Turkish Grand Prix 2007 Awards
Ferrari claims 1-2 win, Hamilton suffers setback
Every race has its highlights. Some drivers shine while others confound us with what they try to achieve. Here are some of the winners and losers of the 2007 Turkish GP
Driver of the day
Felipe Massa claimed his second pole position at the Turkish Grand Prix as well as his second win at this track. The strong win and the subsequent failure by Lewis Hamilton to capitalize on his front row start gave Massa an extra few point towards his goal of winning the Drivers Championship.
Team of the day
Ferrari scored a decisive 1-2 in this critical Grand Prix. The team announced that they want to win all the races left this season and this is their final push to win both crowns at the end of the season. Maximum points closed the gap to the leading McLaren team and an exciting finale seems to be on the cards.
Racer of the day
Nick Heidfeld had a quite afternoons race, but made sure to improve on his 6th spot in qualifying by not only securing the 5th fastest lap during the race, behind the faster McLaren’s and Ferrari’s, but also beating his team mate Kubica, who started ahead of him on track, to the flag.
Charger of the day
Jenson Button had to start at the back of the grid due to an engine penalty. He not only passed a total of 10 cars on track, but also finally did end up finishing the race in 13th spot, 8 spots ahead of where he started the day. And all of this in the dog of a car Honda has for their drivers.
Honorable mention
Heikki Kovalainen again gets an honorable mention for his performances in Turkey. He qualified in 7th position, ended up with the 7th fastest time of the day, 0.190sec faster than team mate Giancarlo Fisichella, and finished the race in 6th position, 3 places ahead of Fisi, and more importantly in the points. Kovalainen is now 2 points ahead of his team leader Fisichella.
Disappointment of the day
Jarno Trulli qualified in 9th position and looked set to score some solid points. However in the first corner he got hit by Fisichella and lost a lot of positions. From the back of the field he could not do much to improve on his fate and had to settle in a disappointing 16th spot. “Now I will try to forget this race and focus on my home race in Monza. I enjoy racing in Italy so I hope we can get a better result there.” he said.
Doofus of the day
In a race where there were only 2 retirements, and no spectacular crashes or off’s it seems hard to name anyone the “Doofus of the day”. In such a case all that can be done is to give the award to the only 2 teams to suffer reliability problems. Red Bull and Spyker. Well done!
