Massa: Competitive in Monza

Felipe Massa has been in lots of fights in his career, holding his own against team-mates of the calibre of Schumacher and Raikkonen and now Alonso, in what is the Brazilian’s eighth year bearing the Prancing Horse badge on his overalls. In other words, he is a tough customer, which explains how he can maintain his cool as the press pursue their favourite topic, namely his future at Ferrari. It was the case again this afternoon when he joined his team-mate and four other drivers, in the FIA press conference, in the Monza press facility.

“I believe I have a good chance of staying at Ferrari,” he began when the inevitable question arose. “Good results are important and I just have to concentrate, try to do the best we can with the car and get the most out of it. If you do that, then you can enjoy your racing. This year the performance level has been good all season, but I’ve just been unlucky with tyre problems twice and a couple of spins and a suspension problem, so I was unable to finish where I should have done. I just need to put everything together and then the results will come.”

Felipe also stressed the importance of his relationship with the team. “One mustn’t forget that Ferrari knows me very well, better than anyone in fact,” he maintained. “They know what my experience can bring and that will be a very important factor with the changes next year, when everything starts from zero, with a different car and different rules. A driver’s experience will be very important in that situation, so sometimes, looking at the result of an individual race is not what counts; more important is to look at everything put together.”

Finally a question about this weekend’s race and what sort of weekend he can expect. “The car was more competitive in Spa than in Hungary and that was an important step for us,” concluded the Ferrari man. “I believe we can be competitive here, because in the past, even last year when the car was not the best, we still managed to be competitive in Monza. I hope we can be in the fight for the top places and then continue that trend through the rest of the season.”