2008 JAPANESE GRAND PRIX

Race

The victory was Alonso's second consecutive win; he started from 15th on the grid to win the Singapore Grand Prix two weeks prior and would be his last until the 2010 Bahrain Grand Prix . Kubica held off a determined attack from Räikkönen in the closing laps to take second place. Massa's seventh place narrowed his gap to Hamilton in the Drivers' Championship to five points. Ferrari established a seven-point lead over the McLaren team in the Constructors' Championship , with two races of the seas... A botched pit stop at the Singapore Grand Prix had demoted Massa from first position to the back of field. Ferrari decided to give up pitstop light system and revert to the commonly used lollipop man. With three races remaining in the Championship and a seven-point deficit, Massa remained confident about his title chances: "If you look at what happened to me in Singapore where my gap went from one point to seven so suddenly, then you have to consider it could easily go the other way as wel... I actually think Singapore was a good learning experience: there was less pressure to achieve a victory because of the unusual circumstances, which meant I was actually able to start thinking of the world championship. I hate driving for points, but I think we can all see the benefit of that approach at the moment. Fernando Alonso 's victory at the Singapore Grand Prix was his first Formula One win since rejoining the Renault team, after driving for McLaren in 2007. After qualifying in 15th and making an early pit stop, Alonso had managed to jump to the front of the race when his teammate Nelson Piquet Jr. crashed. Left with no opportunity to pit, the frontrunners had to delay their stops until the damage was cleared, allowing the heavily fuelled Alonso to move to the front once they did so. ... The Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), the sport's governing body , launched the Formula One component of their Make Cars Green campaign at the Japanese Grand Prix. For the weekend, the grooves in the tyres were painted green to promote environmentally friendly driving. FIA president Max Mosley said "The FIA is determined to ensure that future investment in motor sport will also help drive the development of technologies that will benefit the public at large." As is n... At the end of the first lap, Kubica led from Alonso, Kovalainen, Trulli, Massa, Hamilton and Räikkönen. On lap two, Massa braked late into the chicane at turn 10, briefly letting Hamilton past, before running over the kerbs on the exit from the corner and hitting the McLaren driver's car. Hamilton was spun round by the contact and made a pit stop at the end of the lap for new tyres and more fuel, which dropped him to 18th place. Massa continued in seventh place. On lap eight... On lap 17, Massa and Hamilton were given drive-through penalties , Massa for colliding with Hamilton and Hamilton for forcing Räikkönen off the track into turn one. Hamilton took his penalty immediately. Massa made a pit stop for fuel and tyres on the next lap, before coming into the pit lane again on lap 20 to serve his penalty, which dropped him to 14th place, one place ahead of Hamilton. Meanwhile, Kubica and Räikkönen made pit stops on lap 17 for tyres and fuel. On the s... Massa made a pit stop on lap 53, and rejoined behind Heidfeld in tenth. He subsequently set the fastest lap of the race on lap 55, a 1:18.426. Meanwhile, Piquet was able to close the gap on Räikkönen to under a second, before losing time by running wide at turn five on lap 60. Massa passed Heidfeld for ninth on the same lap, and began closing in on Webber. On lap 65, Massa drafted down the straight and attempted to pass Webber, who defended his pos... Well, again difficult to believe ... I cannot believe it right now but obviously back to back wins is a very nice feeling and the team did a great job to improve the car. We are now maybe just behind Ferrari and McLaren and this is completely amazing. The top three finishers appeared in the subsequent press conference where Alonso said that the decision to run a shorter second stint than Kubica (between the first and second pit stops) was his decision: "Sometimes you can do it, sometimes you can't but today the car was perfect and I was able to do it." Alonso added that he had confidence in the car to perform at the remaining Grands Prix: "The feeling I have now is that we can do anything". Kubica said that his second-placed fin... I did everything I could not to run into him and he just squeezed and turned and behaved like I didn't exist, like I wasn't there. What am I supposed to do? ... It's just a little bit of respect, you give each other room and then everything goes right, but if you don't for sure it's going to be an incident. Massa denied responsibility, and agreed with the stewards' decision: "I think there's little to say: I had already entered the turn and he hit me from behind, spinning me round." The penalty was largely criticized in the media. GrandPrix.com called the penalty "bizarre", saying that Bourdais "could not just disappear". James Allen of ITV said that in light of FIA race director Charlie Whiting's announcement prior to the race, which indicated that cars exiting the pit-lane would hav... Lewis Hamilton was criticized for his aggressive drive into the first corner by much of the British press. Edward Gorman of The Times described Hamilton's move as "impetuosity and untamed aggression", adding that Hamilton "gambled with a kamikaze attempt to get past Räikkönen". The BBC's Andrew Benson said that "Hamilton is still in a strong position but the Englishman will have to cut out the mistakes that have characterised his season if he is not to lose the championship for the second... Massa's touch on Hamilton's car on lap two was labelled by the McLaren driver "as deliberate as it could be". Massa rejected the allegation, saying "I had two wheels on the gravel. I could not stop the car and I was on the gravel because he pushed me into the gravel." Media coverage of the incident suggested that though the contact was Massa's fault, it was unintentional. Simon Arron, writing for The Daily Telegraph , said Hamilton's accusation of deliberate contact was "unw...

Background

The 2008 Japanese Grand Prix was the 16th round in the 2008 Formula One World Championship and took place on 12 October 2008, at the 2.835 mi (4.562 km) Fuji Speedway , in Oyama , Japan. The Grand Prix was contested by 20 drivers, in ten teams of two.

Qualifying

A shame. Today I was the quickest man on track but at the wrong moment. In [the third session], I never had the right amount of grip from both sets of tyres that I used. On my first run I was a bit cautious on my "out" lap and so suffered in the first sector, making a mistake at Turn 3. On the second run, I did the opposite and found myself without grip at the end of the lap. So, I've ended up fifth on the grid, which is definitely not an easy place to be. Hamilton clinched his sixth pole position of the season with a lap time of 1:18.404. He was joined on the front row by Räikkönen, who was fastest for most of the final session. Provisionally sitting in third as the session drew to a close, Massa was pushed back to fifth as Kovalainen and Alonso put in last-minute laps to fill the second row of the grid. Kubica took sixth place, ahead of both Toyota cars of Jarno Trulli and Glock and the Toro Rossos of Sebastian Vettel and Sébastien...

External links

35°22′18″N 138°55′36″E / 35.37167°N 138.92667°E / 35.37167; 138.92667