Euro GP to Massa
Massa wins European Grand Prix.
Felipe Massa won last night’s European Grand Prix for Ferrari on the new street circuit around the harbour in Valencia and revived his challenge for this year’s drivers’ championship.
The Brazilian, 27, came home ahead of championship-leading Briton Lewis Hamilton in a McLaren-Mercedes with Poland’s Robert Kubica third for BMW Sauber.
Massa’s win lifted him up to second in the drivers’ championship with 64 points, six fewer than Hamilton on 70, with six of this year’s 18 races remaining.
The win was the ninth of his career and was achieved in exemplary fashion as he drove from pole position to the chequered flag without a worry apart from a problem at his second pit stop. Then Ferrari released him a little early and dangerously and this resulted in a stewards investigation that was scheduled to take place after the race.
In another incident, his Ferrari team-mate, defending champion Finn Kimi Raikkonen, was involved in a disastrous pit stop that left a mechanic injured two laps before his engine blew and forced him to retire.