Massa Leads Home Dominant One-Two

The Brazilian didn’t have it all his own way however. Team-mate Raikkonen looked odds on for a second victory in a row at the French circuit before a loose exhaust hampered him. Despite a blackened and charred side-pod, the world champion still brought his car home in second for eight valuable points. It is Raikkonen’s first point’s finish since Turkey.

Behind saw a great jostle for position with unfamiliar names up the front due to BMW and McLaren woes. Jarno Trulli survived a late scare to bring his Toyota home in third. After seemingly losing ground after the first Barcelona test, the Japanese team have turned the car around at the recent test. Both cars made the top-ten in qualifying and Trulli received his just reward for a solid race. Heikki Kovalviaen, who had to deal with a five place penalty for blocking in qualifying chased the Italian home. It took nearly half a race for Heikki to come alive, but his finish ends a recent run of poor results for the Finn.

Montreal winner Robert Kubica and and Nick Heidfeld looked in a different class than two weeks ago. The BMW struggled around the Magny Cours circuit. It took a massive effort from the Pole to keep the BMW competitive and will be happy with his fifth position.
After him came the gaggle of cars lead by Mark Webber. After a poor Canadian grand prix, Webber returned to his points scoring ways. I’ll be writing more about Mark Webber’s season later in the week. Nelson Piquet scored his first points of the year with seventh. The icing on the cake was nailing team leader Alonso as he ran wide at the Adelaide hairpin in the closing laps. Despite a great qualifying effort, Alonso looked hampered by having to run heavy later in the race.

And of course, there is Hamilton. The Brit endured a scrappy race that saw him struggle at times behind other cars. His race was compounded by straight-lining it over the kerbs to maintain a pass over Vettel in the first few laps. Common sense would dictate that he should just let Vettel by. Around McLaren as of late, common sense seems to be lacking. Even if they thought it was marginal, they should’ve told him to let off and nail him again.
It was easy to see from the vantage point that he couldn’t maintain the manoeuvre without going through the chicane. ITV’s commentary team made enough noise yesterday about Raikkonen going four wheels off the track on his qualifying effort that he would have to do it again. Of course, when Hamilton does it, it’s suspect. The white boundaries of the track are there for a reason!

I had to laugh at the post-Montreal talk from McLaren. All that was coming out was how great the car was; how they were going to mastermind a great strategy to get him into play and so forth. Yet, come Friday practice the line ‘This is a Ferrari circuit came to play.’ Why bother toot your horn before you get to the track?
Hamilton looked scrappy throughout the weekend. His race was no different. He again found his nose into the rear of a car, this time his team-mate. No damage was sustained in his incident. He followed this up later on with banging wheels through turn three with Alonso. Hamilton needs to stop focusing on the negative media attention he’s getting. (Which is a given with the British press – just ask the English football team.) Next race is his home race, enough motivation to get his championship challenge back on track.

PC’s Driver of the Day: Jarno Trulli. It could have easily gone to Massa for keeping his nose clean or Raikkonen for managing the car as he did. But, Ferrari was so dominant that nobody had an answer for them. Given Toyota’s recent woes on and off the track, it was the perfect tonic.