Spanish Grand Prix – Barcelona, 13th May 2007
Felipe Massa: 1st 1:31.36.230 65 laps chassis 260
Kimi Raikkonen: R lap 9 9 laps chassis 262
Weather: air temperature 30/28 °C, track temperature 41/38
°C, clear skies.
Third victory of the season for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro,
the second courtesy of Felipe Massa. This is win number ten
in the Spanish Grand Prix for Ferrari and number 195 from
745 races entered. It was Felipe’s fourth career win
from 75 Grand Prix starts.
Jean Todt: “Pole position, victory
and fastest race lap: for the second consecutive race weekend,
Felipe Massa put in a flawless performance. He was really
great today in a great Ferrari car. It was an exciting race,
especially in the opening stages: the duel at the start between
Felipe and Alonso, disappointment for Kimi’s retirement
due to a problem in the wiring to the alternator, flames at
the first pit stop. In the second part of the race, Felipe
drove impeccably, controlling the situation and bring home
a wonderful win. We know that one of the indispensable ingredients
for winning the championship is reliability and twice now
it has been missing this season, today with Kimi’s car.
Therefore, despite three wins and four pole positions, we
are back to a following role in both classifications, because
of the great competitiveness of our main rivals. This season
is very hard to predict, there is still a long way to go and
much work to do to reach the objectives we have set ourselves.
We know what is required and how important will be the support
of all our technical partners.”
Felipe Massa: “Fantastic!! I cannot
find the words to describe the emotions I feel after such
a closely fought race. The duel at the start was very tight:
I took some risks but I absolutely did not want to lose position
and that meant we touched when he came up the inside of me.
Luckily, the car was undamaged, and so I was immediately able
to pull away from my pursuers. I wanted to get a good lead
straight away so that I could manage the situation in the
second stint of the race and that’s how it went. The
F2007 is a great car, but we need to improve further in order
to get both cars across the finish line, as our closest rivals
have done. Reliability is the key. Now we come to the Monaco
race: it can be something of a lottery there and you need
a bit of luck on your side. Once again, I would like to thank
Michael for the help he has given me over all these years.
His lessons have been useful to me!”
Kimi Raikkonen: “Honestly, there’s
little to say, except that I’m very disappointed. I
lost a place to Hamilton at the start, but made the most of
the fight between Felipe and Fernando to get back to third
place. I was running at a good pace and could have had a good
result, but suddenly the car had an electrical problem and
all I could was come back to the garage. I have lost precious
points but there are still thirteen races to recover.”
Luca Baldisserri: “A great performance
from Felipe, who completed what was a perfect weekend for
him. We had struggled in free practice to do a quick time
over a single lap with new tyres but we had seen that our
race pace was very good and today that was confirmed. A shame
that Kimi had a problem in the wiring to the alternator: there
was no warning and now we have to see what caused it, robbing
him of a probably podium finish. Then we had a slight fuel
leak at Felipe’s first pit stop, which caused a small
fire that did not do any damage either on the car or the refuelling
rig. Once more, reliability is crucial and we must leave nothing
to chance to ensure that a technical problem does not rob
us of a good result again.”
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