Monaco is the site of next weekend's Formula One event. (Photo: LAT Photographic)
Felipe Massa insists that he is not disappointed to come away with third place and six points from Monaco, despite starting from pole.
The Brazilian lost time with an early off, having led from the start. He then struggled with a heavy fuel load after the team filled the car up thinking that it would rain throughout. When the track dried, Massa and teammate Kimi Raikkonen both had to pit again for tires.
“In a race like that it is so easy to have a small off through concentration or whatever,” said Massa of his early mistake. “I just braked over the line and I couldn’t stop the car because you have the line going out from the pits. I just braked a little bit over the line and I just couldn’t stop the car. From then I had a very difficult race as I lost the radio for 20 laps and I couldn’t talk to my team, I was just looking to the board and it was not so easy to know what was going on in the race.
“In the first stint, even with this moment, I was so quick and able to put down a very good pace compared to Lewis and Robert. I knew that the strategy was working well and the car was perfect. Then suddenly we changed to one stop and put fuel to the end of the race. That was the big mistake, because the track was getting drier and drier and we expected some more rain coming which the team told me but it didn’t come.
“Then by the time Robert stopped I wanted to stop again, but it was a pretty difficult conversation with the team and me and it just took too long to come back again and change the tires because I had fuel to the end of the race. It was a shame that we made a little mistake on the strategy but it is good to be on the podium. The championship is long and I am happy with the result even though I expected the victory because we had a great car in the dry and a great strategy as maybe I was the last car to stop. I had a great car yesterday in qualifying and the race itself but unfortunately the strategy did not work.”
Although last year Ferrari lost to McLaren in both Monaco and Canada, Massa is convinced that the team will bounce back in Montreal
“Yeah, yeah, because today they were not unbeatable. We had a great pace in the rain, in the dry as well, but with all the circumstances, we were not able to fight with him, also because we made a kind of mistake on the strategy and we were waiting for the rain which didn’t come. It was a little bit of a gamble.
“Sometimes a gamble on this track works perfectly, sometimes it doesn’t work and the weather forecast had been perfect most of the time; and it didn’t work when we really expected that it would rain again. I don’t think they were unbeatable here and we have the same feelings for Montreal, so the championship is very open. We have a good car, a good team and it’s not this race that will change our possibilities to fight.”
