Massa Blazes To Victory As Raikkonen Drops Out


By Dale Calkins
May 14 2007

Felipe Massa dominated the entire race, to take victory in the Spanish Grand Prix at the Catalunya Circuit near Barcelona. It was somewhat of an eventful race for Massa though, as Fernando Alonso almost took the Brazilian and himself out at the first corner and later Massa was literally ablaze during a pitstop fire.

Massa Blazes To
Victory As Raikkonen
Drops Out

Felipe Massa dominated the entire race, to take victory in the Spanish Grand Prix at the Catalunya Circuit near Barcelona. It was somewhat of an eventful race for Massa though, as Fernando Alonso almost took the Brazilian and himself out at the first corner. After Alonso slipped off onto the gravel, it was clear sailing for Felipe. Lewis Hamilton was able to keep up for a while, but eventually Massa was simply unreachable.

The rest of Felipe's race was uneventful until a pit stop malfunction set his F2007 on fire. The blaze was caused when the fuel rig was unable to detach from the car, spilling fuel on the body of the F2007. The fuel was ignited by the hot exhaust pipes at the rear of the car. The fire put itself out and did not damage any part of the machine.Massa was extremely excited to take the victory, which promoted him to third place in the Drivers' Championship.

Teammate Kimi Raikkonen however, had a difficult day. The F2007's less than stellar starting abilities allowed Lewis Hamilton to pass the Finn at the race start. Kimi was back up to third though when Alonso went off the track at turn one. This is where Raikkonen would stay for quite some time. Unfortunately Kimi's F2007 was hit by an electrical failure, forcing the Finn to bring the car to the pits. The problem could not be fixed and Raikkonen was out of the race.

An extremely disappointed Kimi then immediately left the circuit. Raikkonen was understandably upset as he left McLaren due to their poor reliability and now he has been hit with a few problems so far at Ferrari. The team have pledged to look into the problem and solve it for the future. Kimi now drops to fourth in the Drivers' Championship.

That Championship is now headed by the most impressive Lewis Hamilton who claimed second in Spain. Fernando Alonso drops from first to third in the Championship, one point behind Lewis and one ahead of Massa. More news and team reactions to follow.