Trulli's surprise form continued as the Italian homed in on Kovalainen, whilst up at the front, Raikkonen was now moving away from Massa at a considerable rate. Even more unnervingly for Maranello's competitors, the only man remotely close to the scarlet machines' pace was Rosberg – all the way down in 17th spot.
The race's next major drama came as Massa dropped his Ferrari between turns seven and eight – as, in the words of Martin Brundle, ‘ambition got ahead of adhesion' in the absence of traction control this year – beaching his F2008 firmly in the gravel trap and promoting the impressive Kubica up into second and Kovalainen into a potential podium position, though with the persistent Trulli still crawling all over the back of him. Worse still for Massa, the retirement made it two races in 2008, and
nul points. All of a sudden,
Ferrari's demonstration run was beginning to look just a little shaky.
Race leader Raikkonen's advantage over Kubica coming into the pits for the second time, though, was an eminently comfortable 24 seconds, with further back Kovalainen continuing to fend off Trulli's advances and Webber continuing to impede Hamilton's charge. Behind the pair Heidfeld's threat was beginning to recede, the BMWs seemingly undergoing a role reversal of their Melbourne fortunes, when it was Kubica who had faded away as the race wore on and his German team-mate making all the headlines up on the second step of the rostrum.
Webber's second stop finally released a relieved Hamilton into clear air, and with Trulli coming in shortly afterwards, the Melbourne race-winner knew he had to get his head down in an effort to close down the 13-second gap separating him from the Italian.
Further down the field, meanwhile, Vettel's engine going up in smoke on lap 40 – a further example of Ferrari's fragile early-season reliability – saw the young German join countryman
Adrian Sutil in retirement, after the
Force India pilot had pulled off at turn nine earlier in the grand prix.
