Felipe Massa Wins, Lewis Hamilton Second - European Grand Prix – Valencia

One of the most boring races that I have seen and a huge disappointment as this is one of the new tracks that are supposed to inject some fresh excitement into f1.

The top finishing positions were as the starting grid with Filipe Massa, Lewis Hamilton Robert Kubica and Heikki Kovalainen. There was only superficial excitement brought by the drama from the Ferrari team while surprisingly no safety car as predicted by many team engineers especially the Mclaren F1

As ever the battle was bound to be between Massa and Hamilton and one could almost predict the final results 10 laps into the race. With a track temperate just above 40 degrees, Ferrari would have the slight advantage. Massa was pulling away from Hamilton with between 0.3 and 0.5 seconds per lap for most of the race. I get the feeling that Hamilton was pushing much harder than Massa and the Brazilian could have gone slightly faster.

Down the field, it was pretty much normal procession with David Coulthard’s Red Bull hitting another car, Hondas struggling etc. A genuine let down for the fans was the early retirement of the local driver Fernando Alonso.

A little drama in the pitlane with Felipe Massa beign released into an unsafe rush with Adrian Sutil to exit the pit. Stuarts kept everyone guessing what their outcome would be but fortunately only a small fine was handed to Ferrari.

The team’s reliability failed for a consecutive race and Kimmi Raikkonen was the unlucky one this time round to see his car emit a lot of some from an engine failure.
Notable performances where from Toyota who finished both cars in the points fifth and seventh. Sebastian Vettel had an allroud good weekend.

Race Results
1. MASSA Ferrari
2. HAMILTON McLaren +5.6s
3. KUBICA BMW +37.3s
4. KOVALAINEN McLaren +39.7s
5. TRULLI Toyota +50.6s
6. VETTEL Toro Rosso +52.6s
7. GLOCK Toyota +67.9s
8. ROSBERG Williams +71.4s
9. HEIDFELD BMW +82.1s
10. BOURDAIS Toro Rosso +89.7s
11. PIQUET Renault +92.7s
12. WEBBER Red Bull +1 lap
13. BUTTON Honda +1 lap
14. FISICHELLA Force India +1 lap
15. NAKAJIMA Williams +1 lap
16. BARRICHELLO Honda +1 lap
17. COULTHARD Red Bull +1 lap
R. RAIKKONEN Ferrari +12 laps
R. SUTIL Force India +16 laps
R. ALONSO Renault +57 laps

There are good buys out there

These are very hard times with many daily struggles as far as motoring is concerned. Worldwide market pains, food prices so on. Petrol price is one daily obstacle which is enough to make some turn to very naughty antics. In the recent months reports have been surfacing that some members of the motoring community have lowered to the level of driving away from petrol pumps after filling up without paying a Rand or even waiving good bye. Eish. Life. Very hard.

But what about affordability of cars, they are not getting any cheaper either. I suppose the next batch of tricks to play would be to walk into a show room, politely request a "test drive" and then follow normal procedure: drive off without waving good bye.

For the less radical, getting an affordable car in a civilized manner is still possible if not much easier than ever. This is because a number of motorists feel they are forced to sell. A very valid observation is just the number of vehicles with the personalised "For Sale" sticker on the window.

I was chatting to a friend who told me she managed to get an Opel Corsa lite for less than R40 000. More like R35 ooo to be extact. My immediate question was the millage. Only 90 000 was the reply. Wow. Lucky person? Not really. If you have cash now, you can get very good deals from motorist who are forced to sell.

There is then some thing positive in these hard times and a second hand buyer can drive away from the purchase waving good buy.

Grand Prix of Hungary(2008)

Eeh welcome to the world of winning Heikki, the first of many.

The words of Ron Dennis, Mclaren f1 team principal his tone sounding a little unhappy and unexcited . That is because he and Heikki know very well that the win was handed to the team by Fillipe Massa’s unfortunate retirement just three laps before the end of the race. Timo Glock finished second while Kimmi Raikkonnen took the final podium position.

Massa looked like an outright winner from the first lap when he jumped both Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen from the start and was then able of pull away from Lewis Hamilton for the next laps. By the first lap the racing order was one that would not have been anticipated with both Maclarens behind Massa who qualified third and and Timmo Glock in fourth place. Kimi Raikonne was then stuck behind Fernando Alonso for most of the race.

The first event to change the final outcome of the race was on lap 50 with Hamilton suffering a puncture which forced him to pit only to rejoin in eleventh place. He did make forward grounds overtaking a number of cars to end up 6th some way behind the fight got 5th and 6th (Raikonnen vs Alonso).

But the big event of the race was the leader Massa stopping with just three laps to finish. Very unfortunate as he had put in a very spirited drive.