Massa wins while Alonso holds off Schumi

Felipe Massa wins the Turkish GP with a very good Ferrari. Michael Schumacher was also equipped with the same material but was a bit unlucky with a safety car period that cost him a place to Alonso. The end of the race proved to be a real stressful event as it was similar to Imola 2005. Just like there, Alonso made no mistakes and was able to hold off an incredibly fast Schumacher.

For the second time running the Turkish GP started under a sunny sky. However this time the drivers themselves made some spectacle already from the start on. They all wanted to go into the first corner in the best possible position, and as a result some people hit each other. At first, Fernando Alonso made a very good start but got sandwished between the Ferrari drivers. Alonso was unable to pass any of them and the top three remained the same. Fisichella however missed his braking point and slipped away, got hit by another car and had to come in for new tyres and a new front wing.

Nick Heidfeld lost his front wing too, while Scott Speed also went too quick into the first corner and hit Kimi Raikkonen who abandoned 2 laps later after suffering 2 flat tyres as a result of Speeds optimism. Nico Rosberg profited from the fuss to move up to 6th place. Sato and Monteiro on the other hand abandoned the race during the first lap after another incident between them.

In the next ten laps, both Ferrari cars drove away from the competition while Schumacher steadily came closer to his teammate after having lost 3 seconds in the first lap. After 12 laps, all came down to nothing as the safety car came on track after. Liuzzi hasd made a spin in the first corner and his car was left jammed in a very dangerous position. Immediately, both Ferrari's and Alonso came into the pitlane. The event was very interesting for Alonso as he could leave the pitlane in front of Michael Schumacher. The latter lost some time as he waited for his teammete to complete his pitstop.

When 2 laps later the safety car left the track, all positions remained unchanged, except for Alonso who was able to overtake the lapped Heidfeld who drove in between Massa and the world champion. At that time, Massa was first, ahead of Alonso, Schumacher, Button and Rosberg. During the following laps lots of figths were going on around the track, the most tight being Barrichello and Trulli who were fighting several laps after another before Barrichello finally passed the Italian.

With 35 laps to go, Rosberg's excellent race came to an end as the water pressure was lost on the Cosworth engine. Yamamoto retired one lap earlier by also blocking his car at the circuit, similar to Liuzzi.

At the front, Alonso held up with the Ferrari-pace as the three leaders drove in gaps of 4 second away from each other. Michael Schumacher thereafter made a major error in turn 8 and lost several seconds and got company from Jenson Button. After coming back up to speed, Michael was still in 3rd but about 8s behind Alonso. Massa at the same time pushed the throttle a bit more to pull away slowly from the Renault in second place.

Towards the second series of stops, all three leaders increase their pace as Massa and Schumacher share consecutive fastest laps. Alonso's times are nevertheless hardly slower and only lost 1s in the last five laps before the pitstops. Massa and Alonso are the first to come in with 19 laps to go in the race. Michael Schumacher kept going with some fastest laps and is close to a second faster than both men who already pitted. Schumacher came into the pitlane 15 laps before the end and rejoined the track 3 seconds behind Fernando Alonso.

Takuma Sato meanwhile seems to still be on track as the teams looks to put in some testing kilometers. Christijan Albers' work though seemed to be for nothing as he abandones just after turn 8.

Quickly after his stop, Schumacher puts the pressure on Alonso with a big attack after 5 laps, but Alonso is able to keep in front and regains some advantage over and over again in the very same 8th corner of the circuit. 4 laps from the end Schumacher loses a second to the Renault but only one lap later displays the pace of his Ferrari as he marks the fastest lap of the race, a 1:28.005.

Fernando Alonso isn't however just some pilot and does not make any errors to save his second place in this race and gain 2 points to Schumacher in the championship.