Massa dominates Euro GP
Written by Scott Keller · August 26, 2008
I had a chance to catch up on my DirecTV playlist over the weekend, and watched an F1 race that featured a couple hours of boredom interrupted by moments of excitement and/or sheer terror. Felipe Massa and Ferrari won the race in dominating fashion, which helped to soothe some of the disappointment of a horrible day for Kimi Raikkonen. Raikkonen ran what seemed to be a loafing pace compared to Massa, but that may have been due to a lagging engine.
But that wasn’t the worst of it for Kimi. Near the end of the race, Raikkonen and Heikki Kovalainen pitted on the same lap within seconds of each other. And let’s just say that the race out of the pits was a little bit too exciting. Raikkonen got a little bit anxious and left his stall before the fuel hose was detached, causing a huge debacle. The launched car dragged the fuel hose through a group of crew members, knocked down the crew like a set of bowling pins, and causing one man to nearly get run over by Kimi’s right-rear tire. It was a frightening incident, and fortunately nobody was terribly hurt, and there was no fire. Reports I’ve found are that the injuries are limited to bruises, scrapes, and a broken toe.
Things went from bad to worse for Kimi when, with only a handful of laps to go, his lagging Ferrari V-8 blasted a plume of smoke on the front straight as it tore itself apart. It was an exclamation point on a bad day for the world champ.
Lewis Hamilton ran a great race, but just didn’t have enough car this weekend. The Brit seemed very frustrated during the post-race interviews about finishing second. He tried to eek out a smile, and tell the world that “you can’t complain about second”, but he didn’t seem all too happy.
But he certainly had a better day than the Spanish hero, Fernando Alonso. The former world champ was taken out on the first lap by Kazuki Nakajima when the field got bunched up in the first few corners. Not a good day for the Spanish fans who shelled out big bucks to watch their hero get punted out early.
Robert Kubica had another great day for BMW, taking the final spot on the podium and claiming his 55th point in the 2008 championship.
Results:
1-Felipe Massa, 2-Lewis Hamilton +5.611, 3-Robert Kubica +37.353, 4-Heikki Kovalainen +39.703, 5-Jarno Trulli +50.684, 6-Sebastian Vettel +52.625, 7-Timo Glock +1:07.990, 8-Nico Rosberg +1:11.457.
Valencia - the jury is still out…
The Valencia track sure is a beautiful venue to hold a race, but hardly provided much on-track excitement this year. The top three cars finished in exactly the order they qualified, and there wasn’t much overtaking to be seen. The cement pit stalls did provide a bit of excitement as cars were slipping and sliding into crew members and creating dust plumes as cars entered and exited, unfortunately. Perhaps the track surface will be a little better next year after it has some time to roughen up a bit and be more receptive to taking on rubber.
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8 Responses to “Massa dominates Euro GP”
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Yep that sure was a dull event, however, as I mentioned in the forums, it only highlights how daft the existing aero rules are. On the exact same track, on the exact same day, the GP2 cars were overtaking each other like it was going to be banned tomorrow.
The new 2009 regs can’t come quick enough for me……….slash aero!
Dull? I guess the passing was dull, but my god I could just sit on those in cars all day. That track was AWESOME. So fast and open.
“The cement pit stalls did provide a bit of excitement as cars were slipping and sliding into crew members and creating dust plumes as cars entered and exited,”
This is the reason the Red brain trust felt Messup had enough time to get out in front of the backmarker. The penalty handed out to the driver(?) should have been sent as a bill to the race promoters to provide a more uniform surface for the newly constructed pit lane(I had heard somewhere that they were just finishing the F1 pitlane just a week before the race). If ever ther were a penalty that was unfairly handled it was when Louise ran into the back of Kimi in pit lane, causing major damage to his rival’s car. That was clearly unsafe driving and should have been dealt with much more severely. Kimi could have sustained major back injuries or whiplash, yet the little punk was let with a slap on th wrist instead of being set out for a few races to l watch and learn how to handle one of these unltimate motor cars. letting children play on the track is always dangerous if they turn ouot to be so immature as to race down pitlane with blinders on the turn into his main rival to intentionally destroy and possibly harm the current world champion.
Back to Messup’s penalty, there was no contact, they both were side by side, which wouldn’t have happened if the pitlane were not dusty with fresh concrete, Messup would have been clearly ahead of the backmarker., Yet one car was a lap down and should have been reprimanded for not yeilding to the leader of the race (can anyone say “blue flag”?).
Sorry about all the errors in the last post(forgot to proof read before I sent it, my laptop’s keyboard is about to fail) here is a correction of some of the errors.
“Kimi could have sustained major back injuries or whiplash, yet the little punk was let off with a slap on the wrist instead of being set out for a few races to watch and learn how to handle one of these ultimate motor cars. Letting children play on the track is always dangerous if they turn out to be so immature as to race down pitlane with blinders on then turn into his main rival to intentionally destroy and possibly harm the current world champion.”
Glad you corrected your typos mo, but as usual you choose to ignore key facts and distort whatever facts you discuss.
Welcome back!
Thank you George.
I just had to chime in because your not keeping up your vow of being the sarcastic poster. I’ve seen a few posts by you and nothing really jumps out and makes me upset.
Please come back and give us something to chew over for another two weeks until the circus resumes.
We all miss your posts and commentary George. I promise again to only stick to ignoring key facts and distorting the ones I discuss. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.” (Sledgehammer, 1986)
If you missed that tv series, google it. I think there may be a few copies floating around somewhere, it only lasted one season, too racy for prime time. He was my hero though, if you watch an episode or two it may help you understand a few of my posts.
Here is a description by tv.com
“Sledge Hammer is the ultimate tough cop with a big gun, a parody of the type popularized by Clint Eastwood in the “Dirty Harry” films. Of course, though he claims “I know what I’m doing,” his cases are usually solved by his female partner, Dori Doreau, if she can only keep him from being suspended for shooting a jaywalker or litterer with his giant pearl-handled .44 Magnum.”
David Rasche and Anne-Marie Martin