Massa: “I feel confident here”

Felipe Massa had a busy day in Montreal, as preparations begin for the Canadian Grand Prix. Before coming to the Gilles Villeneuve circuit, the Scuderia Ferrari driver took part in an event for Shell downtown and then met up with his former team-mate Michael Schumacher. The two men took part in an event organised by the FIA, as part of their road safety initiative. In this case the message being put across was the danger of phone texting while driving. At the track, the Brazilian took part in the usual Thursday press meeting. “I feel confident here: we have similar tyres to those we had in Monaco and we know the car works better on these softer tyres, which is positive for us,” he began. “However, Montreal is very different to Monaco as it is a very fast track, where you need good speed and stability under braking and excellent traction as well as a car that works well over the kerbs, which is quite a different set of requirement to Monaco. I hope we have a competitive car this weekend which allows us to race against Red Bull and McLaren as we have been able to do in some races. For sure, degradation of the tyres will be higher here than in Monaco, but even so it is better for us to be using the softer tyres.”

Of course, the Scuderia cannot rely on tyre choice to determine whether or not the 150º Italia is competitive and Felipe explained that the engineers are working on this issue. “I feel the team has made progress, because when we got the car to work well on the tyres we were competitive, especially in the race and I hope this track will see a repeat of that,” he said. However, I know that we will have to race on the hard tyres again, but we still have some time before Silverstone and the British GP, which is when we use them again, in which we must continue to work to make the car work better on these tyres, by improving the amount of downforce we get from the car. Knowing you have a good car is always a motivation for a driver, as it allows you to fight and run at a better pace. This has not been my best track, but I have been quick here in past races and I hope we can be on the pace all weekend in Montreal.”

A journalist then raised the matter of Felipe’s incident with Lewis Hamilton in Monaco and the Ferrari man made it clear the matter was no longer a problem and he considered it closed. “Everything I said about Lewis after the Monaco race is what I felt. Then he called me and he said “sorry” and the most important thing is that he understood what he did on track. So, this is fine and the matter is closed. Now we look forward because you don’t gain anything from looking backwards. In Monaco, I was unable to finish the race or to score points, but that is in the past and now we look ahead.”