Turkish Grand Prix Review

The script said that Schumacher should have won and eaten further into Alonso's points lead. But a combination of Michael's errors, one spinner in a bad spot, a safety car intervention, a too-risky tactical call, and a stubborn Fernando in defence meant that the script was thwarted and simply couldn't be fulfilled. It wasn't Massa's fault, but all that left him to claim his maiden victory, almost as if he had no choice but to do so. At least it cut Renault's margin in the constructors' title down to just two points.

All of this may sound as though it diminishes Massa's achievement, and admittedly that would be unfair. On a track that is drawing comparisons with Spa Francorchamps, the Brazilian had a near error-free weekend, just about matched his illustrious team-mate for speed, and claimed his first pole and win by simply not putting a foot wrong and having a more consistent pace than anyone else. It's just that, at Ferrari, when a championship is on the line, the driver who has done the better job doesn't always win.

Ask the winless Mika Salo about Hockenheim '99, or Schumacher himself about Malaysia the same year, or of course ask Rubens Barrichello about Austria 2002. But, to pay proper tribute to Massa, the doubters (including ourselves) have increasingly been quietened this year by ever-more mature and stable performances - in the dry at least, as he remains a liability in the wet as Hungary showed - culminating in 11 points finishes to date with 5 podiums. For a first season in a top team, you can't scoff at that.

Schumacher and Ferrari's blunders in Turkey may have been less dramatic than in Hungary, but they may turn out to be no less crucial. Michael ran wide twice at turn 1 in the last part of qualifying, denying himself pole and forcing himself to start from the dirtier side of the track. But for some aggressive defending he would have lost 2nd to Alonso after an average start. Yet without doubt Ferrari's biggest mistake was to pit both Massa and Schumi together during the safety car period after Vitantonio Liuzzi's spin.

It was always going to be a risk. Michael's gap back to Alonso had stretched to the region of 7 to 9 seconds - barely enough for him to queue and get serviced and stay ahead of Fernando. Though from a sporting point of view it was the noble thing for Ferrari to do, from a championship perspective it was suicide. At the start of this race, Michael was 10 points behind Alonso with five rounds remaining. Two points off the Spaniard at every race would see them equal on points.

If some of that came through wins for the German, then even if they were equal then Michael would win on count-back. Therefore, taking two points off Alonso was the magic number. More would have been preferable, but that was the bare minimum. In short, if Michael had been pitted first, Massa would have been sacrificed, he would not have been able to get in between Schumi and Alonso, but Michael would have had track position to win with minimal pressure - and take the necessary two points off his nemesis.

In fact, even during those first dozen laps or so, why hadn't Schumi and Massa swapped just in case there was a safety car period? Or even immediately after they passed the stricken Toro Rosso, and it was clear to all that it was in a dangerous position? Of course, that would had to have been done within the bounds of the 'no team orders' rule that is in place today, but teams can circumvent this by sending coded radio messages that let drivers make up their own mind because they know exactly what it means.

Especially when Ferrari have been such ruthless exponents of the art over the years, they have noticeably dropped the ball on several occasions in 2006. They allowed Massa to finish ahead of Schumacher in Malaysia, there were of course all those failures by the team to actively intervene in Hungary, and now this. The result was that Michael was now behind Alonso, where he should never have been, and under pressure to find a way back past when he should have been comfortably in front.

Here Michael himself, who has not shone on some of the new Hermann Tilke circuits (especially Shanghai), erred again. His pace in the middle segment was so-so, and he ran wide at turn 8, losing four seconds - the very deficit he was behind Alonso when he emerged after his second stop. And, although he gobbled up the Renault with its fading rear Michelins, the front wing adjustment he made at the last stop either exacerbated or at least didn't help the Ferrari getting murdered by the Renault through turn 8.

Without being able to get a run on his rival through that quadruple-apex corner, Michael was never in a position to attempt a move into the braking zones at turn 9 or 12. He now faces a situation where he will need to take 3 points or more off Alonso in each of the last three races. Not only do these events not necessarily favour Ferrari and Bridgestone, but Michael now has to rely on Massa getting between him and Alonso, and that is a big ask. Advantage back to Fernando, then.

Alonso himself never led this race at any stage, but he must be credited for a fine drive. Unlike last year when he may have driven within himself to gather points, now he has to push to the limit to do the same thing. He simply kept putting unrelenting pressure on the Ferraris and on Michael in particular, whilst making hardly any errors. His unflustered defence in the last third of the race, making perfect use of his advantage through turn 8, could be the defining stint should he wrap up his second drivers' title.

Pedro de la Rosa came in 5th, heading home a trio of cars that effectively one-stopped, although the Spaniard was the only one who probably intended that strategy and who actually only made one stop all afternoon. In a weekend that did not go well for McLaren, it was a very solid drive from Pedro after he had missed out on the top ten in qualifying. Particularly when saddled with his very heavy fuel loads, he maintained his tyres extremely well in the incredibly hot temperatures.

De la Rosa withstood the pressure at the end from Giancarlo Fisichella, who along with Ralf Schumacher both ended up switching to a virtual one-stop strategy after pitting at the end of the first lap due to the first corner shenanigans. Fisi was, of course, the man who largely triggered the mayhem by spinning his Renault when making a half-hearted lunge inside both Michael and his own team-mate, and then having his nose collected by Nick Heidfeld's BMW Sauber.

If the spin was unintended then that was pathetic enough, but now Giancarlo claims that he had spun deliberately to avoid hitting Alonso and thereby destroy his team-mate's championship. Pat Symonds himself has been trumpeting that as some kind of praiseworthy act of generosity. But why did Fisi put himself into that kind of position in the first place? So, if Alonso was not in the battle for the title, then hitting his team-mate in some desperado first corner move would have been OK? What complete tripe!

Sure, Fisichella's subsequent speed on his compromised strategy was superb, picking off Ralf himself, then Webber and Robert Kubica, elevating himself through others' retirements and pit stops to 6th and valiantly hunting down de la Rosa towards the end, but it was too little too late. His job is to help protect Alonso and Renault's leads in both championships. Massa performed his similar role a little too well this weekend, Fisi once again nowhere near well enough, and 'Reject of the Race' is his due as a result.

REJECT OF THE RACE
Giancarlo Fisichella
Caused Turn 1 havoc; claimed spin was on purpose

The safety car brought both he and Fisichella back up to the rest of the field, and gave them the advantage over those who were effectively two-stopping. Although he struggled a little in the middle of the race, and Fisi got the better of him, Ralf's race was marked by two truly awesome moves around the outside of turn 9, one on Kubica, and one on the Red Bull of Christian Klien on his out-lap from his stop mid-race. In another close battle at the end of the race, he beat home the two-stopping Barrichello for 7th.

Relative to Button, Barrichello struggled in qualifying, failing to get into the top 10, and he was also caught up in the midfield melee at the first corner, pushed wide at turn 1 by Trulli. Thereafter it took him time to extricate himself past Liuzzi and David Coulthard despite having fairly decent car speed beneath him, and in effect he spent the race battling with Trulli, as they were both on the same kind of two-stop plan that saw them intending to run a long first stint and therefore stay out during the safety car period.

Rubens got past at the first stop and never looked back, leaving Trulli for dead and claiming the last point for 8th. You knew Jarno was in for a bad day after his first corner antics. Braking too late, he slew to the right in the braking zone, forcing Barrichello out wide, and then as he tried to cut back inside the spinning Scott Speed, he lost control, hitting his team-mate's front wing and sliding into Takuma Sato, who in taking avoiding action crashed into Tiago Monteiro instead.

How to make friends and influence people, indeed. Strategically though, what we saw during the race was an interesting tactical battle, not only between Trulli and Barrichello, but between them and the likes of Webber and Kubica, who were also two-stopping but had decided to pit under the safety car. Webber, who in 2006 has become the best first-lap opportunist in F1, simply went down the inside of all the mayhem and came out the other end in 4th, but was soon taken by the faster Button.

We haven't made much mention of Webber's impending move to Red Bull in 2006. Those who wish to talk up the move as a positive one will point to the Adrian Newey factor. And although Newey does have an incredible record of success, dating back as far as 1990 when almost overnight he transformed the Leyton House cars from non-qualifiers at the Mexican GP to near race-winners at the French GP, it's much harder these days to turn paupers (in terms of results) into princes in an instant.

There's no doubt also that Christian Horner is determined to succeed, and that Dietrich Mateschitz has the cash to spare no expense, but at the end of the day Red Bull remains a customer, privateer team. They will do well in 2007, but if they really shake up the establishment to become a regular top team, it will be a surprise. All this is sad news for us Webber fans who were hanging out for him to join Renault next year. But it also speaks volumes for the prospects of an imminent Williams revival in 2007.

Back to the race itself, and despite Kubica overtaking Webber during the second stint, Webber re-took the Pole in the third stint, as the rookie dropped behind even the two Red Bulls and finally finished 12th, complaining of a badly graining set of tyres. One wonders if there was also any question of fitness, given the anti-clockwise nature of the circuit, and the oppressively hot temperatures. But, with a second consecutive top-10 qualifying performance, there's no doubt that Kubica has the inherent speed for F1.

Whether or not it was right for BMW to dump Villeneuve in his favour is another question, and given Jacques' form over the course of the year, Mario Theissen's refusal to even give the former champion proper consideration, making it so bleedingly obvious through his actions that he only tolerated having Villeneuve in the team because of a contractual obligation, leaves much to be desired. And we say that despite having been amongst Jacques' critics over the years!

Neither of the Red Bulls impressed. Klien just missed out on making it into the top 10 in qualifying, while Coulthard, who obviously still has much to offer in terms of racecraft and experience, showed once again that there may be valid question marks over his inherent speed though after failing to make the first cut. In the end, they evened out in the race, Klien finishing 11th where DC should have been had he not dropped out late on with gearbox problems.

But it does well and truly seem like Red Bull have given up the remainder of 2006 and are looking towards next year, which is not good news for Klien, who needs to drive out of his skin if he is to find another F1 drive anywhere, but it looks like America may be a more viable option for the Austrian. As for the rest of the field, Christijan Albers deserves an honourable mention. Despite a third engine change in three races, his effort in the race was simply outstanding.

Matching the pace of the more fancied Red Bulls, Toyotas and Hondas ahead of him, he couldn't quite sustain the awesome pace and spun off late on. But, for the first time in his F1 career, he put in one of those drives that capture the attention of the rest of the paddock. Not to mention the fact that, overall, he continues to easily shade last year's rookie of the year Monteiro, whose mediocre form has also been matched by some ill-fortune, like here where he was an innocent victim of the first corner havoc.

There were three other obvious candidates for bitter disappointment after the race. One was Nick Heidfeld in the second BMW, who had qualified superbly to qualify 6th and start 5th after Ralf had taken his penalty, but then lost his front wing against the spinning Fisichella, damaging his floor and rear wing. Relegated to the back of the field, with a poor-handling car, no wonder he lost interest and drifted around at the tail end of the pack for the rest of the race.

Nico Rosberg suffered yet again from The Curse of The Unreliable Williams. Unlike team-mate Webber he did not pit during the safety car period, and assuming that he was on the same kind of strategy as Barrichello and Trulli, may have been in the fight for the lower points. Nine races without a point now for Williams, and counting. Since the current incarnation of Williams Grand Prix Engineering started in 1978, they have never endured such a long dry spell.

Toro Rosso co-owner Gerhard Berger suggested in the week leading up to Turkey that they would most likely retain Speed and Liuzzi for 2007, and while that's fair enough both these young drivers still have much to learn. Speed's over-ambitious entry speed into the first corner caused his spin that contributed to much of the mayhem, while Liuzzi passed Kubica bravely on lap 1, before being progressively swallowed up by faster cars and lazily spinning at turn one and bringing out the safety car.

Another victim of turn 1 was Sakon Yamamoto, although for the Japanese newcomer it was a much-improved weekend. Not only did he complete two dozen laps, he even out-qualified his team-mate Sato. Surprisingly, Taku hasn't shone as much since the new SA06 hit the tracks, and after repairing the damage from his collision with Trulli and Monteiro, he used the rest of the race as an extended test session. Regardless, Super Aguri would be so much better off getting this year's Hondas second hand next season!