Felipe Massa, Kimi Raikkonen: Ferrari Dominates Turkish Grand Prix

"If Heikki had not made that stop, he would have run longer than Felipe at the first stop. If he could have been close to Massa, which I think he could have been, he would have been able to take him at the first stop," Whitmarsh told reporters after the race.

"He really felt he could win this race, and as the race panned out, I think he knows he could have won it, and it eluded him. And that's disappointing."

The optimistic view of Heikki Kovalainen's was running rampant in the Mclaren camp, and judging on the performance of the silver arrows at the race, perhaps this was not far off from the reality.

The problem with the "what if" arguments is that they often do not take into account the reason for the situation at hand.  As Heikki's dream of a maiden F1 victory was blown away at the first corner, so was his compatriot's chance at another victory of the season.  

The coming together of the two Finns, one Heikki Kovalainen and another Kimi Raikkonen, resulted in Heikki losing his chance to stand atop the podium while Kimi was forced to finish third.  

For the majority of the laps run in Turkey, the battle most watched was between Lewis Hamilton and Felipe Massa.  Felipe seemed to dominate the race for the most part, except at one point when Lewis passed the young Brazilian.  Once the manoeuvre was analyzed, however, the audience was left wondering if the young Brazilian simply let the young Briton pass, as both followed a quite different tyre and fuel strategy.

Mclaren settled on a three-stop strategy that allowed for short runs on light fuel loads, while Ferrari followed the conservative two-stop strategy.

Whether the reason is what Mclaren implied, that they were given the warning by Bridgestone to run shorter distances on their tyres, or the fact that Ferrari has improved their car to such an extent that Mclaren and other teams look to new strategies to catch the red squad, will never truly be explained.

What we did know was that in using a three-stop strategy, Mclaren was able to scavenge the next best thing to victory. 

What the race also demonstrated was Ferrari's impressive performance on the track.  Ferrari has shown that their car can be fitted with any of the tyres on any given weekend and use them to their advantage.

Unlike the cars of the competition, the F2008 works so well with both soft and hard tyres that the grading is minimal.  Having a car that is soft on the tyres gives the red team an obvious advantage, as running the car on either of the two compounds provides for equal return. Running the car on the soft tyres may even prove more beneficial. 

Ferrari has learned from last year's mistakes and developed their car accordingly, thus maximizing the performance of their package.  Whether it is the tyres or the aerodynamic improvements, Ferrari was the only team to record 200 km/h in the speed trap on the weekend. 

While Massa used all these factors to the advantage and thus achieved victory at the Turkish Grand Prix for the third year in a row, he did not finish the race with a grand slam. The Brazilian took the pole and won the race, but it was Kimi who achieved the fastest lap of the race.  Overall, the performance of the red cars was quite impressive over the weekend, and perhaps the only improvement would have been a 1, 2 finish for the red team.

The reality of the 1,2 finish was of course spoiled by Lewis Hamilton taking second, and the second runner up for the constructor's title seemed to not even be a factor on this particular weekend.

Sauber may have failed to finish on the podium, but their 4, 5 place finish is not such a bad outcome after all. Fans of the Swiss-German team may be hoping for a victory this year; however, both Mario Thiessen and Robert Kubica are both aware that it will take a mistake by Ferrari and a poor performance by Mclaren to achieve a win on a weekend.

Certainly, Sauber and its drivers are not settling for the title of third-best team, and this weekend demonstrated that they are looking to challenge at every turn.

Other important mentions and perhaps surprises included a sixth-place finish by Fernando Alonso, a strong outing for the Red Bull team as Mark Webber took seventh, and another points finish for Nico Rosberg in eighth.

Heikki's drive took him to 12th, and it was a clear demonstration how far behind in development and performance are teams such as Honda, Toyota, Toro Rosso, or Force India.

While all teams prepare for the glamorous circuit of Monaco that will host the F1 circuit in two weeks' time, fans are asking if perhaps we are seeing another resurgence of Ferrari, if the bullish views of Mclaren are more than just views, and if perhaps Sauber can yet again challenge the top two squads in the 2008 season. 

Ferrari's strong showing this year is quite impressive. However, no person can predict what will happen from one race to the next and how the championship standings will look weeks from now.

Kimi best summed up this feeling in the Italian camp at the end of the post race conference.

"We had a difficult weekend, and I'm happy to be third," he said. "I didn't lose too many points. We'll see what we can do in the next few races. The next two last year were not so strong for us, so we will see what we can do."

F1 teams and their fans will certainly watch and see what will happen.