matt
04-02-2009, 09:06 PM
Felipe Massa is looking to revive his championship after a disappointing Australian Grand Prix, starting this weekend in Malaysia. The Ferrari driver ran in third place during the opening stages of in Australia but lost time as his team adapted an agresssive 3-stop strategy, before later retiring the Ferrari F60 into the garage having suffered with tyre problems.
60
Felipe missed out on last year's championship title by a single point to Lewis Hamilton, and is determined not to allow 2009 to slip through his fingers in only the opening races of the season. "It won't be easy to catch the Brawns," he admitted, "but I hope we can do a good job and improve, to maybe be able to change a few things and close the gap between the Brawns and everyone else."
This week Malaysia has been hit by heavy rainstorms, with Grand Prix weekend forecast to be no exception. The 5pm 'twilight' starting time of the race has also raised eyebrows, as it is the late afternoon hours which usually suffer from the most rainfall. "I have no idea what effect the rain might have this weekend," Massa continued. "It could be very good, it could be very bad. It could also be a lottery and completely change the result of the race - who knows?"
Ferrari's miserable start in Australia, as the team scored no points, had not been matched by the Scuderia since the 1992 season, meaning that the pressure is on to get back on track. "We didn't finish the race for reliability reasons," Massa confirmed, "which was the biggest problem on a weekend where, for most of the race, I was in third place. We made a mistake with the strategy - which did not work out with the arrival of the safety car - but even allowing for that strategic matter, I was capable of staying with Lewis Hamilton in the race and he ended up crossing the line in third so who knows, I might have finished right behind him or maybe even ahead to score a good number of points; that would have been a great result, even without a win, so using the softer tyres at the start of the race might have worked out better than it looked. It's just that I opted for three pit stops and circumstances in the race meant that that was not the best choice."
With former Ferrari technical genious Ross Brawn at the top of the pile with his new team, Massa still retains every confidence in the Maranello men. "We now need to recover and start scoring points to restart our championship campaign in a good way, right here in Malaysia," he explained. "The start to the year is similar to the one I had last year, so we need to tackle the situation with the same mentality which we applied a year ago; we need to be clever in how we tackle the strategy here in terms of the possibility of rain, the arrival of darkness during the race and any other elements.
"We know that Albert Park can produce a very unusual race. In winter testing, we were always competitive at more 'normal' circuits, like Barcelona for instance, and so I hope that here in Sepang that will also be the case - I'm looking forward to the weekend."Lets hope both drivers have a better weekend next race :icon_sad:
60
Felipe missed out on last year's championship title by a single point to Lewis Hamilton, and is determined not to allow 2009 to slip through his fingers in only the opening races of the season. "It won't be easy to catch the Brawns," he admitted, "but I hope we can do a good job and improve, to maybe be able to change a few things and close the gap between the Brawns and everyone else."
This week Malaysia has been hit by heavy rainstorms, with Grand Prix weekend forecast to be no exception. The 5pm 'twilight' starting time of the race has also raised eyebrows, as it is the late afternoon hours which usually suffer from the most rainfall. "I have no idea what effect the rain might have this weekend," Massa continued. "It could be very good, it could be very bad. It could also be a lottery and completely change the result of the race - who knows?"
Ferrari's miserable start in Australia, as the team scored no points, had not been matched by the Scuderia since the 1992 season, meaning that the pressure is on to get back on track. "We didn't finish the race for reliability reasons," Massa confirmed, "which was the biggest problem on a weekend where, for most of the race, I was in third place. We made a mistake with the strategy - which did not work out with the arrival of the safety car - but even allowing for that strategic matter, I was capable of staying with Lewis Hamilton in the race and he ended up crossing the line in third so who knows, I might have finished right behind him or maybe even ahead to score a good number of points; that would have been a great result, even without a win, so using the softer tyres at the start of the race might have worked out better than it looked. It's just that I opted for three pit stops and circumstances in the race meant that that was not the best choice."
With former Ferrari technical genious Ross Brawn at the top of the pile with his new team, Massa still retains every confidence in the Maranello men. "We now need to recover and start scoring points to restart our championship campaign in a good way, right here in Malaysia," he explained. "The start to the year is similar to the one I had last year, so we need to tackle the situation with the same mentality which we applied a year ago; we need to be clever in how we tackle the strategy here in terms of the possibility of rain, the arrival of darkness during the race and any other elements.
"We know that Albert Park can produce a very unusual race. In winter testing, we were always competitive at more 'normal' circuits, like Barcelona for instance, and so I hope that here in Sepang that will also be the case - I'm looking forward to the weekend."Lets hope both drivers have a better weekend next race :icon_sad: