Felipe Massa wins 2008 Bahrain Grand Prix

April 6, 2008

Ferrari driver Felipe Massa won the FIA Formula One 2008 Gulf Air Bahrain Grand Prix at Bahrain International Circuit, Sakhir, Bahrain. Massa was also the previous year winner. His Ferrari teammate, driver Kimi Räikkönen, ran second after a good start from fourth place on the grid.

McLaren Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton failed his start. During the race Hamilton unsuccessfully attacked his former teammate Fernando Alonso (now again a Renault driver), resulting in him losing his front wing, and dropping to last place. He eventually finished a lowly 13th place.

Pole Robert Kubica became the highlight of the weekend by winning the pole, but was slow off the start and finished third on the podium. Nick Heidfeld, his BMW Sauber teammate finished fourth. The results puts BMW as the new leader of the Constructors' championship, one point ahead of Scuderia Ferrari.

Heikki Kovalainen came fifth and became the only McLaren driver to finish in the points. Jarno Trulli (Toyota) and Mark Webber (Red Bull-Renault) ran 6 and 7 places respectively with Nico Rosberg (Williams-Toyota) closing out the top eight with 1 point.

Timo Glock (Toyota) was engaged in a hard battle with Fernando Alonso (Renault) and came 9th ahead of the Spanish 2005 F1 Champion.

Results
Results of Bahrain Grand Prix after 57 laps of Sakhir circuit on 6 April, 2008:

1 Felipe Massa (Brz) Ferrari one hour 31 minutes 6.970 seconds 2 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari +3.339 secs 3 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber +4.998 4 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber +8.409 5 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) McLaren-Mercedes +26.789 6 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota +41.314 7 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull-Renault +45.473 8 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams-Toyota +55.889 9 Timo Glock (Ger) Toyota +1:09.500 10 Fernando Alonso (Spa) Renault +1:17.181 11 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Honda +1:17.862 12 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Force India-Ferrari one lap behind 13 Lewis Hamilton (GB) McLaren-Mercedes one lap 14 Kazuki Nakajima (Jpn) Williams-Toyota one lap 15 Sebastien Bourdais (Fra) Toro Rosso-Ferrari one lap 16 Anthony Davidson (GB) Super Aguri-Honda one lap 17 Takuma Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri-Honda one lap 18 David Coulthard (GB) Red Bull-Renault one lap 19 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Force India-Ferrari two laps R Nelson Piquet Jr (Brz) Renault 40 laps completed R Jenson Button (GB) Honda 19 laps R Sebastian Vettel (Ger) Toro Rosso-Ferrari 0 laps Fastest lap: Kovalainen, 1:33.193, lap 49. Key: R = retired

Other FIA news
In related news, Max Mosley has requested an Extraordinary General Assembly of the FIA Senate, in relation to the News of the World story regarding supposed "Nazi orgy" allegations.

Also, last week Jean-Marie Balestre, the previous FIA president, passed away at the age of 86.