Turkish Grand Prix: Massa Holds Off Hamilton For Win

Massa celebrates his third consecutive win in Turkey

That was just fantastic. It was a very difficult race, with Lewis pushing me hard, but I thought he was light (on fuel) at the start. Then when he pitted ahead of me, my team told me straight away he was on three stops. That was a help because he was very strong and I couldn't hold him. I knew I had a chance because three stops is optimistic, so it was difficult, but we made it.

By Citizen Correspondent Sir Stephen

Date Posted: 05/11/08

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No wonder that Ferrari’s Felipe Massa loves Istanbul Park. On Sunday afternoon he owned the place, and nobody seriously looked like challenging him as he sped to his hat-trick of victories here to move into joint second in the driver standings.

Sure, Lewis Hamilton pulled what seemed a brilliant passing move on him for the lead on the 24th lap, but it transpired that the Englishman was on a three-stop strategy for McLaren, and soon the way was clear again for Massa as Hamilton stopped to refuel and retain hard tyres on the 32nd lap...

Felipe Massa took a comfortable victory in the Turkish Grand Prix despite Lewis Hamilton's attempt to take the fight to Ferrari with an inventive strategy.

The McLaren driver passed Massa for the lead in the middle of the race but his three-stop strategy succeeded only in beating Kimi Raikkonen to second place.

Massa, on a conventional two-stop plan like his team-mate, had pace in hand to keep ahead of Hamilton. But the Englishman did cut Raikkonen's championship lead to seven points. And Hamilton, who is tied on points with Massa but behind him in the standings on win count-back, will be encouraged by his McLaren's new-found competitiveness.

"I'm thrilled to have come second from third [on the grid]," Hamilton said. "We knew it was going to be tough to challenge the Ferraris. We were hoping to get some points and finishing in the top five was good. But the balance of the car was good and I kept pushing and pushing, so I'm happy."

Massa, who won for the third time in a row at Istanbul Park, was always out of reach of Hamilton, but even being able to compete with one of the Ferraris was a step forward for McLaren.

Hamilton was in aggressive mood from the start of the race, moving up a place from his third spot on the grid on the run to the first corner and tracking Massa until the McLaren's first stop on lap 16.

That was three laps earlier than Massa's first stop, but what betrayed McLaren's strategy was that the team put only a small amount of fuel in the car at that time. The thinking appeared initially to be to enable the car to run lighter - and therefore faster - and try to pass Massa.