Fernando Alonso scores Ferrari’s first podium position of 2011 Formula 1 season at the Turkish Grand Prix
After 4 long grand prix weekends this year, Ferrari has finally scored its first podium position of the season.
The 2 time Formula 1 world champion, Fernando Alonso, crossed the line just a couple of seconds behind Mark Webber’s RB7 to finish in 3rd place at the Turkish Grand Prix on Sunday, May 8th, at the Istanbul Park Circuit, outside Istanbul.
The race was dominated by the two Red Bull Racing Team’s drivers. Sebastian Vettel scored the win with a groundbreaking consecutive 4th pole position this year and he was followed by his teammate, Mark Webber, in 2nd place.
According to statistics, this is the first time that Red Bull has scored a 1-2 this year.
The 2011 Formula 1 season has been quite disappointing for Ferrari until now as they were struggling to match the pace of Red Bull and McLaren but everything changed at the Turkish Grand Prix since Ferrari appeared to be as competitive as McLaren.
Lewis Hamilton scored the 4th fastest time of the qualifying session followed by Fernando who started from 5th place on the grid. He was accompanied by Jenson Button in row 3 as the 2009 Formula 1 champion started his race from 6th
place on the grid.
Nevertheless, the race was quite competitive once again, relying mostly on the tyres. This was the first time that the Spaniard scored a good performance this year and it seemed that the 2 time world champion’s soul has returned to its body after he scored
the podium position.
His teammate, Felipe Massa, on the other hand, finished in 11th place and it was quite a disappointing run from him considering the expectations of the team from him this weekend.
However, McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton finished in 4th place which is a very good result for him since he fell 3 places behind, after a disappointing start. It seemed that he would not be able to finish in a strong position but he finished ahead of
his teammate, in 5th place.
Alonso is now 52 points short of the drivers’ standing’s leader, Sebastian Vettel, who is leading the pack with 93 points.
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