Ah fecksticks, clumsy pants Massa actually manages to win a race. I don’t think this win will end criticism of his driving, since if he was at any other team, he’d have no chance of winning. He just hasn’t got the talent and skill that Alonso and Raikkonen have. I rate him at the same level as Fisichella. He’s just not cut out to be champion.
Anyway, contradicting what I’ve just said, Massa romped away with it from the beginning. He seemed fired into action, most likely due to his incompetence the previous week, but it won’t last. The McLaren’s seemed off the pace and it didn’t help by running a long middle stint on the soft tyres. It was amusing to see that in the final stint on the hard tyres they ran the faster they had the entire race. If they’d have switched those tyres round things may have worked out differently. But as the great Murray Walker used to say: “If is a very long word in Formula One…”.
However, it’s worth noting that McLaren have a stack of developments for the next race so that should even things back up again. It’s definitely going to be a tight season between McLaren and Ferrari.
And there is further good news for McLaren. Lewis Hamilton got another second place which is amazing for a rookie. He’s certainly sticking it to the seasoned campaigners of Raikkonen and Alonso, and well pretty much everyone else in the field.
Other teams did well too. BMW were well up there again and Heldfeld had his third 4th place in a row that came about due to a cracking move on Alonso. I’m hoping this level of form will continue because it would be good see a few teams at the top fighting it out.
The current points standing is a strange one with Alonso, Raikkonen and Hamliton all equal with 22 points, however Alonso leads due to count back. Massa is in fourth with 17.
So does this mean we have 4 championship contenders? Nope, as I said previously Massa is too inconsistent and volatile to prove any sort of threat to the championship. Alonso and Raikkonen are still my favourites with Hamilton perhaps causing an upset if his current form continues.
The next race is in Barcelona on the 13th of May.
- Race result (F1 ITV)
