Nurburg, Germany (Sports Network) - Fernando Alonso out-drove Felipe Massa
over the final laps and captured Sunday's Grand Prix of Europe at the
Nurburgring in Germany. The two-time World Champion crossed the finish line
8.1 seconds ahead of Massa.
The victory was Alonso's third of the season and 13th of his Formula One
career.
The race was so exciting to drive and to watch," said Alonso. "The rain helped
us a lot, our car seems to perform in wet conditions."
Winner of the last two events, Kimi Raikkonen, led the field into the first
turn after winning the pole position on Saturday. But just as the green flag
waved, rain drops began to fall and it caused havoc everywhere.
After the first lap all the cars pitted except for Raikkonen who slid past pit
road and had to make a second lap. All other cars got their rain tires and by
the time Raikkonen limped around to make his stop he had fallen all the way
to seventh place.
Meanwhile, rookie Marcus Winkelhock, who got his bad weather tires before
anyone else, was somehow the race leader.
On lap three six cars spun off the track including points leader Lewis
Hamilton, and the safety car was sent out. Winkelhock had a 33.5-second lead
but the cleanup was too much to do under race conditions and the red flag was
brought out to suspend the race.
While the clean up was underway the rain stopped and the sun began to shine,
though more rain was still possible.
Out of the race were Jenson Button, Adrian Sutil, Nico Rosberg, Scott Speed
and Vitantonio Liuzzi, but Hamilton was able to restart his car and was still
in the race.
After almost 25 minutes the safety car led the field around the circuit and
two laps later the race went back to green.
As the green flag dropped, reality struck Winkelhock and both Massa and Alonso
quickly passed him. Hamilton's crew decided to "roll the dice" and went to dry
tires, but he struggled over the still partially wet track.
Massa and Alonso began to pull away from third place Mark Webber as Winkelhock
fell all the way to 16th place. By lap 11 the track had sufficiently dried
and the teams all began to change over to dry tires.
Meanwhile, Hamilton set the fastest lap of the race and while everyone was on
pit lane he made up the lap he lost during his spin off the track on lap
three. Raikkonen was flying and slid into third place behind Massa and Alonso.
Massa opened up a 2.5-second lead on Alonso who was being challenged by
Raikkonen. On lap 20 Hamilton set another fastest lap of the race, but he was
still more than 80 seconds behind the leaders and 50 seconds out of a points
position.
Massa continued to extend his lead. On lap 25 it was 4.8 seconds and at the
halfway point the margin was 7.1 seconds. Third-place Raikkonen suddenly
slowed on lap 34 and his day was done. The leader pitted for the final time
with 24 laps remaining to be run.
Massa's stop was a clean one and off he went as Alonso was still 7.6 seconds
back. Still, Alonso didn't quit and he slowly began to cut into the
Brazilian's big lead. It was just under six seconds with 15 laps to go. The
margin was under five seconds (4.9) with 13 laps to go, but catching a driver
and passing him are two entirely different things.
Nine laps still to run and it appeared that another rain storm was about to
open up. In advance of this, Renault put Heikki Kovalainen on rain tires. If
it would rain hard enough, the rookie would have a huge advantage over
everyone else who were still on dry tires.
One lap later the rains came and the leaders pitted for new tires. Massa beat
Alonso off pit road and was still the leader, but the gap was under two
seconds. Alonso was right on Massa's tail and with five laps to go he moved
alongside Massa. Massa fought him off, but Alonso came back a second time and
a third time and with five laps to go Alonso made a bold move for the lead.
They touched slightly, but neither car was damaged as Alonso finally got
around the Ferrari.
After the pass, Alonso simply pulled away from Massa and the race for the win
was over.
"I like the rain, when it happens I am happy," said Alonso.
Webber, Alex Wurz, David Coulthard, Nick Heidfeld, Robert Kubica and
Kovalainen completed the points-scoring positions.
Alonso's win pulled him to within two points of his McLaren teammate Hamilton
(70-68). Massa is in third place, 11 points behind Hamilton.
The next race is scheduled for Sunday, August 5th in Budapest, Hungary.