Istanbul, 7th june 2009

Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro finished the Turkish Grand Prix with a sixth place and 3 points for Felipe Massa and a ninth place for Kimi Raikkonen. The team remains fourth in the Constructors’ championship, 12.5 points adrift of Toyota. An incident packed opening lap is what upset the race for the two Ferrari men, followed by a race pace that was far from optimum. The race was won by Jenson Button, who has now been victorious in sixth out of seven races. It looked for a while as though the Red Bull cars might challenge him, but an early mistake from Vettel saw the German end up third, behind his team-mate Mark Webber.

Race day was the hottest of the whole weekend, with air temperature over 30 degrees as the cars lined up on the grid, with Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa in sixth and seventh places on the grid for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro.




As the lights went out, Vettel led from pole, chased by Button, while Barrichello, third on the grid, dropped all the way down to 13th. Trulli passed Webber to go third, but on the opening lap, Vettel ran wide at Turn 9, so that Button led, as Webber went back past Trulli. Felipe started well, moving up to fifth, but as he lined up to pass Trulli at the end of the straight, Rosberg got by him. As for Kimi, after Alonso got past him, the F60 front wing was damaged as it touched the back of the Renault and that allowed Kubica to steal by too. Barrichello was fighting hard, scrapping with Kovalainen, but spun on lap 8, dropping back again. On lap 10, the order was much the same, with Felipe trailing the leader by 16.9s and Kimi was 23.3 off the lead Brawn. Barrichello was still causing most of the excitement, damaging his front wing while trying to pass Sutil, so he pitted for a new nose. Alonso was the first to make a scheduled stop coming in on lap 14 from seventh place, moving Kimi up one. One lap later and Vettel, evidently on a three stop strategy, pitted from second and rejoining sixth, as Felipe moved up, before making his own stop along with Button on lap 18. Webber, Rosberg and Raikkonen all pitted next time round, so that Button was back in the lead. Felipe was now eighth, while Kimi was passed by Hamilton dropping to 14th.

Lap 31 and Felipe was back up to sixth, but Kimi was still thirteenth. Ten laps later and Felipe had gone up to fifth with Kimi having moved up to tenth with the run of pit stops, with a mix of one, two and three stops being used today. Lap 43 saw Felipe make his final stop, fitting the softer tyres for the remaining 15 laps to the flag. As for the leaders, Vettel in second was putting Button under real pressure, except that the German had an extra stop to make.

On lap 48, Glock pitted from sixth, while Vettel came in on lap 49, rejoining third, behind Button and Webber. With eight laps to go, Felipe was 51 seconds behind the leader, in sixth spot, while Kimi was now over a minute behind and the order remained unchanged to the flag. Behind the podium trio, the rest of the points went to fourth placed Trulli, Rosberg, Massa, Kubica, and Glock.