2008 Spanish Grand Prix

The 2008 Gran Premio de España Telefónica was a Formula One motor race and the fourth round of the 2008 Formula One season. It was held on the weekend of 25–27 April at the Circuit de Catalunya in Spain. At this race many of the teams introduced new aerodynamic packages, largely due to the three week break from the last race in Bahrain and the beginning of Formula One's "European Season".

Finn Kimi Räikkönen won the race from pole position from teammate Felipe Massa and McLaren's Lewis Hamilton. The race, however, was remembered for Heikki Kovalainen's severe accident at turn nine.

Report

Practice

The two Ferrari drivers set the first and second-fastest lap times in the first practice session on Friday, with Kimi Räikkönen ahead of Felipe Massa. Lewis Hamilton was third for McLaren. In the second session, Räikkönen again set the fastest time, but was followed on this occasion by the two Renault drivers, with Nelson Piquet ahead of Fernando Alonso. In the third session on Saturday morning, Nick Heidfeld was fastest for BMW Sauber, ahead of David Coulthard and Alonso.

Qualifying

Session 1

In Q1 the two Force Indias of Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil and the two Super Aguris of Takuma Sato and Anthony Davidson went out, and they were joined by David Coulthard and Sebastian Vettel. At the front, Kimi Räikkönen was fastest, half a second ahead of Jarno Trulli but behind Trulli, things were very close with less than two tenths of a second separating third-placed Lewis Hamilton and thirteenth-placed Rubens Barrichello.

Session 2

In Q2, the two Hondas of Rubens Barrichello and Jenson Button together with the Williams' of Kazuki Nakajima and Nico Rosberg were eliminated along with Sébastien Bourdais and Timo Glock. At the front, Felipe Massa and Robert Kubica ran two hot laps and were first and second, separated by 13 thousandths of a second. Two tenths behind them, the action was even closer than before with just a mere four hundredths of a second separating third-placed Kimi Räikkönen and seventh-placed Lewis Hamilton.

Session 3

No one took to the track for the first two minutes of Q3, but then the cars came pouring in on the regular hard compound tyres for the first round of flying laps. The two McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Heikki Kovalainen set a benchmark time but Felipe Massa then lapped over three tenths quicker than them. Kimi Räikkönen dropped to fourth. Everyone then pitted to change to the "option" soft tyres and set out again. Hamilton and Kovalainen were quick in the first two sectors, but both dropped time in the third and stayed second and third, albeit with improved times behind Massa. Massa should have improved his time but a mistake cost him over two tenths of a second and so his time did not change. Robert Kubica was next to the line and was only a mere 7 thousands of a second behind to take second, and then the home favourite Fernando Alonso set the crowd alight with his fastest lap to beat Massa. However, it lasted only for a few seconds as Räikkönen came through to beat him by 0.091 seconds to take his first pole of the season.

Race

Felipe Massa and Lewis Hamilton pulled away the fastest at the start, with Massa overtaking Alonso and Hamilton also making his way up the field after passing Kubica. Adrian Sutil and Sebastian Vettel collided at turn four and both had to retire, the safety car was then brought out for three laps. Nelson Piquet Jr. went off the track on lap five and dropped from 10th to 18th, and on the next lap he collided with Sebastien Bourdais while attempting to overtake him. Piquet retired on the spot, while Bourdais went into the pits and had to retire due to the suspension being damaged. On the next lap, Anthony Davidson had to retire after stones, brought on to the track after Piquet's trip through the gravel, got caught in his radiator.

On lap 21 Heikki Kovalainen suffered a rapid tyre deflation and crashed head-on into a tyre wall at . He was taken to the on track medical centre, and was later airlifted to the local hospital where he stayed overnight for observation. Mark Webber later criticized the size of the run off area at turn nine, "The first thing to say is that the run-off on that corner is too tight and we need to have a look at it because any driver that has an error there is going to have a big crash." the Australian commented "If Heikki's accident had happened two seconds later he would have been fine and controlled the car, but it probably happened on the worst section of that whole track". The safety car was brought out for a second time following this accident. Kovalainen's team, McLaren, released a statement saying he had a mild concussion and was temporarily unconscious due to the accident, but the team hopes he will be able to race at the next Grand Prix. Nick Heidfeld was about to make a pitstop when the safety car was deployed, and he had to pit while the pitlane was closed to avoid running out of fuel. He received a ten second stop-go penalty and rejoined at the back of the field, effectively ending his chances of points.

After pitting on lap 25, Rubens Barrichello collided with Giancarlo Fisichella while leaving the pit, breaking the Honda's front wing. Barrichello toured around the circuit with the wing stuck under his car, then pitted again to replace it before eventually retiring due to the damage to his bodywork. On the same lap Fernando Alonso's engine failed and caught fire, forcing him out. On lap 41 Nico Rosberg also suffered engine failure on the main straight and retired. On lap 53 Jarno Trulli was mistakenly called into the pits by his team, costing him two places. Due to the safety car repeatedly coming out, there was a five-second difference between the first four cars.

At the front, Räikkönen won the race three seconds ahead of teammate Massa to make it a second Ferrari one–two in two successive races. Hamilton finished a further second back from Massa to complete the podium with Kubica a further second behind. Webber finished fifth, Jenson Button sixth and Nakajima seventh, while Trulli took the final points scoring position. A further five cars were classified, four of them one lap down on the race winner.

Classification

Qualifying

Pos	No	Name	Constructor	Part 1	Part 2	Part 3	Grid
1	1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	1:20.701	1:20.784	1:21.813	1
2	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	1:21.347	1:20.804	1:21.904	2
3	2	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	1:21.528	1:20.584	1:22.058	3
4	4	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1:21.423	1:20.597	1:22.065	4
5	22	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	1:21.366	1:20.825	1:22.096	5
6	23	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	1:21.430	1:20.817	1:22.231	6
7	10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	1:21.494	1:20.984	1:22.429	7
8	11	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	1:21.158	1:20.907	1:22.529	8
9	3	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	1:21.466	1:20.815	1:22.542	9
10	6	Nelson Piquet Jr.	Renault	1:21.409	1:20.894	1:22.699	10
11	17	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1:21.548	1:21.049		11
12	8	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	1:21.690	1:21.117		12
13	16	Jenson Button	Honda	1:21.757	1:21.211		13
14	12	Timo Glock	Toyota	1:21.427	1:21.230		14
15	7	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	1:21.472	1:21.349		15
16	14	Sébastien Bourdais	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:21.540	1:21.724		16
17	9	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	1:21.810			17
18	15	Sebastian Vettel	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1:22.108			18
19	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	1:22.516			19
20	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	1:23.224			20
21	19	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	1:23.318			21
22	18	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	1:23.496			22

Race

Pos	No	Driver	Constructor	Laps	Time/Retired	Grid	Points
1	1	Kimi Räikkönen	Ferrari	66	1:38:19.051	1	10
2	2	Felipe Massa	Ferrari	66	+ 3.228	3	8
3	22	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren-Mercedes	66	+ 4.187	5	6
4	4	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	66	+ 5.694	4	5
5	10	Mark Webber	Red Bull-Renault	66	+ 35.938	7	4
6	16	Jenson Button	Honda	66	+ 53.010	13	3
7	8	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams-Toyota	66	+ 58.244	12	2
8	11	Jarno Trulli	Toyota	66	+ 59.435	8	1
9	3	Nick Heidfeld	BMW Sauber	66	+ 1:03.073	9
10	21	Giancarlo Fisichella	Force India-Ferrari	65	+ 1 lap	19
11	12	Timo Glock	Toyota	65	+ 1 lap	14
12	9	David Coulthard	Red Bull-Renault	65	+ 1 lap	17
13	18	Takuma Sato	Super Aguri-Honda	65	+ 1 lap	22
Ret	7	Nico Rosberg	Williams-Toyota	41	Engine	15
Ret	5	Fernando Alonso	Renault	34	Engine	2
Ret	17	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	34	Collision damage	11
Ret	23	Heikki Kovalainen	McLaren-Mercedes	21	Accident (Wheel)	6
Ret	19	Anthony Davidson	Super Aguri-Honda	8	Holed radiator	21
Ret	14	Sébastien Bourdais	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	7	Suspension (Collision)	16
Ret	6	Nelson Piquet Jr.	Renault	6	Collision	10
Ret	20	Adrian Sutil	Force India-Ferrari	0	Collision	20
Ret	15	Sebastian Vettel	Toro Rosso-Ferrari	0	Collision	18

Notes

• Lap leaders: Kimi Räikkönen 62 (1–20, 25–66), Lewis Hamilton 1 (21) and Nick Heidfeld 3 (22–24).
• First Spanish Grand Prix retirement for Fernando Alonso.
• This was the final race for the Super Aguri F1 team.
• First points for Honda Racing F1 in 2008.
• BMW Sauber took the lead in the constructors standings

References

External links

• Detailed Spanish Grand Prix results
• Official FIA race results