• Bahrain Grand Prix 2007

Massa gets his season on track with win in the desert

David Addison
April 15, 2007
Felipe Massa celebrates his first victory of the season © Sutton Images
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Felipe Massa took control of his season by taking victory in the heat of Bahrain, after a disappointing result in Malaysia.

Starting from pole, the Brazilian seized the race lead at turn one and made the race his own with McLaren's Lewis Hamilton chasing him hard. The fight was interrupted after one lap due to a safety car deployed after an accident between Honda's Jenson Button and Scott Speed of Toro Rosso left debris on the circuit. At the restart, Hamilton ran sixth-tenths of a second behind Massa but then the Brazilian started to edge away and only a lockup on lap 14 gave Hamilton any hope of a win.

Massa won by 2.3seconds with Hamilton bagging the third podium of his three-race-old career, while third fell to Kimi Raikkonen's Ferrari who had jumped ahead of Fernando Alonso, moving ahead when the Spaniard pitted. Alonso fell out of contention and was then pressured into a mistake by Sauber's Nick Heidfeld who secured fourth, while his team-mate Robert Kubica finished behind Alonso in sixth.

Jarno Trulli and Giancarlo Fisichella rounded out the points scorers in seventh and eighth for Toyota and Renault respectively.

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