Formula One news
Ferrari celebrates fourth win
11 May 2008 / Results / PhotosFourth consecutive win of the season for Ferrari, the second for Felipe Massa. This is victory number 205 from 763 Grand Prix starts for Ferrari, the seventh from 93 starts for Felipe.
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"We are very happy with this result, but we know it was a tough one to get," said Ferrari team principal Stefano Domenicali. "Felipe drove a great race and made the most of yesterday's pole position, but given what happened at the start, Kimi's result in managing to get onto the podium, could have been a lot worse. It was yet another example of the fact that, in this sport, it takes very little for the pendulum to swing one way or the other. We wanted to continue down this winning path which started as a reaction to the heavy hit we took in Melbourne and we have managed it. Now we have to prepare maybe even more carefully for the next rounds: at Monaco and Canada last year, we suffered a lot and we will have to do our best in preparing for these races, both in the test session at Paul Ricard, from next Wednesday to Friday and in analyzing the data back in Maranello."
Felipe Massa commented, "Its fantastic to have got the hat trick here in Istanbul: it might really almost be worth asking for a Turkish passport! It was a very tough race but the team work magnificently, giving me a great car. When Hamilton came underneath me at an incredible pace, I preferred not to take too many risks: the pit wall informed he that he was cleary running a lighter fuel load even if we were not certain he was on a three stop strategy. When that became clear, we were calmer, knowing we had everything in place to go for the win. My engineer, Rob, guided my pace and I drove in such a way as to keep ahead of Lewis. Maybe the hard tyres worked better today, but from what we saw over the weekend, the softs were more competitive and in any case, the difference was not that great. I want to dedicate this win to two people: to my mother on Mothers Day and to Stefano Domenicali whose birthday it is today."
Kimi Raikkonen added, "It was a difficult weekend for me but six points are definitely better than nothing. At the start, I was almost alongside Heikki but then he slowed and I had to brake too to avoid a heavy crash. We touched just enough to damage the end plate of the front wing on my car: it was not a very serious problem, but it definitely didn't help my race. My first set of soft tyres worked very well, but the second was not as good: for the rears, maybe it would have been better to switch immediately to the harder, but that's easy to say with hindsight. After a less than great qualifying yesterday, we knew the race would be an uphill struggle. Now we must ensure we are as well prepared as possible for the Monaco Grand Prix, where we struggled in 2007. This winter we worked a lot on the car to concentrate on those shortcomings which we saw at tracks like this. Now we will see if we did enough to be competitive."
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