MOTORSPORTS
	Felipe Massa’s win at Istanbul means that Ferrari has four wins out of five races thus far in 2008. They ended last year on a high and have retained that momentum through winter testing to consistently take the top step of the podium so far this year – with the one exception being the opening race in Australia. While Ferrari dominated at Bahrain and Spain, in Turkey the gap to McLaren was marginal, especially in race pace, which bodes well for the rest of the season because it means that we’ll continue to see close and competitive racing. Massa did struggle early in the year but has been able to get his championship back on track, and is only seven points behind his teammate and reigning champion, Kimi Raikkonen. Nevertheless, there’s still a big question mark as to whether he can produce the consistent resulting needed to win a championship. He’s clearly a master of certain circuits
	– most notably the new age Heman Tilke designed Bahrain and Istanbul tracks, circuits that have fast, flowing corners where you can be veryaggressive while still having the safety net of large runoff areas around the track. He’ll undoubtedly still be under pressure to perform at tracks such as Monaco and Canada where he’s struggled in the past. Hamilton is also struggling but continues to prove that he’s a racer at heart. The young championship hopeful would have expected a better start in 2008 after his near miss last year, and especially after his win at the opening race of the year. Nevertheless, he demonstrated at Turkey that McLaren is right on the heels of Ferrari. He was able to stay ahead of Raikkonen to take second place not far behind the Ferrari of Massa – this is despite being forced onto a three pit stop strategy because of fears that he may suffer another tire blowout like he did the previous year at Istanbul. Nevertheless, Hamilton made the most of his strategy and pulled off a stunning pass for the lead against Massa, although the Ferrari driver was considerably heavier on fuel. Hamilton’s second place in Turkey puts him equal on points with Massa and seven points adrift of Raikkonen. In addition to keeping pace with Ferrari, he’ll also be wary of the relative pace of his Finnish teammate, Heike Kovalainen – who out-qualified him in Turkey despite being on a heavier fuel load. Kovalainen seems to be finding his feet at McLaren and has been putting a great deal of pressure on Hamilton. He hasn’t had the best of luck however, as he crashed heavily at Spain resulting from a part failure. It looked like a severe shunt but the safety measures put in place by the FIA worked perfectly to ensure that he was fit to take the start at the next race only two weeks later. At Turkey, he qualified on the front row but got a bad start and had to defend his position. This resulted in contact with the Ferrari of Raikkonen and led to a punctured rear tire – putting him out of contention for the race. McLaren feel that Heike had the strategy, and car, to win the race. Raikkonen, on the other hand, seems to be playing the part of defending champion to perfection. He’s one of the only driver to have scored points in each race so far this year. He dominates to take the win if he can, and if it’s not a perfect weekend he still manages to make it onto the podium at the very least. In the first five races, excluding Australia, Kimi’s taken two wins, a second and a third. As a result, he’s safely at the top of the points table after the first few races of 2008. The next two races at Monaco and Canada are hard to predict. And while Monaco is known more for its spectacular setting and beautiful people, the racing is very intriguing as well. Last year, McLaren dominated Ferrari at both Monaco and Canada. This year, however, Ferrari still seem to have a slight edge over the course of the entire weekend. Moreover, McLaren seemed to struggle at the slow and twisty sections of both the Catalunya and Istanbul circuits, where the cars chassis needs to be perfectly dialed in. It’ll certainly be interesting to see how these two races play out, as they’ll determine if Hamilton is able to edge closer to Raikkonen or whether Ferrari are able to pull further away. BMW Sauber seem to have cemented their position behind the leading duo. They’ll be a little disappointed, however, as they seem to have lost pace relative to McLaren, whom they’ve been challenging off late. Within the team, Robert Kubica continues to shine and show the world that he’s a driver to watch for the future. He seems to have the legs on his very experienced teammate, Nick Heidfeld, who’s finding it hard with his smooth driving style to get enough heat into the tires to be competitive in qualifying – he’s been out qualified by Kubica in all of the first five races of 2008. Another driver who’s dominated his teammate is double world champion Fernando Alonso. While he was certainly expected to the lead the team, the dismal form of Nelson Piquet Jr. has been somewhat of a surprise. Perhaps he needs a little more time to find his feet, as he’s been close to Alonso in practice but nowhere near him when it counts – in the race and during qualifying. In Turkey, for example, Alonso was seven-tenths of a second quicker in qualifying, while his fastest lap in the race was over half-a-second quicker – in Formula 1 that’s light years ahead. Alonso appears to be forcing speed out of his Renault. He qualified on the front row on low fuel in Spain but retired with engine failure. At Turkey, he was able to finish sixth – indicating that Renault are en route to finding a bit of form. The start of the Turkish Grand Prix saw only 20 cars line up on the grid with the demise of the Super Aguri team. Team boss, Aguri Suzuki, finally called it quits after his teams transporters were barred from entering the paddock in Turkey. The real trouble for the team began when one of their major sponsors defaulted at the end of last year. What sealed their fate, however, was the FIA ruling, after a year long debate, disallowing ‘customer cars’ from 2010. This greatly affected their chances of finding new sponsors since Super Aguri used a chassis inherited from the Honda team. The new customer car rules have also meant that the future of the Red Bull owned Torro Rosso team, who use a derivative of the Red Bull chassis, is also in doubt. F1 was also supposed to have a new entrant this year, Prodrive, who were meant to use a McLaren chassis, but they chose to bow out as well. The last team to develop an F1 program and chassis from scratch is Toyota, who are believed to have invested over a billion dollars already in F1. The FIA is now aiming to put in place an annual budget cap for the teams in order to reign in the spiraling costs in F1. A fall out of Super Aguri’s exit has been a change in the qualifying regulations. From the Turkish Grand Prix onwards, only the top 15 cars will progress to the second round of qualifying. This will make it even more difficult for the Force India team to achieve its goal of making it into Q2. Despite Dr. Mallya’s efforts, and the teams improved pace, Force India still appear to be struggling. Fisichella had a race to forget in Turkey, as he was forced to start from the back of the pack following a penalty in practice. In an effort to make up some places at the start, he rammed into the back of Nakajima’s Willaims. Adrian Sutil also continued his disappointing start to the season, as he damaged his nose cone at the first corner. He has the worst record of the year with three DNFs, one 19th and one 16th place. The team was pleased, however, that he made it to the end of the Turkish Grand Prix ahead of the Torro Rosso of Sebastian Vettel. Perhaps the next few races will bring better luck for Force India. Finally, the embattled FIA President, Max Mosley, will make his first F1 appearance at the Monaco Grand Prix since news of his sex scandal struck. Following Monaco, the 3rd of June will see a meeting of the FIA General Assembly to decide his future. Whatever his fate, it appears that the 2008 season will once again continue to provide great on-track action.