11/05/2008
NEWS STORY
Felipe Massa (Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro) has taken his third consecutive Turkish Grand Prix victory after using a medium-medium-hard tyre strategy at Istanbul Park for the fifth round of the FIA Formula One World Championship.
Massa took his win after starting from pole position and he led Vodafone McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton across the finish line by 3.7 seconds. Hamilton used a hard-hard-hard-medium tyre strategy, making three pit stops to Massa's two, and finished just 0.4 seconds ahead of third placed Kimi Raikkonen (Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro), who used the same strategy as Massa.
Finishing off the podium but in the points were BMW Sauber F1 team-mates Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld in fourth and fifth, Fernando Alonso (ING Renault F1 Team) in sixth, Mark Webber (Red Bull Racing) in seventh and Nico Rosberg in eighth.
The race saw an early safety car period after a multi-car incident on the first lap. Tyre performance was good with both compounds performing well and the cooler weather than expected not causing any issues. The race's fastest lap, a 1min 26.506secs was set by Raikkonen on lap 20 using the medium compound, whilst the race's second fastest lap, a 1min 26.529secs was set by Hamilton on lap 31 using the hard compound.
Leaving Turkey, Raikkonen leads the drivers' championship with 35 points from Massa on 28 points. Hamilton also has 28 points and is in third position in the standings, having only one race win to Massa's two. Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro lead the constructors' championship with 63 points to BMW Sauber F1 Team's 44. Vodafone McLaren Mercedes are in third place with 42 points.
Formula One will next be in action May 22-25 with the Grand Prix de Monaco on the streets of Monte Carlo, where Bridgestone's soft and super soft compound Potenza tyres will be used.
Hirohide Hamashima - Director of Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development: Today we saw a very interesting race with many strategies and different tyre choices. There was a lot of variation in which order drivers used the hard and medium compounds and this made for an exciting Grand Prix. In the case of Lewis Hamilton's car, Bridgestone and the team had safety concerns which did influence his strategy, however he achieved a very good result. These concerns affected no other car on the grid, and we will be analysing the data to see what we can learn from this. We did see three cars finish the race after making only one stop, so durability was certainly strong for the tyres for these competitors. The track and ambient temperatures did not cause any issues. We have now contested the most severe circuit on the calendar and say goodbye to the difficult turn eight until next season, although our vigilance will, as always, remain high.