FORMULA ONE CHAMPIONSHIP: THIS TIME last year Ferrari's Felipe Massa rescued a rapidly unravelling reputation with an emphatic victory at Bahrain's Sakhir circuit and yesterday the Brazilian repeated history, scoring a facile victory to put to silence, for now at least, more criticism of his abilities at the highest level and within Formula One's top team.
In 2007 Massa endured a roasting from the Italian press after a dreadful performance at the Malaysian Grand Prix. After scoring pole, he contrived to comprehensively throw away the advantage, losing position at turn one and then spinning as he singularly failed to pass Lewis Hamilton despite having a faster car.
This year in Malaysia he was similarly wayward. Despite looking set for a safe second place behind his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen, Massa allowed his concentration to flag and overcooked it into a corner, sending his Ferrari flying off and out.
Cue another chorus of calls for his head in the Italian press.
But just as last year, Bahrain would be his lifeline. The Brazilian dominated in the desert last season and this time round was almost as effortlessly in control.
Throughout Friday practice he topped the timesheets and in the early phase of Saturday's qualifying he always looked the man to beat. And beat him is exactly what BMW-Sauber's Robert Kubica did.
While all eyes were on Massa's final flying lap, with which he was expected to claim pole by a wide margin, Kubica stole in and annexed the premier grid spot, his first, with a time that had looked beyond anyone but Ferrari all weekend. Headline writers in newspapers across the globe had finally been granted their wish - a Pole was on pole.
Massa though was unfazed and the suspicion remained that the Ferraris of the Brazilian (second) and Raikkonen (fourth behind McLaren's Lewis Hamilton) were fuelled more heavily than the BMW. Massa, it was expected, would use his longer first stint to keep pace with the Pole and pass with ease in the pit stops.
In the end, he didn't even need that first third of the race to make his Bahrain GP double complete. After Kubica bogged down at the start and Massa slipped past to claim the lead, the shape of the race was almost decided.
It was only behind the Brazilian that things needed to be sorted out, and that was done by the time they exited the third turn.
Hamilton made a simply awful start, almost standing still as the lights went out and cars streamed past him. By the time he cleared the third turn he had dropped back to 10th and was tussling with Fernando Alonso for a shot at the last remaining place in the points.
It then went from bad to worse as in pushing to get past his old enemy, Hamilton erred and rammed into the back of Alonso's Renault.
The Spaniard roared off unscathed but Hamilton's front wing had been ripped off and he was forced to limp back to the pits for a replacement. By the time he rejoined he had fallen to 18th with no hope of recovery.
Alonso played down the incident, refusing to see anything sinister in the collision.
"The McLaren was just a lot faster than my car and he crashed into me," he said. "There was some damage to the rear wing, but the car wasn't handling too badly compared to practice and qualifying. It was more or less the same so I don't think I could have done much more (than 10th place)."
At the sharp end of the race things had settled into a monotonous pattern. Raikkonen, who had muscled his way past Kubica on lap three, had tucked into second place and seemed content to let Massa push for victory, the Finn never getting too close to his Brazilian team-mate and sailing to an untroubled eight points, which now see him lead the title race on 19 points.
"The whole weekend has been pretty difficult," Raikkonen said. "One of the things was that we couldn't get the car really right. We look at a bad weekend and we finished second, so never mind, next race will be different. We are leading the Championship and that is the main thing, but it was not the easiest weekend for sure.
"I never am too happy at this circuit, but I think out of these first three races it is important to get many points," he added. "I am happy to be leading and when we go back to Europe we hope we can be strong in the next races."
Massa, who moves to sixth in the championship on 10 points, admitted the past two weeks had not been easy.
"For sure, I didn't have very easy weeks but that is life, it is not the first time and it won't be the last," he said. "You always have some bad days in your life, I had two bad days in the first two races.
"This race was quite difficult. I didn't want to make any mistakes. I wanted to bring the car home and control the pace.
"I had all the time in my mind what happened in the last race and I am sure that is normal, and what is in my mind now is the victory."
He and Raikkonen were followed home by the BMWs of Kubica and Nick Heidfeld, who were similarly unfussed, both seeing out a turgid and uneventful second half of the race without incident.
Heikki Kovalainen was fifth for McLaren, followed by the Toyota of Jarno Trulli, Mark Webber of Red Bull Racing and, rounding out the points, Williams's Nico Rosberg.
Heidfeld's fourth place sees him launched to second place in the drivers' championship.
Hamilton, who finished a desultory 13th, is in third place.
The Englishman will not have endeared himself to his colleagues yesterday either with a show of petulance that saw him gesture toward several rivals, including the veteran Giancarlo Fisichella and Takuma Sato, as he passed them, suggesting they should not have blocked his route past.
This was despite the fact he was racing for position and not simply overtaking backmarkers under blue flags.
Hamilton it seems is too used to bearing standards at the front of the field but when it comes to setting them at the rear of the battle, he still appears to have much to learn.
Bahrain Grand Prix
1. Felipe Massa (Brazil) Ferrari 1hr 31mins 06.970 secs
2. Kimi Raikkonen (Finland) Ferrari +3.339 secs
3. Robert Kubica (Poland) BMW Sauber 4.998
4. Nick Heidfeld (Germany) BMW Sauber 8.409
5. Heikki Kovalainen (Finland) McLaren 26.789
6. Jarno Trulli (Italy) Toyota 41.314
7. Mark Webber (Australia) RedBull-Renault 45.473
8. Nico Rosberg (Germany) Williams-Toyota 55.889
9. Timo Glock (Germany) Toyota 1:09.500
10. Fernando Alonso (Spain) Renault 1:17.181
11. Rubens Barrichello (Brazil) Honda 1:17.862 12. Giancarlo Fisichella (Italy) Force India-Ferrari 1 lap 13. Lewis Hamilton (Britain) McLaren 1 lap 14. Kazuki Nakajima (Japan) Williams-Toyota 1 lap 15. Sebastien Bourdais (France) Toro Rosso - Ferrari 1 lap 16. Anthony Davidson (Britain) Super Aguri - Honda 1 lap 17. Takuma Sato (Japan) Super Aguri - Honda 1 lap 18. David Coulthard (Britain) RedBull - Renault 1 lap 19. Adrian Sutil (Germany) Force India - Ferrari 2 laps
Retired: Nelson Piquet (Brazil) Renault 17 laps, Jenson Button (Britain) Honda 38 laps, Sebastian Vettel (Germany) Toro Rosso - Ferrari 57 laps
Fastest Lap: Kovalainen, 1:33.193, lap 49.
DRIVERS POINTS: 1 Raikkonen (19), 2 Heidfeld (16), 3 Hamilton (14), 4 Kubica (14), 5 Kovalainen (14), 6 Massa (10), 7 Trulli (8), 8 Rosberg (7), 9 Alonso (6), 10 Webber (4).
CONSTRUCTORS: 1 BMW Sauber (30 pts), 2 Ferrari (29), 3 McLaren - Mercedes (28), 4 Williams - Toyota (10), 5 Toyota (8), 6 Renault (6), 7 RedBull - Renault (4).
