your problems up to qualifying?
KR: It wasn't the best qualifying for me, but it has been my weakest points. We had a bit more fuel than the others which is one reason but also the lap wasn't as good as I wanted. But anyhow I think it all started on Friday when we had a problem. But like I said we had a difficult weekend but I am still happy being in third place and we didn't lose too many points. It is early season and we still have good points, so we will see what we can do in the next few races. The next two races last year were very difficult for us so we need to see how strong we can be and hopefully we can challenge for wins and go from there.

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