Ferrari admit they let Massa down

[TheStig]

Ferrari have apologised to Formula One championship leader Felipe Massa after letting the Brazilian down in British Grand Prix qualifying.

Massa, the first Brazilian to lead the standings since the late Ayrton Senna in 1993, qualified ninth for tonight's (NZ time) race after mechanics struggled to change his car's right rear wheel in the final session early today.

The delay meant the winner of three races this season, who had also been fastest in Friday practice, did not have enough time to get around the circuit to start a second timed lap before the chequered flag.

"This is definitely not the result we expected nor the one we wanted," said team principal Stefano Domenicali in a statement.

"Problems such as the one that befell Felipe are serious and I am very sorry for him as we prevented him from giving it his best shot.

"We need to understand why our performance, even taking into account all the unknowns regarding the various strategy choices, was not up to our usual standard."

Massa leads BMW-Sauber's Robert Kubica by two points after eight races with Ferrari team mate and world champion Kimi Raikkonen a further three adrift.

Raikkonen, winner at Silverstone last year, qualified third and will expect to slash his team mate's lead or overtake him entirely after tonight's race.

If Massa's hopes of victory appeared to have evaporated, he still had reasonable hopes of picking up some points in what could turn out to be a wet race at Silverstone.

"I think I could have done a good time, maybe not enough to take pole but at least good enough for a place on the front two rows," he said.

"Tomorrow I can definitely expect to be fighting all race long to move up the order and I will do all I can to bring home a good result. But it won't be easy."

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4609487a1823.html

[Dare]

Would it really have mattered if he
had a better pole position?

How many times did he spin out

[Mitch14]

he could have qualified pole and he probaly would have still finished last from spinning to much

[Scott]

My son and I counted the little Brazilian with the Mike Tyson lisp spinning no less than 8 times.  I think if anyone was owed an apology, it was Ferrari.

[Mitch14]

it was mainly ferrari's fault but massa was the one who spun it so many times he should have just got out of the car

[Scott]

It wasn't Ferrari's fault that Massa can't drive without TC.  Maybe it is their fault that they have him driving, but not their fault he spun.  He could have demanded they change to extreme wets, or better yet throw some studs in the tires for him.

[Mitch14]

maybe going to the full wets would have been the ideal option but he could have possibly spun even on those

[John S]

They seem to have had trouble in the dry as well so there was obviously something fundamentally wrong with the set up for Silverstone on the Ferraris. They seem to have got rid of the power slides on Kimi's chassis but Massa's was still very twitchy.

Rubens proved that more teams should have been tempted to try the full wets, it's always easy to see in hindsight. But if even James "the Pratt" Allen, the ITV commentator, could see tactically there was little to lose and much to gain unless you were Lewis why oh why didn't more drivers go full wets?

[johnbull]

They seem to have had trouble in the dry as well so there was obviously something fundamentally wrong with the set up for Silverstone on the Ferraris. They seem to have got rid of the power slides on Kimi's chassis but Massa's was still very twitchy.

Rubens proved that more teams should have been tempted to try the full wets, it's always easy to see in hindsight. But if even James "the Pratt" Allen, the ITV commentator, could see tactically there was little to lose and much to gain unless you were Lewis why oh why didn't more drivers go full wets?

I'm surprised too that more teams didn't opt for full wets, especially when they saw Rubens p*ss past.