Sunday, August 24, 2008

VALENCIA GP - FIRST IMPRESSION

Well, the race didn't turn out as expected. I mean, I knew Ferrari was strong but the race didn't turn out to be as exciting as I'd thought. There was never any danger of a safety car and it didn't rain. Only 1 car was taken out in the first lap and that was Alonso losing his rear wing courtesy of Nakajima.

Lewis ran a strong race but he was no match for Massa, who got off to a good start and never looked threatened all the way. I knew that Lewis couldn't catch up with Massa and was hoping that Lewis would keep his cool and look at the bigger picture i.e. the championship is more important than winning this race. Just finishing second was better than trying too hard to chase Massa then losing the race altogether.

My only gripe with the race was Massa and Ferrari. What else is new right? First off, the FIA changed the starting grid from the left to the right, thereby handing Massa the cleaner side of the track and the results speak for themselves, Massa got off to a flying start.

Then the most obvious, annoying and dangerous display of stupidity happened when Massa and Sutil was in the pits. Sutil got off from his pitstop and was his way out of the pits when Massa also finished his pitstop and rushed out, almost hitting Sutil and causing an accident. It was obvious that Sutil was already on his way out, so Massa didn't have a choice but to give way but noooo..he had to be a hero.

Fine, he's competitive and we had the pitlane incident. Next up and most annoying, the FIA didn't do anything. We have seen many times before how hard the FIA can come down on any driver that makes that kind of mistake or even less. Massa should've been penalised during the race via a drive through penalty or at least a penalty at the next race, at least a 5 place grid penalty. His result tonight is still under scrutiny though, so we'll wait.

Oh and another thing, to make it worse, during the post race press conference Massa said that he thought Sutil should have given way to him because he was in front in the race or something to that effect. Basically he is saying that the blue flag applies in the pitlane too, that Sutil should stop and wait for the Ferrari to finish his pitstop and his coffee and croissant, then let him go first and then only move on. And you McLaren/Lewis haters wonder why we hate Ferrari?

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