Massa ready to fight

It has been a long time since Felipe Massa has been to Suzuka: 2006 in fact, his debut year with Scuderia Ferrari. The two years after that saw the Japanese GP move to the Mount Fuji circuit while last year, he missed the return to this famous track, recovering from injury.

The Brazilian was optimistic about this coming weekend and refused to endorse the view of the pundits that the Japanese GP will be a walkover for the team currently leading the championships. “We will see a quick Red Bull, while McLaren’s performance is harder to predict, but at Ferrari we are getting better with every race, which is the most important thing,” he explained. “I think if you look at what happened when we have raced at tracks similar to this one this year, maybe here is the one place where Red Bull could have a real advantage, but given the steps forward we have made, it is not impossible for us to be competitive here. It has happened before that, even if they have been very quick in qualifying, that has not been the case in the race and we have managed to get a good result, so we have to be ready to have a fight and prepare as well as possible for the race itself.”

Felipe was keen to point out that although his own chances of aiming for the title were over for this season, it did not affect his attitude to the weekend: “even if I am not in with a chance of the championship, I still tackle every race thinking about trying to win it,” he said. “That is what a professional driver has to do and I have always demonstrated this attitude and I will be trying to do that in the remaining four races. I am no longer in the championship fight because there were races where I should have brought home a big points haul, but came away with nothing. There have been all sorts of reasons why in some races I did not achieve what I thought I could and should have done.”

It is fair to say that Felipe was exasperated with endless questions about his status within Scuderia Ferrari, in relation to his team-mate, but he dealt with them politely as ever. “I have never thought of racing as a number two, as I always race to win and race to do my best and if I was ever asked to sign a contract where it said I was a number two driver, I would not sign,” he explained, before adding with a smile: “you already asked me this question many times in 2007, but not once in 2008, (the year he nearly won the title at the final round) so you work it out!”