Defending world Champion Kimi Raikkonen scored his second win of the season with a dominant performance in the Spanish Grand Prix at Barcelona, leading all the way and leaving teammate and likely title rival Felipe Massa trailing in his wake.

The big story of the afternoon was a heavy crash by McLaren-Mercedes’ Heikki Kovalainen. Just before his first pit stop, the Finn suffered a right front tire puncture at the high speed turn nine, possibly the result of suspension failure. The car speared across the gravel and buried itself below the tire wall, in a similar fashion to Michael Schumacher’s accident at Silverstone in 1999.

The car had to be pulled out by a tractor before the driver could be extricated. Thankfully a thumbs up to the TV cameras indicated that he was OK. Later it was confirmed that he’d received a bang on the head, and he was taken to a nearby hospital for observation.

Barcelona rarely produces an exciting race, and indeed this was the eighth time in succession that the race has been won by the man on pole. While there were few changes of position, it was close at the front.

Raikkonen beat fellow front-row starter Fernando Alonso off the line, while Massa also outran Alonso. Despite having one less lap worth of fuel, Massa wasn’t able to make any impression on his teammate. A length safety car period caused by Kovalainen’s accident closed up the field, and after it Raikkonen was only able to open up a gap of around 3 seconds on Massa.

Alonso held onto third place until he suffered a spectacular engine failure after 34 laps. That moved Lewis Hamilton up, and in the final stint the McLaren man pushed Massa hard, while BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica also kept Hamilton on his toes. The fact that the top four were separated by just 5.6 seconds at the end showed just how close the competition is at the front.

Mark Webber took more points for Red Bull with fifth, ahead of Honda’s Jenson Button, Williams’ Kazuki Nakajima and Toyota’s Jarno Trulli. BMW’s Nick Heidfeld suffered a 10 second stop and go penalty after being caught out when the safety car came out just before his scheduled stop, finding himself with no option but to pit to refuel. Also out of luck was Williams’ Nico Rosberg, who had an engine failure, and Scuderia Toro Rosso driver Sebastien Bourdais, who was hit by Williams’ Nelson Piquet Jr. in an incident that eliminated both drivers.

SPANISH GRAND PRIX RESULTS
1. Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari

2. Felipe Massa, Ferrari

3. Lewis Hamilton, McLaren-Mercedes

4. Robert Kubica, BMW Sauber

5. Mark Webber, Red Bull-Renault

6. Jenson Button, Honda

7. Kazuki Nakajima, Williams-Toyota

8. Jarno Trulli, Toyota

9. Nick Heidfeld, BMW Sauber

10. Giancarlo Fisichella, Force India-Ferrari

11. Timo Glock, Toyota

12. David Coulthard, Red Bull-Renault

13. Takuma Sato, Super Aguri-Honda

14. Nico Rosberg, Williams-Toyota

15. Fernando Alonso, Renault

16. Rubens Barrichello, Honda

17. Heikiki Kovalainen, McLaren-Mercedes

18. Anthony Davidson, Super Aguri-Honda

19. Sebastien Bourdais, Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari

20. Nelson Piquet Jr., Renault

21. Sebastien Vettel, Scuderia Toro Rosso-Ferrari

22. Adrian Sutil, Force India-Ferrari

DRIVERS’ CHAMPIONSHIP STANDINGS
1. Raikkonen, 29

2. Hamilton, 20

3. Kubica, 19

4. Massa, 18

5. Heidfeld, 16

6. Kovalainen, 14

7. Trulli, 9

8. Webber, 8

9. Rosberg, 7

10. Alonso, 6

11. Nakajima, 5

12. Button, 3

13. Bourdais, 2

Sets the fastest pace on Monday

Felipe Massa is continuing his current high after setting the fastest lap at circuit de Catalunya on Monday. The lap was clocked at 1:18,339, which was a time three seconds faster than Alex Wurz testing his Honda. In fact, no one else came close to this stunning time of Massa, causing a few eyebrows to raise. The team Scuderia is running a new radical front wing.

Ferrari’s main title rival of the moment McLaren saw their tester Pedro de la Rosa come in third, with Nick Heidfeld of BMW hitting fourth spot. The Renault of Piquet jr was fifth, while David Coulthard was the sixth man on the grid.

Slick tyres, which are returning to F1, have also been out there for the picking in preparation for their comeback. There’s been a lot of spinning out of the track on Monday and the session had to be stopped a few times as a result.

Two races down, no finishes, no points, so how do you respond? Felipe Massa showed his critics exactly how at the Bahrain Grand Prix by taking the chequered ahead of teammate Kimi Raikkonen for Ferrari’s first 1-2 of the season.

Massa had been dominating the track all weekend topping free practice session times but was just pipped by Robert Kubica for his and BMW’s first ever pole position. He soon made up for this by over taking the Polish driver at the lights to take the lead and there he stayed despite a mid race challenge from team mate Kimi Raikkonen.

Kubica eventually finished 3rd with his BMW team mate Nick Heidfeld just behind him completing another successful grand prix which leaves the German team heading the constructors championship.

McLaren driver Heikki Kovalainen eventually finished 5th, but Lewis Hamilton had a nightmare. Starting from 3rd on the grid, the British driver was hoping to be challenging the leaders from the offset, however he failed to hit the car’s anti-stall button and found himself down in 10th position off the line. Things then went from bad to worse as he drove into the back of former team mate Fernando Alonso forcing him to make an early unscheduled pit stop prompting claims the Spaniard deliberately “brake tested” Hamilton. Ron Dennis later reported the crash was due to a wing failure and not a driver error as Hamilton believed it to be. Eventually Hamilton finished 13th and a lap down.

The result now leaves Raikkonen leading the world championships on 19 points, three points ahead of Heidfeld with Hamilton, Kubica and Kovalianen all on 14 points as the Formula 1 race season heads to Barcelona in three weeks time.

Bahrain Grand Prix Race Result

2007 Formula One World Champion Kimi Raikkonen again showed the pace that helped to win his title, finishing with a dominating victory at the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday.

The Ferraris of both Raikkonen and teammate Felipe Massa were well ahead for the first half of the race, when Massa inexplicably spun into the gravel on turn eight of lap thirty. Massa’s spin gave a big helping hand to BMW Sauber’s Robert Kubica, who managed his first podium finish since Monza in 2006 by taking second place.

Points leader Lewis Hamilton made good early progress, moving from a ninth place start to fifth after the first corner of the race, only to spend a long period stymied by Red Bull’s Mark Webber. Hamilton’s best chance to jump ahead of the Australian driver was foiled when a sticky front wheel removal cost him more than ten seconds on his first pit stop.

PROVISIONAL RACE RESULTS

The Malaysian Grand Prix
Sepang, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia;
56 laps; 310.408km;
Weather: Sunny.

Classified:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time
 1.  Raikkonen     Ferrari               (B)  1h31:18.555
 2.  Kubica        BMW Sauber            (B)  +    19.570
 3.  Kovalainen    McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  +    38.450
 4.  Trulli        Toyota                (B)  +    45.832
 5.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes      (B)  +    46.548
 6.  Heidfeld      BMW Sauber            (B)  +    49.833
 7.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault      (B)  +  1:08.130
 8.  Alonso        Renault               (B)  +  1:10.041
 9.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault      (B)  +  1:16.220
10.  Button        Honda                 (B)  +  1:26.214
11.  Piquet        Renault               (B)  +  1:32.202
12.  Fisichella    Force India-Ferrari   (B)  +     1 lap
13.  Barrichello   Honda                 (B)  +     1 lap
14.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota       (B)  +     1 lap
15.  Davidson      Super Aguri-Honda     (B)  +     1 lap
16.  Sato          Super Aguri-Honda     (B)  +    2 laps
17.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota       (B)  +    2 laps

Fastest lap: Heidfeld, 1:35.366

Not classified/retirements:

Driver        Team                      On lap
Vettel        Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)    41
Massa         Ferrari               (B)    31
Sutil         Force India-Ferrari   (B)     7
Glock         Toyota                (B)     2
Bourdais      Toro Rosso-Ferrari    (B)     1

World Championship standings, round 2:                

Drivers:                    Constructors:             
 1.  Hamilton      14        1.  McLaren-Mercedes       24
 2.  Raikkonen     11        2.  BMW Sauber             19
 3.  Heidfeld      11        3.  Ferrari                11
 4.  Kovalainen    10        4.  Williams-Toyota         9
 5.  Kubica         8        5.  Renault                 6
 6.  Rosberg        6        6.  Toyota                  5
 7.  Alonso         6        7.  Red Bull-Renault        2
 8.  Trulli         5        8.  Toro Rosso-Ferrari      2
 9.  Nakajima       3
10.  Webber         2
11.  Bourdais       2

All timing unofficial

Jean Todt has stepped down from his position as the CEO of Ferrari today, making the official announcement at the conclusion of the automaker’s shareholders’ meeting.

First hired by Ferrari in 1993 to head up the Formula One racing team, Todt was elevated to the position of general manager in 2003, followed by a promotion to company CEO in 2006. Amedeo Felisa, who followed of Todt as Ferrari’s general manager, will follow the same pattern by taking over the CEO role. Todt will stay on with the Italian automaker in limited duty, including representing the F1 team on the FIA World Council.

Shareholders at today’s meeting also reaffirmed Luca di Montezemolo as company president, and Piero Ferrari as vice president.

Ferrari’s legendary bullet-proof cars appear to have exited stage left along with former Maranello golden boy Michael Schumacher. How else do you explain the events of Melbourne 2008? Paddock chitty chat has a different spin on things that may have caused Kimi Raikonnen a place in the podium.

Word is that F1’s official ECU wasn’t speaking the same language as Ferrari’s software on race weekend, notwithstanding the fact that Ferrari set the pace at first practice on Friday. The 2008 ECU is manufactured by McLaren Electronic Systems, a division of the McLaren Group. Kimi’s car ran hopelessly out of breath after this pace, relegating him to a final 6th spot during second practice. In qualifying he got ruled out of the remaining qualifying sessions even though he set the second fastest time in the first session, after failing to return his car to the pit-lane post a fuel pump problem.

“The issue was caused because of two conflicting procedures,” a Ferrari spokesman said to GPWeek.
“This kind of thing can happen when you are working with one procedure that you do not know so well. Now we know that there is a conflict we can make sure it does not happen again. If you have a Macintosh and you use Windows software it can get stuck and you don’t know why. “When that happens you reset your computer.”

Had Ferrari not been running the same ECU with the very same software all along with no apparent issues?

Ferrari’s futuristic outlook on its F1 championships is more evident after the team’s Sporting Director Stefano Domenicali confirmed the team is already testing its 2009 challenger in the wind tunnel. Domenicali was speaking to the ‘Gazzetta dello Sport’ newspaper of Italy.

“The regulations will allow for some sensational developments that will greatly differentiate the cars, while today the possibilities of changing are curbed by regulations we’ve had for many years.

It is expected that rules changes will be sweeping for the 2009 season in the name of safety above all, but also in the name of environmental conservation as well as cost-curbing. Among these changes are slick tyres, expected to make a return. Mix these with the current regulation banning driver aids like traction control and you have a potentially very interesting season for 2009. This is more so in changing weather and night races.

“For over a month now there’s been a scale model of the 2009 car in the wind tunnel. We are making experiments full-time, and once again we’ll need to get on track very early.

Further accentuating team Ferrari’s commitment to cost-cutting and super efficiency, Domenicali stressed that staff remains the same.

“We’ll have to work in parallel on the evolutions of the car that is about to go racing. But the team size is the same, we haven’t doubled it.”

Ferrari have made clear progress since last year and are ready to fight for victories in 2008, Michael Schumacher said after testing the Italian team’s new car at Barcelona.

The 39-year-old German had not driven the F2008 before, but got back to action yesterday for the first of two days of testing at the Spanish circuit.

Ferrari are using Schumacher’s expertise because of the introduction of a ban on electronic driver aids for 2008.

The seven-time champion says the new car is a real step forward compared to last year’s.

“The progress is very clear,” Schumacher told reporters at the end of testing. “In all areas, it never changes, so why it should change now. It is not one thing you have to improve to go quicker, it is just everywhere.

“I feel we are ready and prepared to fight for victory.”

Schumacher predicts an exciting season, and he reckons Ferrari and McLaren will again be the main contenders.

“It will be very interesting. You have two contenders as last year, you have some questions marks about what they can or they cannot do, so it should be very exciting.”

The German said the lack of traction control and engine braking is making the driving quite a bit trickier.

“You would be surprised how much when you have to work without all the systems,” he added.

“It is just that you have to be careful, especially in the morning when it is very slippery, you have to use your brain.”

Despite being more than three weeks away from the first Formula 1 race of the 2008 season, Jarno Trulli has already predicted that Ferrari will win the 2008 championship. After testing in the Toyota alongside Ferrari in Bahrain, Trulli declared that “the championship already looks over to me before it has started.” The F2008 was noticeably quicker than the competition, posting lap times half a second quicker than even McLaren. Meanwhile, Trulli seemed depressed about the Toyota TF108, saying that it was “unrealistic to talk about podiums.”