More than the tiger eyes, it is the shark fin the aerodynamic novelty present on the back of the car. An upgrade with which Ferrari hopes to find a smile that Budapest has been missing since mid-August 2004, but above all to stem the fury of Lewis Hamilton, winner of the last two Grand Prix in Great Britain and Germany. The fin seems to be the key to getting out of the crisis, to make Ferrari fast on slow circuits, even if in the Maranello team it is minimized. Felipe Massa explains:
"It is a small detail that is striking, however, because it is visible, unlike others perhaps more important, but hidden: with me in the tests it worked but it does not give tenths. It improves stability when cornering, but in terms of performance, the difference is almost imperceptible. If we succeed in winning here, the credit will not be for this novelty, but for our skill in solving the problems of Hockenheim. I won't say how we did it, but I'm convinced that in Budapest you'll see another Ferrari. The only unknown remains the temperature of the brakes. In Germany, my brakes overheated too much and we couldn't figure out why, maybe I was too behind the safety car. I hope that such trouble will not recur again. Otherwise, every risk becomes useless".
It is necessary to consider the entire package, the car as a whole, and not the single element. Recommendations that with Kimi Raikkonen become inevitable, since he admits that he has never tried the fin and that he does not know what benefits it can give.
"I'll have it during free practice, we'll see what times I'll realize and then I'll decide whether to use it".
The best way to lower any wait and turn the shark fin into the tail of a goldfish. But Raikkonen is like that, he doesn't flaunt the slightest emotion, even when he launches alarms as serious as that of a hypothetical new Hamilton triumph.
"We have to prevent that at all costs. Because if it happened, then the comeback would become almost impossible. It's not the first time I've been chasing, it doesn't scare me, but in the last two races McLaren has gone very fast and we have to reverse course".
It is not even the first time that Kimi Raikkonen has arrived late for a press conference (in France having made journalists wait for 5 minutes had cost him 5.000 euros), although this time he has a thousand mitigating circumstances, he has been granted the cause of force majeure and the fine is spared. Being late for a driver is not the best, but in Austria the airspace was congested, his private plane had to wait two hours before he could take off from Zurich, and Budapest traffic did the rest. He got away with it and promised a ransom on the track. Because mistakes are no longer allowed, Felipe Massa also admits:
"Decisive Race? Maybe yes, if Hamilton wins woe to make him go on the run".
Also, you can't even hope for an intervention by the FIA, which on Thursday examines the Mercedes engine, and finds it in perfect order. After the German Grand Prix, the teams conducted test sessions on the Jerez circuit from Tuesday 22 to Friday 25 July 2008. Each team was limited to 30.000 km of testing during the 2008 calendar year, a reduction from previous seasons. Sebastian Vettel scored the best time on the first and second day, while Mark Webber was already fast at the end of day three and Heikki Kovalainen scored the best time on the last day of testing. Several teams tested using Bridgestone slick tyres, as preparation for the transition from grooved to slick tyres for the 2009 season, while BMW Sauber tested the Kinetic Energy Recovery System (Kers). Among other teams, Force Indiatester Vitantonio Liuzzi tests the team's new seamless shift before the system's race debut later in the year, while Timo Glock takes part in the tests after the serious crash at the German Grand Prix.
In the week leading up to the race, a team meeting was also held at Ferrari's headquarters in Maranello, which led to the formation of a new representative body, the Formula One Teams Association (FOTA), led by Ferrari's president, Luca Montezemolo. McLaren's team principal, Ron Dennis, says the establishment of FOTA is intended to encourage greater cooperation between teams, in particular in the development of new sports and technical regulations, and to act as a counterweight to the current governing body of the sport, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) and the company responsible for its commercial management, Formula One Management (FOM). On Thursday 31 July 2008, on the eve of the Hungarian Grand Prix, McLaren confirmed that Heikki Kovalainen will also race for the Anglo-German team for the 2009 season, along with Lewis Hamilton, while the organisers of the Hungarian Grand Prix signed an agreement with Bernie Ecclestone, the president of FOM, to continue hosting the race until 2016. Several teams have made technical changes to their cars for the Grand Prix. Ferrari modified the cooling system and chassis body of the F2008, as a result of high brake wear and engine water temperature during the German Grand Prix. McLaren and Force India introduced revised aerodynamic packages for their MP4-23 and VJM01 chassis, aimed at increasing the amount of aerodynamic load, and therefore grip, produced by the bodywork.
Force India also brings its new gear. Ferrari, Honda and Toyota also mount raised engine lids, dubbed shark fins, for the way they stretch toward the rear wing, and Honda introduced a new rear suspension package. The only tire supplier, Bridgestone, provides teams with two specifications of race-grooved dry tires, named Soft and Super Soft. The Super Soft compound is distinguished by a white stripe present in one of the grooves of the tire. On Friday, August 1, 2008, Felipe Massa was the fastest driver during FP1, thanks to a time of 1'20”981. Kimi Raikkonen is 0.4 seconds late to his teammate. The two McLaren drivers follow in third and fourth place, with Heikki Kovalainen ahead of Lewis Hamilton. Fernando Alonso and Nelson Piquet Jr. They don't go beyond fifth and eighth place. The two Renault drivers are separated by Timo Glock and Robert Kubica. Their teammates, Nick Heidfeld and Jarno Trulli, complete the top ten. The second free practice session takes place with similar weather conditions to the first; the only difference is a slightly higher peak track temperature, 37 °C. Throughout FP2 it is Lewis Hamilton who scores the fastest lap of the day, turning in 1'20”554, while Heikki Kovalainen closes practice with the third-best time. Renault drivers are once again very fast - Nelson Piquet Jr. is second, Fernando Alonso is fourth - although the team's executive director, Pat Symonds, admits that both cars have run at fuel loads slightly lower than normal, improving their performance. Kimi Räikkönen and Felipe Massa slip to fifth and sixth place respectively, ahead of Nick Heidfeld, Robert Kubica, Jarno Trulli and Nico Rosberg.
"Almost 500 km travelled by the two machines without any technical inconvenience".
It reads the official statement of Scuderia Ferrari. If it were an endurance race, the Maranello team could make jumps of joy. But since in F1, there is a habit of watching the time trial, the team has little to cheer about, as in the second free practice session Lewis Hamilton precedes Maranello's cars by almost 0.5 seconds. The disappointing Friday in Budapest can be filed, given that Ferrari with its shark fin on its back had high hopes of redemption, it was also a little deluded in the morning with Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen in front of the McLarens at the end of FP1, only to realise that the opponent is faster, that on the dry lap does not seem to have rivals (and on this circuit, where it never overtake, the pole position up for grabs is more than half a victory) and in the race pace it seems to have 0.3 seconds less on each lap. There is little to be happy about, and Lewis Hamilton does nothing to lower the tone.
"This is the best McLaren I've ever driven. Compared to Germany, where we were the best, we have taken a considerable step forward, we continue to improve, and we are faster and faster. Let's quickly find the right car balance. Defined the set-up, we no longer have problems. Thecar drives very well, I would call it a great start to the weekend and maybe the best is yet to come. We can take pole and run for victory".
The two Ferrari drivers just have to reply by thanking them for their honesty, as well as admitting that Lewis Hamilton is marching like a rocket. After all, in the consumption of the tires, you can guess what will happen and at the moment this particular speaks decisively in favour of the opponents. The one on the McLaren is a homogeneous consumption, while Ferrari deteriorates more the rear and the Bmw team, also with little to smile, the front. But there's more: if with the hard-mixed tires (the ones used in the first session) Ferrari still manages to keep up the pace, with the soft ones the discomfort is almost embarrassing. Felipe Massa doesn't hide it:
"I just didn't go with the soft ones, much better than the hard ones".
Words confirmed by the time realised, that his Ferrari getting worse in the afternoon, while Hamilton was gaining a second in the morning. The problem is that it is the soft ones that serve as the poles. Raikkonen tries to take courage:
"We can do better, there's room for a few steps forward".
But then he declares that he has not understood the advantages of the fin (tried for the first time) and that he has not found differences between hard and soft tires. Flat calm, the summary of his day, which will not mean red alarm, but not even sacred furore of comeback. To all advantage of the increasingly unleashed Hamilton. Who charges:
"If I win here, I'll get close to winning the World Championship".
But telling the truth. On Saturday 2 August 2008, during FP3 Lewis Hamilton again scores the best time, shooting in 1'20"228. The British driver precedes Felipe Massa, Timo Glock, Heikki Kovalainen and Nelson Piquet. Nick Heidfeld is much more pleased with the fine-tuning of his car, and scores the sixth-best time, while Robert Kubica is slowed down by a mechanical problem that limits him to the P18. Sebastian Vettel finally faces the practice session without any problems and scores the eighth-best time, positioning himself behind Sébastien Bourdais. This is followed by Kimi Räikkönen and Nico Rosberg, who complete the top ten. A few hours later, Lewis Hamilton scored the best time in the first and final part of the qualifying session and took pole position thanks to a lap completed in 1'20”899. At his front row, his teammate, Heikki Kovalainen, scores a slower lap time of 0.241 seconds but has a higher fuel level, quantifiable in two laps more than the British driver. Felipe Massa scores the best time in Q2, turning in 1'19”068, while in Q3 he finds traffic and fails to heat the tires enough to get the maximum possible grip. The Brazilian driver will snap from the third position. Kimi Räikkönen has a larger fuel load than his teammate but makes a mistake on his last fast lap. Therefore, the Finn will start from the sixth position. Robert Kubica managed to score the fourth best time, despite the Polish driver experiencing manoeuvrability problems, which led to describing his lap as the best so far of the season, while Timo Glock records the best qualifying result of his career so far. Fernando Alonso qualifies in seventh position, while his teammate, Nelson Piquet Jr., does not go beyond tenth position, having a very impressive fuel load. Between the two Renault drivers they qualify. Mark Webber and Jarno Trulli. As Soft tyres are expected to perform better in the race than Super Soft, McLaren drivers' use of one less Soft tyre set than Ferrari drivers during the qualifying session suggests Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen could enjoy a performance lead in the race. That's because the Soft tire was the fastest choice in the single lap, despite the Super Soft's theoretical performance advantage; Ferrari used an extra set of Soft tires than McLaren before realising the difference.
"No panic".
Recommends Felipe Massa.
"It's all my fault. If I hadn't made a mistake at turn 4, we wouldn't be so far behind".
Juraa Kimi Raikkonen. It will be. Ferrari tries to gain strength, but Lewis Hamilton, with all this power in hand, is scary. Reiterates English:
"I've never driven a McLaren so fast".
And then sentence:
"Knowing that having the car in place, perfectly balanced, is the best feeling in the world. You get behind the wheel and push, you don't have to think about anything else. So far you have only seen part of what I know how to do. When I'm 100%, no one takes me".
He certainly conquered the pole position, which is fundamental in a circuit like the Hungarianring, where he never overtakes himself, with paltry ease. Such a detachment on the two Ferrari drivers leads someone to think that he has tuned in to three stops, one more than the rivals, with a waste tank and a great desire to escape from the start. From McLaren, of course, nothing leaks, Clarifications on the strategy are asked of Heikki Kovalainen, the number two driver, fresh from contract renewal and good at positioning himself behind his leader, for an all-McLaren front row that had not occurred since Saturday, September 29, 2007, in Japan. But the Finn is also skilful in words and does not betray himself.
"It's a secret".
He says, before continuing with a phrase that adds more concerns to Ferrari drivers.
"We are so fast, we have such a race pace, that any tactic can lead us to victory".
Yet Felipe Massa, unlike the confused Kimi Raikkonen, victim of at least one gross mistake at the weekend, had tried to break this monopoly. In Q2, useless for the starting grid, he had deluded with an excellent chronometric response, 0.039 seconds less than the time achieved in 2004 by Michael Schumacher, a performance that at the time was worth the pole position, with an unbeatable car and other regulations more functional to speed. Felipe Massa had been the best in Q2, the one where everyone had the drain tank, and he had deluded himself. Now, when qualifying is over, he feels like that centre forward who got the applause for an inverted goal in training, he who never sees the goal in the game. Because when the stopwatch counts, the Brazilian makes a mistake.
"We miscalculated the exit times from the pits for the last attempt. I found myself in the middle of traffic and couldn't get the tires to the right temperature".
They were already the ones with the hardest compound (with the soft ones the Ferrari just doesn't go), tires that favour less performance on the short, and the fact of not being very hot did the rest.
"I threw away 0.3 seconds".
Counts in hand could undermine Lewis Hamilton's position.
"Or at least snatch the front row from Kovalainen".
However, the Brazilian invites Ferrari fans not to despair.
"I couldn't have gone so fast in the second round if the car wasn't good".
Too bad you keep looking less fast than McLaren.
"We don't have to give up, we can still beat them".
The hope is that he is right. How is it fair to hope that Kimi Raikkonen returns to being the same one who won the World Championship in 2007:
"I went wide at Turn 4, it cost me 3.5 seconds".
I'm wrong in explaining the sixth position, the third row that risks turning his race into an ordeal.
"To think that this time the car looked better, even if it remains difficult to find the right trim".
Almost as much as keeping up with Lewis Hamilton. Which is already a fury and certainly does not need his constant uncertainties. On Sunday 3 August 2008, at the start of the Hungarian Grand Prix, Felipe Massa is the author of a good start with his unique set of new Soft tires, surpassing Heikki Kovalainen and flanking Lewis Hamilton at the first corner. The Britol keeps the internal trajectory for the curve, but the Brazilian brakes late and has overtaken him on the outside. At the same time, Timo Glock carries ahead of Robert Kubica, while Fernando Alonso overtakes Kimi Räikkönen. Rubens Barrichello is also the author of a very good start, passing from P17 to P13 at the end of the first lap, while Sebastian Vettel is the author of a bad start and loses four positions. At the end of the first lap, Felipe Massa precedes Lewis Hamilton, Heikki Kovalainen, Timo Glock, Robert Kubica, Fernando Alonso, Kimi Räikkönen, Mark Webber, Jarno Trulli and Nelson Piquet Jr.. Massa and Hamilton start breaking away from Kovalainen right away. Throughout the third lap, Jenson Button overtakes his teammate, Rubens Barrichello, and climbs into P13, but both get stuck behind Nick Heidfeld, who started with a larger fuel load. As the race progresses, Massa begins to increase its advantage over Hamilton, which continues in fuel-saving mode, preceding being able to pass in front of Massa during the race, perhaps making the pit stop after the Ferrari driver. In addition, the high track temperature benefits the Ferrari chassis, which allows drivers to race while maintaining an operating temperature of up to 10 °C less, resulting in less tire wear. At the end of lap 18 Felipe Massa has a 3.5-second lead over Lewis Hamilton, who in turn is almost 8 seconds ahead of Heikki Kovalainen. Timo Glock is in turn 3 seconds late, but precedes Robert Kubica, struggling with his BMW Sauber difficult to drive in race conditions, with a lack of grip and stability when braking. Massa, Kubica and Webber are the first three drivers to stop at the pits, during lap 18. McLaren mechanics time Massa's stop to estimate the amount of fuel boarded. So, when Hamilton makes his first stop during lap 19, the McLaren team loads a higher fuel level, enough to stay on track for three laps more than Ferrari in the second race stint. Meanwhile, Kovalainen moves to the command of the race for two laps, before returning to the first position during lap 21 to Massa, after making the pit stop. Piquet is the last of the first to make the pit stop, during lap 25, managing to get back on the track in front of Kubica, Trulli and Webber. Meanwhile, Sebastian Vettel makes an unscheduled pit stop throughout the lap and retires two laps later due to engine overheating.
At the end of lap 26, all leading drivers, who carry out a two-stop race strategy, carried out the first. The match order sees Massa leading the group, followed by Hamilton, Kovalainen, Glock, Coulthard (who has yet to return to the pits), Alonso, Räikkönen, Piquet, Trulli, Kubica, Webber,Heidfeld, Button, Barrichello, Bourdais, Rosberg, Nakajima, Fisichella and Sutil. Hamilton re- entered the race after his first pit stop at 2.6 seconds behind Massa but needed to stay about 3.5 seconds behind the Ferrari driver to gain track positions after the second round of pit stops. Therefore, Felipe Massa begins to break away again, bringing the gap to 4 seconds at the end of lap 32, while Lewis Hamilton blocks the left front wheel as he tries to keep up with Ferrari, thus causing the tire to deflate. The two continue to score faster laps as they move away from the rest of the group. Overlap 29, David Coulthard makes his first pit stop, consequently descending into P12. Button, Barrichello, Bourdais, Rosberg, Nakajima, Fisichella and Sutil also make their first pit stops at this stage of the race. Three of these drivers remain lingering during pit stops. Small fires are lit on Rubens Barrichello and Sebastien Bourdais' cars, fortunately, tamed in a few moments, while the fuel hose remains stuck in Nico Rosberg's car, wasting his time. At the head of the group, Felipe Massa continues to gradually break away from Lewis Hamilton; at the timeline of lap 40, the gap between the two rises to 5 seconds. Then, however, during lap 41 the left front tire mounted on Lewis Hamilton's car deflates on approaching turn two; the consequent slow lap back to the pit lane and stopping for a replacement tire make him slide to tenth place. Felipe Massa now has a 23-second lead over Heikki Kovalainen and slows down his pace, adjusting engine performance to subject him to less mechanical stress. The Brazilian performs his last pit stop on lap 44, allowing Heikki Kovalainen to take the lead of the run until his stop, which is regularly made four laps later, returning Felipe Massa to the first position. Overlap 41, Nick Heidfeld makes his only pit-stop, moving from P11 to P12. In the following laps, the other drivers also make the second stop, except for Kazuki Nakajima, who continues with a one-stop strategy. Behind the leading trio consisting of Felipe Massa, Heikki Kovalainen and Timo Glock, Kimi Räikkönen passes Fernando Alonso, despite having gone off the road just before his pit-stop; after leaving the pit lane, Nelson Piquet Jr. repels Jarno Trulli's offence.
The pit stop sequence allows Lewis Hamilton to move up the standings, positioning himself in sixth place, behind Fernando Alonso. Further back, during lap 46 Sebastien Bourdais returns to the pits to have the fire extinguisher's foam cleaned from the helmet visor, after another flame had flared up during lap 45, soon extinguished with the use of fire extinguishers. Nico Rosberg is the last driver to make the pit-stop, on lap 58. Most riders raced with Soft tyres in the first two race stints and then switched to Super Soft compound in the final stint. At the end of lap 59, with scheduled pit stops completed, the running order is Felipe Massa, Heikki Kovalainen, Timo Glock, Kimi Räikkönen, Fernando Alonso, Lewis Hamilton, Nelson Piquet Jr., Jarno Trulli and Robert Kubica. Running without a car immediately in front, at the end of lap 61, for the first time, Kimi Räikkönen scores the best time of the race, turning in 1'21"195, reducing the nine-second gap from Timo Glock to a rate of one second per lap. Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton reaches Fernando Alonso at a similar pace, but his rear Super Soft tires start to overheat and the British driver is unable to attack the Spaniard, after reducing the gap to 1.5 seconds. For lap 62 Adrian Sutil is forced to slow down due to a puncture caused by a brake failure. The German driver is forced to withdraw in the last laps, Heikki Kovalainen reduces his detachment from Felipe Massa, bringing him to 15 seconds, but the Ferrari driver seems to be quiet at the helm of the race. However, when the Brazilian driver starts lap 68, his engine breaks down without warning, forcing him to retire with three laps to go. Heikki Kovalainen thus passes to the lead and wins the Hungarian Grand Prix. The Finn is the hundredth driver to win a Formula 1 World Championship race. Similarly, Timo Glock achieved the best result of his career and the first podium, finishing second at the finish. Kimi Räikkönen is third, despite a rear suspension failure on his car during the last laps. Fernando Alonso is fourth, followed by Lewis Hamilton and Nelson Piquet Jr., prompting Pat Symonds to describe the race as his team's best of the year so far. Jarno Trulli is seventh, followed by Robert Kubica, extremely disappointed by the uncompetitive performance of his car at the Grand Prix closest to his home country, Poland. An incredulous Heikki Kovalainen comments, at the end of the race:
"There have been various incidents this year and we have been in the position after Saturday quite a few times to fight for the victory, but always something has gone wrong and it hasn'tfunctioned perfectly. Today obviously I knew Massa and Lewis were both very fast at the beginning of the race but halfway through the race I felt it was starting to work for me a little bit better and then at the end I just tried to put pressure on Massa and hoped something would happen and obviously it looked like he had a mechanical failure, so it all worked fine for me today and I am very, very happy about it. All the hard work that the whole team has put in the last few months, through difficult times, we just kept pushing and it is very respectable and I am very, very glad to score my first victory”.
The wrong Finn won, as the huge group of Scandinavians present in Hungary were waiting for the triumph of Kimi Raikkonen, the real number two (Alonso would never agree to step aside on the orders of McLaren like him in Hockenheim). He won what everyone underestimated, Heikki Kovalainen, one who last year at his debut in Renault had risked dismissal after a bad race in Australia and who had ended the season with a second place in Japan, turning Flavio Briatore's wrath into choirs of wonder. He won the driver in whom McLaren had never stopped believing, despite only one podium in the races, to the point of announcing on the eve of the Grand Prix the renewal of the contract until the end of 2009. He won, the big surprise of the day because the certainties crumbled. Lewis Hamilton, a great favourite of the eve, punctured a tire and ended up in lawns, but above all Felipe Massa, a victim of a slap of bad luck that he will hardly be able to forget. Yeah, what happened to the Brazilian is incredible. He is the moral triumphant, but it counts for nothing. It does not count that at the start he passed in one stroke the two rivals McLaren, Heikki Kovalainen in a few metres, and Lewis Hamilton in the first corner. It does not matter that he dominated the whole race, that after the injury that happened to his most dangerous rival (Hamilton in the middle of the race was only 4 seconds), he even slowed down, so Kovalainen was almost half a minute away, Timo Glock's Toyota certainly could not scare him, Robert Kubica with the Bmw was lost in traffic and Kimi Raikkonen could not get rid of the presence of Fernando Alonso. Nothing matters, because at the beginning of lap 68, when there were less than three left at the end, more or less 12 kilometres, his engine betrayed him. Dry blow, big smoke, goodbye dreams. The rest is just regrets and a ranking that saw him on the run and instead finds him in third position, 8 points from Lewis Hamilton, also unlucky, but if not another fifth and very skilled in limiting the damage. He recognises it himself:
"It could have been worse, Kovalainen saved the day. I made no mistakes, I went off the track because of the punctured rubber. Bad luck, but others got worse".
Of course, to the broken Felipe Massa. While Kimi Raikkonen did more than well, as her test was honoured with third place. It is good to emphasise, however, that in this podium of his, there is not even a flicker. At lap 61 he realised the fastest time of the race, but what is the point (and this is not the first time it has happened) to wake up when the Grand Prix has drawn its history? At the end of the race, Ferrari team principal, Stefano Domenicali, sends a strange message:
"I believe Raikkonen is going home with something he will need for the future".
Translated could mean: at some point, he found himself afraid, he realised that the World Championship could slip away, the 10 points of Massa, the 8 of Hamilton, in the next races he will put a more Lena, he will wake up. It is not known if this is a free interpretation, but it would be appropriate to be what Ferrari and the Finnish driver think because Kimi Raikkonen cannot continue like this. Steps for problems in qualification. He says:
"If I start back like this, winning is impossible".
Ferrari agrees with him, claims that there is a feeling problem with the car and promises that it will help him. But you can't start sixth and find yourself seventh at the first corner, advance just because Robert Kubica misses strategy, Lewis Hamilton goes astray, Felipe Massa breaks andFernando Alonso is overtaken thanks to the work of the pit. He took six points, and the dream of a worldless bis remains legitimate. But it takes another Kimi Raikkonen. Maybe with the same desire that Timo Glock has, who in Hungary won the first podium of his career. Two weeks ago he had ended up against a wall, at the Hungarianring he rises to the podium. In Toyota during the awards ceremony, they give the pinches, to make sure they are awake. Tears and anger. Despondency. The helmet punched. That engine bang is a blow to the heart that Massa didn't deserve. Stefano Domenicali says it:
"He was competing in the best race of his life. Simply perfect. Some dreams can't go up in smoke like that".
No, it wasn't supposed to happen. At least not in Hungary, in what for the Brazilian was the ransomed race, on the Sunday of overtaking in the World Championship standings, he was in the lead, he was on the run. Lewis Hamilton to chase, Kimi Raikkonen at sidereal distance. On that long straight, the whole story changes. Three more hours later Felipe Massa has his face tried. Everyone goes to shake his hand and he thanks him.
"Thank you, thank you, but I didn't deserve such bad luck. It's life, but I was competing in a magnificent race. It's amazing to come home empty-handed. Now I'll focus on the next race right away, In Valencia, it will be better, I'm sure".
Worse than that for sure it won't be able to go, we have to bet on it. However, the enormous disappointment for this slap of fate remains. Massa, did he notice anything?
"Nothing, no alarm, no warning. That's the most absurd thing, it all happened in a moment, all of a sudden. Suddenly a sharp, thunderous blow. And I warned the team via radio: I broke the engine, it's all over, goodbye".
It was in the middle of the straight, the discouragement was seen, it was huge.
"I couldn't give myself peace. I started beating my fists on the helmet. Races sometimes know how to be cruel, we drivers know how they are made, the twists and turns they know how to reserve, but when it happens to you it's hard to accept. You have to raise your head and move on. I'll try. I have no intention of giving up".
Given the advantage he had over Heikki Kovalainen, wasn't it convenient to slow down?
"What do you think I did? After Hamilton's track exit, I reduced the laps, tried to save the engine, and raised the lap time by a second. I was 22 on Kovalainen, there was no need to risk it. I was running everything without any problems. I never imagined it could end like this".
His departure had been to be framed.
"Just as I had anticipated. I knew I was starting from the clean part and being able to pass Kovalainen, as happened. Plus I was aiming to take Hamilton's trail, trying to delay braking as much as possible at the first corner. I played it there, I succeeded, I surprised him. I knew the only chance to win was to overtake at that point".
He had returned the Hockenheim overtaking to him.
"I've always been aggressive in my career, but to fight you also need the car. In Germany, with that problem with the brakes, I had no weapons, here Ferrari was good, I had the weapon and Iused it. Right now we and McLaren are equal, I am satisfied with my car. I say I don't have to give up because I'm sure I'll fight for the title until the end".
What did he say to the team after the race?
"I complimented everyone, we had done an impeccable job. Only the engine has betrayed".
Rematch in Valencia?
"It's a Bahrain with walls around it, and I won there. I could have been at the top of the World Championship, but Hamilton is only eight points away. Wrong, if you feel safe. I don't give up".
After the Budapest race and the great disappointment suffered by Felipe Massa, Stefano Domenicali was peremptory.
"No more mistakes, no more reliability issues. We can no longer afford them".
Otherwise, the World Championship slips away for real and goes to enrich Lewis Hamilton's pockets. Ferrari will continue to work as it has done so far, to push on development crazily, but in terms of reliability (and also on the management of the race) it must at all costs change direction, because the list of regrets in this unfortunate 2008 has become very long and unsustainable. Domenicali does not mince words, while President Montezemolo, after inviting him to stop the nonsense (on Silverstone Monday) and to pull out the attributes (the day after Hockenheim), is more ecumenical, not hiding the problems, but starting from the praise.
"I want to congratulate everyone for the reaction they had after the difficult race in Germany. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to win, because we lacked reliability. We must continue to work with humility, determination and will to succeed in achieving our goals".
Ferrari, which in Hockenheim had seemed strangely surrendering, did not passively suffer the initial McLaren rule in Hungary. Felipe Massa had managed to turn the situation around, and this comforts Luca Montezemolo. But once again everything turned out to be useless, the Brazilian remained empty-handed, because his car failed to get to the finish line. This is not the first time this year, and this can only be worrying. If Ferrari were still the indestructible car of the Schumacher era, Massa would be at the head of the World Championship, instead of eight points from Lewis Hamilton, and would have in his teammate, Kimi Raikkonen, the only rival able to think about him in the title fight. The present speaks of an engine analysed in detail to find out the reason for the breakage, with a good chance of having found the cause, a defective component that gave way to crash, and also of the identification of the problems to the suspension system that induced Kimi Raikkonen in the last laps to slow down, but the past tells of two broken thrusters in Australia, of an error at the start in Monaco (right rear wheel fixed less than 3 minutes from the start) that cost a drive through to Kimi Raikkonen, of a problem in the refuelling that forced Felipe Massa to return To the pits in Canada, of the exhaust pipe broken by Kimi Raikkonen in France (he still kept second place), of the wrong tires for both drivers in Britain, of the problem to the brakes for Massa in Germany, woes to which you can add Felipe Massa's tailpipe in Malaysia (8 points lost), Kimi Raikkonen buffered by Lewis Hamilton in Canada (victory) and the different uncertainties in the Finnish qualifier. An impressive sequence of errors that is ballasting the season. With Lewis Hamilton who is heartily thanking.