With Hamilton believed to be on a short middle stint, though, and now seven seconds in front of Massa and with 16 seconds in-hand over Raikkonen – with 24 seconds needed to make a pit-stop around the Istanbul Park circuit –
BMW told Kubica over the team radio that he was racing the
McLaren star this afternoon.
That argument seemed to be corroborated when Hamilton came in for a slick 6.2-second stop for another set of hard tyres on lap 31, whilst
Jenson Button, Piquet,
Timo Glock and Kovalainen were waging a fraught scrap over eleventh position. Kovalainen tried to go around the outside of the
Toyota into turn twelve – his favourite passing place. He succeeded the following lap by going gustily all the way around the outside of turn eleven, but after out-braking himself into turn twelve Glock reclaimed the spot, leaving Heikki to do it all over again.
Just ahead of this duelling pair, Piquet made it second time lucky when he forced his way past Button by muscling it out around the outside of turn twelve and consequently gaining the inside line into turn 13, with the subsequent loss of momentum for Button allowing Kovalainen to go around the outside of the
Honda into turn one just moments later. That left Piquet as the Finn’s next quarry, with Hamilton similarly chasing down Raikkonen in the tussle over second place, with just over two seconds in it.
With 18 laps to go, race leader Massa and Kubica both pitted, promoting Raikkonen and Hamilton’s duel to one for the lead, both with one more stop left to make – but the latter having to switch onto the soft tyres for his final stint, the very same rubber he had tried to avoid in qualifying. As Lewis ramped up the pressure on the defending world champion, Raikkonen was in on lap 42, seeing Hamilton hit the front once again.
Further back, Rosberg and Coulthard were battling over what would likely turn out to be the final points position, with Heidfeld having made up significant ground into fifth place from his lowly ninth grid spot.
