Felipe Massa has confirmed that if he can help Fernando Alonso to reinforce his lead in the drivers’ world championship this weekend, he will.

“If it depends on me, then for sure (I will help),” he is quoted as saying in Brazil by the news agency EFE.

Massa, who was controversially ordered aside for his Ferrari teammate at Hockenheim in July, is a specialist of his local Interlagos circuit and a crowd favourite.

But he concedes the Italian team’s desire to put its full weight behind Alonso’s title charge.

“I’m a professional. I did it already in 2007,” added Massa, referring to his then teammate Kimi Raikkonen’s successful championship campaign alongside him three years ago.

Team boss Stefano Domenicali has confirmed this week that Alonso and Massa will return to a position of equality in 2011.

When asked if Spaniard Alonso is the best teammate he has had at Ferrari, he answered emphatically: “No. I’ve had three (teammates) all at the same highest level.

“I don’t need to say anything about Schumacher because his career speaks for itself. Kimi was also excellent. I see all three of them on the same level.

“Alonso has had a better season than me and has been more competitive. It has not been my best year, not only with the results but also the problems I have had in qualifying warming up the tyres.

“For me, 2011 will be better than 2010,” he insisted.

In additional comments published by the Globo newspaper, Massa said he thinks his Brazilian fans will understand his position at Interlagos this weekend.

“I think the public has always treated me very well, not only the day before what happened in Germany, but also the day after.

“The journalists, no. But the public, yes — always. I am sure the fans will be great and I will do my best to give them a good result,” added Massa.

Red Bull driver Mark Webber will be at the wheel of ‘Luscious Liz’ at this weekend’s British grand prix.

The RB6 chassis was named by his teammate Sebastian Vettel at the beginning of the season, before it sustained damage and the German underperformed while Webber dominated in Barcelona and Monaco.

So Vettel, 23, stepped into the winter testing chassis and called it ‘Randy Mandy’.

Meanwhile, the car driven to Webber’s earlier emphatic wins this season has been temporarily retired after his backflip in the recent European grand prix.

After a tour of the team’s Milton Keynes factory on Wednesday, the news agency PA said Webber will now race Vettel’s earlier chassis.

The crashed car, currently featuring scrawled messages including ‘RIP’ courtesy of the mechanics, is now being repaired and will be used as the spare monocoque in Britain.

“I don’t get attached to cars, but clearly that one was unique,” said Webber, 33.

He revealed that after he won at Monaco, the team promised him he could keep the RB6.

“They’ll probably give me something else (now),” he added. “But the car did a great job for me in two cases. It won races for me, and it looked after me when I needed it.”

Webber’s new car is unlikely to feature the ‘Luscious Liz’ signage on the dashboard, with the Australian admitting his relationship with German Vettel is “pretty good” after their Istanbul crash but they don’t get on “like a house on fire”.

“If Seb’s drowning in the ocean then I’ll go and help him out. It’s not easy to have a beautiful, fuzzy, warm relationship when your teammate is clearly a competitor,” he said.

Sebastian Vettel has named his latest RB6 chassis ‘Randy Mandy’.

Giving his cars an amorous female name has become one of the 22-year-old German’s several F1-related superstitions.

He religiously steps into his cars and dismounts from the left-hand side, and slides a lucky coin behind the laces of his boot.

Vettel called his original 2010 Red Bull ‘Luscious Liz’, following on from its 2009 predecessor ‘Kate’s Dirty Sister’.

But Luscious Liz has been retired after the team found damage in the wake of the Spain/Monaco double-header, dominated emphatically by his teammate Mark Webber.

It emerges that Vettel will now be at the wheel of the fully-updated test car.

It has been a warm and sunny day at Istanbul Park, and more of the same ‘t-shirt weather’ is expected throughout the Turkish GP weekend.

(GMM)