Massa Narrows Down Hamilton’s Championship Lead To 6 Points With European GP Win
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Aug 24, 2008
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The 27-year-old Brazilian led a processional race from pole position to beat McLaren’s championship leading Briton Lewis Hamilton by 5.6 seconds with Poland’s Robert Kubica third for BMW Sauber.
Leading the race from start to finish, the Brazilian secured Ferrari’s first victory in four races, while McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton eased to second place.
In a largely uneventful race, things came to life in lap 37 with Massa almost colliding with the Force India car of Adrian Sutil. A steward’s enquiry was postponed until after the race, with Ferrari under investigation for a lack of due care and attention in the pit lane.
Massa’s race engineer Rob Smedley dismissed the matter as a ‘silly little incident’, while Massa remarked: ‘I think it wasn’t very clever from his [Sutil’s] side.’
Sutil, meanwhile, said: ‘In the pits, everyone is in a rush. I want to see it on the TV and then I can give a better statement.’
Massa’s win lifted him up to second in the drivers championship with 64 points, six fewer than Hamilton on 70, with six of the 18 rounds remaining.
The final points went to Toyota’s Timo Glock and Williams’ Nico Rosberg, who led home BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld, Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Bourdais and Renault’s Nelson Piquet, with Red Bull’s Mark Webber, Honda’s Jenson Button, Renault’s Giancarlo Fisichella, William’s Kazuki Nakajima, Honda’s Rubens Barrichello and Red Bull’s David Coulthard a lap down.
Massa’s Ferrari team mate Kimi Raikkonen was involved in a nightmare pitstop, with the world champion accelerating away with the fuel hose still attached in an incident that left a mechanic on the ground.
The Finn, who had started the day second overall in the championship, retired two laps later when his car’s engine blew. He fell to third overall with 57 points while Kubica moved closer on 55. The stewards announced a further investigation into Raikkonen’s pitstop accident.
In a major disappointment for Spanish fans, their double world champion Fernando Alonso was forced to retire after the opening lap when his Renault and the Williams of Japan’s Kazuki Nakajima collided.
