Felipe Massa’s victory rounds off a festival of entertainment
The fifth Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix has been claimed by Brazil’s Felipe Massa, leading home his reigning champion team mate Kimi Räikkönen in a dominant 1-2 performance for Scuderia Ferrari.
Massa’s second successive victory in Bahrain ignites his challenge in the 2008 FIA Formula One World Championship and left almost 43,000 spectators cheering a thrilling end to an all-action weekend.
Massa launched himself off his second place on the grid to beat pole position man, Poland’s Robert Kubica in his BMW Sauber, into Turn 1 to claim a lead that he never ceded. Two laps later Finnish star Räikkönen repeated the move on Kubica into Turn 1, while the second BMW of Nick Heidfeld passed the McLaren-Mercedes of Heikki Kovalainen, to set a pattern of Ferrari-Ferrari-BMW-BMW that was not to alter for the rest of the race.
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Fernando Alonso has been hailed as a calming, motivational force following an indifferent start to the season from Renault.
“Fernando really is one of the positives and the effort we get from him is fantastic, as is his understanding of the race, the tactics and the whole business of Formula One,” said Renault’s executive director of engineering, Pat Symonds.
“He goes about things in a very calm way and I like that because I think it pervades through the team.
“I always like to try and put calmness in the team because I think it operates better that way, and it’s great when you have a driver who can do that.
“The other thing about him is his results are very motivational.
“He’s not a guy who has to go around motivating people because his ability and his results motivate people in themselves.
“Everyone knows that at the end of every race Fernando has put in 100% effort no matter the circumstances or what position he is racing for.
“That is incredibly motivating for the whole team, and then there is the sheer effort he puts in.
“The way he grabbed fourth position towards the end of the race in Australia, that was just so typical of Fernando and shows us that he never gives up.”
Regardless of the speculation already linking Alonso with a race seat at Ferrari next season, the 26-year-old is currently having to mend and make do on his return to Renault.
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