Felipe Massa has acknowledged being beaten by Fernando Alonso this year but the Brazilian insists he is not afraid of his teammate.
In the Ferrari drivers’ qualifying battle so far in 2011 – off the back of Brazilian Massa’s difficult 2010 season – Massa has outpaced Spaniard Alonso just three times out of twelve.

“Well, it’s simple,” Massa said during an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais. “Fernando has been far better than me in that area.

“I am working to turn around the situation and, in any case, I have not exactly been slow,” he insisted.

Massa, 30, so nearly won the 2008 championship against Lewis Hamilton but since then he has struggled with Ferrari’s 2009 car, returned from a near-fatal crash and welcomed his first child into the world.

And since Brazil 2008, he has failed to add a single win to his tally of 11.

So what has changed? “Nothing. I am exactly the same,” insists Massa. “It is true that I have not got the results since then but I have the same ambition and determination.”

Asked if his fatherhood and his struggle for survival after Hungary 2009 affected him, Massa admitted: “Both things give you a lot of experience. But none of it affects me when I get into the car.

“Then, you do not remember anything. In the car I forget about my son, my wife, my father and mother. Michael (Schumacher) won many titles as a parent, so people talk about it too much.

“Although it is true that these two years have been the most intense of my life.”

In the 2011 standings, Massa is a massive 185 points behind Sebastian Vettel’s lead, meaning that even mathematically he can no longer win the title.

But it remains “important to focus on the present,” Massa said. “We hope to do better.

“Also we are not expecting many changes in the regulations (between 2011 and 2012) so it is crucial to finish the season with a competitive car.

“Next year the position of the exhaust changes but not the (other) aerodynamics, so the cars will be an evolution of these ones. So it’s worth it to stay focused.”

And Massa insists he is still a winning driver.

“Of course. If I didn’t think that I would go home.”

Felipe Massa is expecting a stronger end to the 2011 season, with Ferrari and McLaren fighting at the front with Red Bull.

After Sebastian Vettel pulled out a huge lead with his earlier dominance, the German failed to win a single grand prix in July as Red Bull’s main rivals closed the performance gap.

“I believe Ferrari and McLaren will be even more competitive in the coming races,” Brazilian Massa told O Estado de S.Paulo.

“I can not imagine that Red Bull can go back to having their advantage of the first races,” he added.

Massa, the lowest placed of all the Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari drivers so far in 2011, is a massive 164 points off Vettel’s championship lead.

“For me,” he continued, “I have suffered a bit with the harder tyres, so it is encouraging to know that they will no longer be used for the rest of the championship.”

Luca di Montezemolo has slammed F1′s constantly changing rules.

The Ferrari president was referring to the recent British grand prix, at which the saga surrounding the evolving blown exhaust regulations was denounced as the “biggest farce ever” by outspoken Niki Lauda.

“Unfortunately we have to deal with a carousel of changes to the regulations, which does not help us,” Montezemolo told Sky Italia this week as he insisted the famous Maranello team will push ahead with its 2011 car project.

“Once, the rules were changed after every year, then it was every six months, now they change within a weekend,” he added.

Montezemolo said Ferrari contributed to the solution of the blown exhaust saga at Silverstone even though it disadvantaged the famous team.

“The situation was paradoxical,” he is quoted by La Stampa, “but sometimes you have to put aside your personal interests. We want what is good for formula one.”

But he is quoted by Turun Sanomat newspaper: “This must definitely end. Rules should be made to last. Ferrari will definitely take up this issue with the rule makers.”

Meanwhile, Montezemolo confirmed once again that Felipe Massa’s 2012 contract will be honoured.

“Are the rumours about Felipe false? Absolutely. This is the period for these stories but the (Ferrari) drivers will be the same next year,” he said.

Even if Fernando Alonso wins the 2010 world championship, his Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa will not be relegated to a full-time supportive role next year.

That is the claim of the famous Italian team’s boss Stefano Domenicali, even though Brazilian Massa was playing a subordinate role to Alonso’s title push even before his own title chances were mathematically over for this season.

Domenicali said Ferrari drivers race primarily in the interests of the Maranello based team.

“Our drivers have to know what is in the interest of the team,” he said in an interview with the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper.

“I can confirm that Felipe will be able to start from scratch in 2011, but always knowing that Ferrari is the most important,” added Domenicali.

He denied that Massa’s problems have only been about Bridgestone’s tyres in 2010.

“I trust him completely and want to make clear that he is a great team player and a great driver,” said the Italian.

“I think that when you do not have a perfect season, you have to look at yourself and react. Felipe knows that the team is with him. He knows we are here to make him the best driver he can be.

“I don’t think his performance is related only to the tyres. We have to put all the pieces together and try to understand the reasons for him not having the best possible season,” added Domenicali.

With drivers reporting undriveable conditions and the local radar predicting even heavier rain ahead, the FIA has reserved a 10am timeslot for Sunday morning qualifying at Suzuka.

“I really don’t think there is going to be qualifying,” said Sebastien Buemi’s race engineer, just before Toro Rosso’s Swiss driver entered the circuit and spun during Saturday morning practice.

Lotus’ Mike Gascoyne confirmed that the weather forecast for qualifying is for even worse conditions than in practice, where the McLaren and Ferrari drivers were eventually grounded due to rivers of water causing aquaplaning.

“I cannot even drive on the straight,” complained Jaime Alguersuari.

Gascoyne told the BBC: “If it’s like this, they’ll have to look at postponing qualifying until tomorrow morning.”

Suzuka qualifying was run on Sunday morning in 2004 in order to avoid the typhoon Ma-on.

David Coulthard is taking a special interest in the developing events at Suzuka, having been scheduled as Red Bull’s reserve driver for the Japanese weekend.

The team’s usual reserve Daniel Ricciardo is in Europe for Formula Renault.

“Would I cope with the rigours of a race?” Coulthard wrote in the Telegraph.  “Well, I’m in semi race-trim now but physically it would be tough, I must admit.”

Felipe Massa furrowed his brow in Singapore when an Italian journalist dared to ask about the health of his world championship chances.

Brazilian Massa is mathematically still in the title chase, but the media is billing 2010 as a five-way contest between his Ferrari teammate Fernando Alonso and the Red Bull and McLaren drivers.

29-year-old Massa is increasingly seen as a bit-part to number 1 Alonso’s push.

So when asked by the Italian journalist about his chances, Massa angrily reacted: “On some questions, you could probably think of the answer.

“But I will say it again.  The world championship for me is over.”

Massa started from the rear of the grid in Singapore due to a gearbox failure in qualifying, but Brazilian journalist Livio Oricchio was unimpressed with his performance under the floodlights.

“He stayed behind Nico Hulkenberg’s Williams most of the time,” he wrote in his column for Jornal da Tarde.  “But Massa has the same car as (race winner) Alonso.

“Ferrari can be accused of having team orders, but not of giving its two drivers different cars.

“Alonso proved that the car is very fast.  But we didn’t see a single attempt from Massa to overtake his opponent, even when his tyres were new.

“What we’re seeing is a disproportionate difference in competence between the two Ferrari drivers,” charged Oricchio.

The press was also hard on Lewis Hamilton, who for the second race in a row retired due to a collision.  The Mirror said: “Lew blew it … again”.

But Hamilton vowed to stay aggressive.

“It’s the way I am,” he said in the Spanish newspaper El Pais.  “That’s me, and I think this aggression is my main strength.”

Robert Kubica performed well whilst contesting Italy’s Rally del Friuli at the weekend.

Polish media reports said the formula one driver won some timed stages in the A6 class of the Italian Rally Championship event, at the wheel of a Renault Clio S1600.

Overall, he placed 13th, 7 minutes behind the winner and rivals with more powerful cars.

“I came here to have fun,” said Kubica, whose Renault contract allows him to contest some rallies, unlike his previous BMW deal.

“I have to be careful not to risk too much, because formula one is my real job.  But I love the challenge of adapting to rallying,” added the 25-year-old.

Not including the McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari drivers, Kubica is the highest placed driver in the 2010 drivers’ championship.

As Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber pulled out a championship lead on Sunday, F1′s attention turned once again towards the spectre of “team orders”.

The pair are now 31 and 28 points respectively ahead of nearest title challenger Sebastian Vettel, causing Webber to suggest that the time may be nearing for Red Bull to back him over his young German teammate.

McLaren figures trotted out the party line about driver equality, with Hamilton insisting that he will not receive “any preferential treatment” over Jenson Button.

“I think it’s too early, but maybe there’s a different strategy compared to McLaren,” said Webber.

“It’s still too early at the moment but not far away, I would say,” added the Australian.

However, when team boss Christian Horner was asked if Vettel is now going to play second fiddle to Webber, he answered: “That would be team orders.  And those are not allowed!”

Vettel told Auto Motor und Sport: “There are still some races to go and we have seen how quickly things change.

“Monza will be hard for us and today we should at least have been on the podium, but everything is still in it.  Head up, we move on.”

Interestingly, the spectre of team orders could actually deliver Red Bull some points if the World Motor Sport Council decides to penalise the Ferrari drivers at its disciplinary hearing.

Vettel finished behind both position-swapping Ferraris at Hockenheim, moving Red Bull’s Helmut Marko to observe on Sunday to Auto Motor und Sport: “On September 8 there could be ten more points for Sebastian.”

Hockenheim winner Fernando Alonso told Spanish reporters on Sunday: “No, I don’t think so, we’re relaxed.”

It would not be adequate to only penalise Ferrari at next month’s World Motor Sport Council disciplinary hearing.

That is the opinion of Max Mosley, ahead of the September 8 meeting that was called to assess the Italian team’s allegedly illegal use of team orders during the German grand prix.

With Ferrari already handed a $100,000 fine by the Hockenheim stewards, it is suggested that a satisfactory outcome might be a further sporting sanction but one that allows drivers Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso to keep their championship points.

Former long-time FIA president Mosley, however, disagrees, “because the drivers understood the rules when they were given their FIA super licenses but in Hockenheim (the drivers) failed to uphold them”.

“I’m sorry particularly for poor Felipe Massa,” added Mosley in an interview with Welt am Sonntag newspaper, “but there is a rule strictly against team orders.”

The 70-year-old Briton said Brazilian Massa cannot argue that he was only obeying an instruction from his team “because his employer had no right to invite him to break the rules”.

Luca di Montezemolo on Thursday revealed he resisted the urge to invite Michael Schumacher to play at a football game.

The seven time world champion is Ferrari’s most successful ever driver, winning five world championships during his 1996-2006 tenure.

But after retiring four years ago, the 41-year-old returned to the grid this year with Mercedes, and the tension between the German and his former camp has been obvious.

“We had beautiful years together and I gave him back his desire to race,” said Ferrari president Montezemolo, referring to the offer of a temporary seat last year to replace the injured Massa, which subsequently became a full return with a rival team.

“At times I miss Schumacher, he gave so much to Ferrari, but he also received a lot,” the Italian told La Gazzetta dello Sport.

He then referred to the forthcoming Partita Del Cuore charity football match, to be played in Modena early next week and featuring current Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso, Felipe Massa and Giancarlo Fisichella.

Said Montezemolo: “A few days ago I was tempted to call him (Schumacher) to ask him to play for us.  But as the team carries the Ferrari name, I avoided it.”

(GMM)

A written plea by McLaren did not convince the British team’s rivals that controversial ‘F-duct’ innovations should be allowed to stay in F1 in 2011.

During a team meeting last weekend in Barcelona, a majority of the bosses voted for a rule tweak that will outlaw the controversial downforce-stalling solutions for next year.

After McLaren invented the straightline speed boosting concept this season, teams including Sauber, Ferrari, Williams and Mercedes have experimented with their own versions.

It is also believed that Red Bull, Renault and Force India are working on the concept at their respective factories.

But Red Bull’s Christian Horner indicated that the vote against F-ducts for 2011 was influenced by the marginal safety of the systems seen in Spain last weekend.

Both the Sauber and Ferrari drivers were activating the airflow with one of their hands, often out of high speed corners like Barcelona’s turn 3, while simultaneously fidgeting with other controls including brake balance.

“It’s a clever piece of engineering and hats off to the guys who invented it, but some of the solutions this weekend look a little bit marginal when you see drivers driving with no hands basically,” Horner is quoted as saying by the BBC.

“So I think there is a safety issue and a cost issue to take into account,” he added.

(GMM)