Valencia (24/08/2008).- Felipe Massa, a driver for the Italian team Ferrari, achieved the first victory at the inaugural Telefonica Grand Prix of Europe which was held at Valencia Street Circuit, a race marked by Fernando Alonso retiring before having completed the first lap of the street circuit. 115,000 people have seen the race live today at the street track of Valencia, with a total of 212,000 spectators over the whole weekend.

During the race Massa was able to take full advantage of his pole position on the grid and dominated the race right from the start. Rubens Barrichello (Honda) and Adrian Sutil (Force India) started from the pit lane. When entering the fifth corner, before having completed the first lap of the Grand Prix, the Japanese driver, Nakajima (AT&T Williams) rammed Fernando Alonso (ING Renault) from behind causing the loss of his rear spoiler and him having to abandon the race.

The Brazilian driver for Ferrari, imposed a strong pace and pulled ahead during the race, and the first two drivers were lapping nearly a second faster than third position Kubica. On lap 15, Massa made his first pit stop, allowing Hamilton (McLaren Mercedes) to lead the race for one lap before he made his pit stop. Kubica (BMW Sauber), imitated his predecessors and stopped on lap 19 and after Kovalainn (McLaren Mercedes) stopped, the drivers recovered their original positions with Massa in the lead.

After the first session of pit stops, with the tanks full, the lap times were slower, although Massa was still able to increase his lead over Hamilton. After the second session of pit stops, the Brazilian had an incident in the pit late after an irregular release from his position, and nearly missed colliding with Adrian Sutil.

Ferrari were also involved in another incident while Raikonnen was pitting, and left the pit with the fuel hose still connected and ran over one of the mechanics. With just 10 laps remaining, the Finn's engine blew up on the home straight.

The last laps confirmed Ferrari's superiority, with Massa coming home to a comfortable victory with Hamilton in second place and Kubica in third.

"Winning here after the bad result at Hungary is fantastic for me and the team, although we are not one hundred percent satisfied because of Raikonnen's problems", explained Massa, according to who, the rest of the championship "will largely depend on the reliability of the cars and the consistency of the driver, which are two factors that go hand in hand". The Brazilian is sure that he was not at fault regarding the incident in the pit lane and explained that his strategy was based on "achieving a lead of three seconds over Hamilton in order to avoid problems after the pit stops".

The best track marshals

"I loved the circuit, and I have enjoyed the race. The Spanish fans are great because there was a great atmosphere and the climate is exceptional. The marshals are the fastest and best I have ever seen during my time racing, the circuit is very safe although it is difficult to overtake", pointed out Lewis Hamilton after the race.

The Englishman recognised the superiority of the Italian team in their pit stop strategy and said that if he had stopped on the same laps as Massa "there would have been a good battle on the track". Nevertheless, he was satisfied with "the reliability of the car" and feels that second place is a "good result in spite of his health problems over the weekend and the problems with his neck".

Likewise, Robert Kubica pointed out that the objective of the team for the rest of the season "is to try and keep our third position".

GP2: second victory of Campos

Another Brazilian, Luca di Grassi (Barwa Campos Team), won the second race of the GP2 Series held at Valencia Street Circuit, the second by the Valencian team over a weekend that has not been very successful for the Spanish drivers in the championship. The driver from Asturias, Javi Villa (Racing Engineering) finished fifth as the best Spaniard, whereas the driver from Vallodolid, Roldan Rodriguez (FMI) was tenth. Worse luck was had by the driver from Alicante, Adrián Vallés (BCN Competición) and the driver from Madrid, Andy Soucek (Super Nova), who was forced to retire from the race.

 

Source: Valmor Sports