MOTOR SPORT/Formula One Championship:The days previous hadn't been kind to Felipe Massa. In the week between the Malaysian GP and yesterday's race in Bahrain, the Brazilian had been roasted in the Italian media. He is, they claimed, mentally not strong enough, prone to unforced errors, surely not the right stuff for the high ground that is a Ferrari drive.
The criticisms were levied after Massa had been passed by McLaren rookie Lewis Hamilton in Sepang and then had made mistake after mistake as he desperately and unsuccessfully tried to find a way past the British wunderkind.
Yesterday, Massa responded in the only way possible to keep the Italian media happy, with a comfortable win at the Bahrain International circuit in Sakhir.
The Brazilian notched his second pole in a row here on Saturday but ominously found himself lining up for the race on the front row beside Hamilton. Round two.
But a titanic battle of the young wannabes never materialised. Hamilton clung to the tail of the Ferrari for the early phases of yesterday's race but Massa, unflustered and in control, gradually found a dominant rhythm and opened up a small but significant gap that carried him him effortlessly through his twin pit stops, bringing him out ahead of Hamilton each time. Hamilton never gave up the chase, pushing hard until the final lap but by then Massa had backed off, leaving just enough room to safely cruise past the line for the win.
Hamilton though could take comfort from the knowledge that his second place gives him a third share of the championship lead, sitting on 22 points alongside Kimi Raikkonen, third yesterday, and Fernando Alonso, who cruised home in a strangely muted fifth, the defending champion clearly at odds with both the circuit and his car. So much so that he was passed, on lap 32, by Nick Heidfeld, the German BMW-Sauber driver, executing an outstanding move around the outside of Alonso's McLaren to steal fourth.
Hamilton too will find some solace in the fact that he made his own little piece of history yesterday, as never before has a driver taken three podium finishes from his first three races.
"The best way to answer that (criticism) is to make a good start after you've had problems in the media during the week," Massa said after his first win of the season. "The best answer is to do a good start, a good race and finish first. I'm sure now the media will talk in a different way.
"The first two races weren't ideal, we had a problem in the first race and the second I made some mistakes. This time we could put everything together and I'm really pleased for the team. We need to push really harder as McLaren is quite close."
Hamilton though was confident that the next race in Barcelona in four weeks would bring him closer again to victory. "I think this weekend we have definitely closed the gap on Ferrari and I couldn't ask for more. It is one more step for me and in Barcelona we will push again.
"Unfortunately I didn't get as good as start as Felipe, he did very well on the first corner and I just had to make sure I stayed as close to him as possible. I struggled a little bit in the second stint. The car's balance was not very good and that was where I was losing it."
The contrast between Hamilton's aggressive drive to second will not have gone unnoticed by Alonso, who can surely never have expected his inexperienced team-mate to begin his career by eclipsing a back-to-back champion such as he.
A dispirited Alonso never looked comfortable around the Sakhir circuit. "After this race I'm left with a bit of a bitter taste for not having been able to climb on to the podium, which was the main target. I couldn't do more than what I did, and in the end it's four points and we finished the race . . . as I said, I tried to do the best I could. I wasn't very comfortable with the car, and in the end I did the best I could."
He did attempt to extract some small positive from a poor weekend by his standards, claiming: "After these first three races I didn't think I would be sharing the lead in the championship with the Ferraris when we thought they were on another planet. So we'll arrive in Barcelona in good conditions and leading the championship."
It is still Raikkonen though who appears to be bossing the title race. The Finn took a comfortable third yesterday to join in a share of the lead and also appear on the podium in each of the opening races.
1 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 01hr 33mins 27.515secs
2 Lewis Hamilton (Brit) McLaren 01:33:29.515
3 Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 01:33:37.523
4 Nick Heidfeld (Ger) BMW Sauber 01:33:41.315
5 Fernando Alonso (Spa) McLaren 01:33:41.519
6 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 01:34:12.520
7 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 01:34:48.518, 8 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Renault 01:34:49.215, 9 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Renault 01:34:56.915, 10 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams 01:34:56.524, 11 Alexander Wurz (Aut) Williams at 1 Lap, 12 Ralf Schumacher (Ger) Toyota at 1 Lap, 13 Rubens Barrichello (Bra) Honda at 1 Lap, 14 Christijan Albers (Ned) Spyker at 2 Laps, 15 Adrian Sutil (Ger) Spyker at 4 Laps, 16 Anthony Davidson (Brit) Super Aguri at 6 Laps, 17 Mark Webber (Aus) Red Bull at 16 Laps, 18 David Coulthard (Brit) Red Bull at 21 Laps, 19 Takuma Sato (Jpn) Super Aguri at 23 Laps, 20 Vitantonio Liuzzi (Ita) Scuderia Toro Rosso at 31 Laps, 21 Jenson Button (Brit) Honda at 56 Laps, 22 Scott Speed (USA) Scuderia Toro Rosso at 56 Laps
Championship Standings: Drivers: 1= Fernando Alonso (Spa) McLaren 22pts, Lewis Hamilton (Brit) McLaren 22, Kimi Raikkonen (Fin) Ferrari 22, 4 Felipe Massa (Bra) Ferrari 17, 5 Nick Heidfeld Ger (BMW) Sauber 15, 6 Giancarlo Fisichella (Ita) Renault 8, 7 Jarno Trulli (Ita) Toyota 4, 8 Robert Kubica (Pol) BMW Sauber 3, 9 Nico Rosberg (Ger) Williams 2, 10 Ralf Schumacher (Ger) Toyota 1, 11 Heikki Kovalainen (Fin) Renault 1
Constructers: 1 McLaren 44pts, 2 Ferrari 39, 3 BMW Sauber 18, 4 Renault 9, 5 Toyota 5, 6 Williams 2.
