Sports / Motor Racing |
Massa wins while Hamilton seizes championship lead(Reuters)Updated: 2007-05-14 09:38 Ferrari's Felipe Massa won the Spanish Grand Prix on Sunday, with 22-year-old British rookie Lewis Hamilton seizing the championship lead from McLaren team mate Fernando Alonso in only his fourth Formula One race. Double world champion Alonso finished third, eclipsed before his 140,000 strong home crowd by Brazilian Massa and the extraordinary Hamilton. Hamilton, already the first driver in Formula One history to finish his first three races on the podium, has yet to win but now leads the standings with 30 points to Alonso's 28 and Massa's 27. Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen, level on 22 points with Alonso and Hamilton before the start, retired after 10 laps with a mechanical problem. Massa, celebrating his second win in a row and fourth of his career on a bright afternoon at the Circuit de Catalunya, started on pole position and only ceded the lead at the pitstops. The Brazilian, pilloried by the Italian media after a glaring mistake in the Malaysian Grand Prix in April, took the chequered flag 6.7 seconds clear of Hamilton. The Briton, who finished third in the Australian season-opener, has now
finished second for three races in a row and led all
four. |
|