Massa claims the Istanbul circuit as his own and with his third win at the circuit, it certainly seems as though that is true.

Massa who had such a difficult start to the season dominated this race weekend. He started from pole and took a comfortable victory. He came under attack from Lewis only when Lewis was running light on fuel. It has to be said however that the overtaking manoeuvre was fantastic with them almost touching wheels and Massa eventually having to give way. The fact they did not touch was down to the quality of these two drivers. Massa deserved his win and has closed the gap between himself and teammate Kimi in the Championship standings. Kimi had a less successful weekend qualifying fourth and finishing third. He had a close moment with Heikki at the start of the race when they touched. Kimi claims he had damage to the end plate of the front wing which did not help performance. Unfortunately it caused Heikki a puncture to his left rear tyre.

Lewis ran a strange strategy opting for three stops rather than the normal two. The team say the strategy was a precaution as there were potential problems with their tyres. In fact there were no problems with the tyres in the race and the three stop strategy worked out for them. Having qualified in third, he was expected to finish around fifth so a second place was well deserved. His overtaking of Massa has got to be the pass of the year, so far. Heikki out qualified his teammate starting in second. Unfortunately, his meeting with Kimi caused a slow puncture and he was forced to pit which pushed him to the back of the grid. He then had to make his way through traffic which was extremely difficult and eventually finished twelfth. He will however take away from the race, his first ever front row start.

The BMW boys who have been there this season to steal points from Ferrari and McLaren appeared to be off the pace at this circuit. Kubica once again showed up his teammate qualifying in fifth and finishing fourth. The Ferraris and McLarens were quicker than him but he was the best of the rest. Teammate Heidfeld qualified in ninth and finished fifth. He needed to get past Trulli at the start which he achieved and then had a pretty lonely race never coming under any pressure.

The Renaults continue to make progress although it appears their strategy remains fuelling Alonso light so that his qualifying position is not actually representative of his race pace. That said, he qualified seventh and finished sixth spending most of the race battling with Mark Webber in his Red Bull. Teammate Piquet was once again floating around at the back. He qualified seventieth and finished fifteenth. Unfortunately he is being shown up by his far more experienced teammate. He was quoted as saying that he was satisfied with his performance, I am not sure that Flavio would feel the same way!

The Red Bulls looked brilliant this weekend and they have made significant improvements perhaps, the best of the field so far. Webber out qualified his teammate starting in sixth and finishing seventh. He had a good race with Alonso but was unable to hold him. Webber already has scored the same number of points that he scored in the total of last years Championship so the team are looking good. It was the first time that both drivers had got through to the final qualifying session. DC started in tenth and finished ninth. He did not appear to have as much pace as his teammate but it was a strong showing for the team.

Nico Rosberg in his Williams continues to fight above his weight. He really is trying to eke the best out of a very difficult car. Although he qualified in eleventh he took the last points paying place coming home in eighth. He made good passes on both Coulthard and Trulli and kept them both behind him. Teammate Nakajima qualified sixteenth and was involved in an accident in the first corner at the start of the race. He was hit from behind and although he managed to limp back to the garage, it was terminal and he was forced to retire. The incident caused the safety car to came out but only for a short period.

The Toyota's have improved this year but are still making little impact. Trulli, the master of qualifying, started in eighth but was caught up in an incident at the start which caused him to lose positions. He was unable to make up the ground after that saying that the problem with the cars this year is that as soon as you get two lengths behind the other car, you lose grip. Teammate Glock qualified fifteenth and finished thirteenth but again was unable to get through the traffic.

The Honda boys appeared to be struggling all weekend. Barrichello who was starting his 257th grand prix, which set a new grand prix record, out qualified teammate Button to start in twelfth. However he went backwards in traffic and eventually finished in fourteenth. Button started thirteenth and finished eleventh. Both accept the race pace was not what it should be and changes are needed before they can challenge for points.

Torro Rosso still have not produced their new car and they appear to be suffering with this. Poor Vettel who is not having any luck this season, qualified fourteenth but ended up in seventeenth after suffering a puncture and then at his first pit stop, having a refuelling problem. No fuel went in so he had to come in immediately again. It was a difficult race for him but at least he saw the chequered flag. Teammate Bourdais qualified in eighteenth but crashed out.

We then move to Force India who also had an unlucky race. Fisichella qualified twentieth but his race ended on the first corner of the first lap when he drove into the back of Nakajima in his Williams flying over him in spectacular fashion. Teammate Sutil qualified nineteenth and had to avoid the debris from the accident of his teammate. The result of cars avoiding the accident, meant he suffered damage to the front wing and had to come in early for a nose cone. He finished sixteenth and was able to keep the Torro Rosso of Vettel behind him.

Unfortunately there is nothing to say about the Super Argui team. They failed to make it to Turkey and neither Sato nor Davidson now have a race seat. The team failed due to lack of funding but it has to be remembered the team were only established to give Sato a race seat after Honda received bad publicity in Japan when they sacked him. They had to create a team for a driver, one that was not particularly good, and that would have been significant expense. They could not fund two teams full time and maybe this was always the plan, appease the Japanese fans by building a team around Sato and slowly letting it die through lack of funding. Whatever the plan of Honda, it is a shame that Davidson got caught up in the politics as he is a good driver and it would be disappointing not to see him racing in the future.