Formula 1

Massa underlines importance of consistency

Monaco was not a particularly kind race to Ferrari and Felipe Massa had mixed feelings after scoring third place, his best finish to date in the Principality. The Brazilian professed to be happy with his own performance but not so much with the ...

Published: Jun 1, 2007, 8:36 PM

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Monaco was not a particularly kind race to Ferrari and Felipe Massa had mixed feelings after scoring third place, his best finish to date in the Principality. The Brazilian professed to be happy with his own performance but not so much with the performance of the car; McLaren trounced the competition on the streets of Monte Carlo and Massa finished over a minute behind winner Fernando Alonso and his second placed teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Felipe Massa, Scuderia Ferrari.

Photo by xpb.cc.

"If you look at how McLaren started on the first day, we knew it would not be so easy to be in front of them," said Massa. "But we managed to limit the damage and third place is not a disaster, when you look at how close and competitive the championship battle is at the moment. But certainly, we cannot be a hundred percent happy with the result, given that our rivals filled the top two places. They have some elements of their package that worked better at this circuit than ours."

"But my personal opinion and I don't know if it is right, is that it was not just McLaren being impressive in Monaco, it was also Ferrari being weak. If you look at the difference between McLaren and Renault in Monaco and compare it to the gap between them in Barcelona at the Spanish Grand Prix, there was not much difference. In Monte Carlo Renault's pace was similar to ours which shows that something in our package, something related to our team, did not work at this track."

Massa is sure things will improve as he believes the F2007 can perform better at the next rounds at Montreal and Indianapolis. He currently stands third in the drivers' standings behind the McLaren pair so it's still wide open at the top. "The championship is still looking good for me after these important points for third place," Massa commented. "We have done five races, I am five points behind Fernando and Lewis and there are still twelve races to go."

"That's not a big difference and I feel that everything is still a hundred percent open in the fight for the title. But we need to be ahead of them. I have won two races and Fernando has done the same and the difference as I said is five points. So consistency is what matters over the rest of the season and that is why it is always important to be on the podium. My worst result this year is a sixth place, which is actually not that bad, but you have to make sure you are always in the top three."

All in all Massa was happy with his first visit to the Monaco podium -- but he won't be completely satisfied until he's the one on the top step in front of the McLarens. "For sure, when you have a very good car, a podium is not as much as people expect from you, but for me it was a good result and I was particularly happy with my performance," he said. "I just want to finish ahead of those two guys next time."

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