It didn’t take a ghost come from the grave to tell him, but Felipe Massa has admitted in his latest “diary” that his drivers title chances are over.
The comments come near the very bottom of what effectively is his review of the Singapore Grand Prix: “In the end, I made up a few more places thanks to a couple of Stewards decisions after the race and although personally, it does not mean much to me, given that obviously my own hopes in the Drivers’ championship have gone, it did mean I got a couple more important points for Ferrari in the Constructors’ classification.”
See, Felipe is at least a team player!
Massa does detail how his strategy — which worked so well for Fernando Alonso at Monaco this year — didn’t quite do the same for him:
But I’m not the sort to give up and in the debrief with the engineers on Saturday, we decided to go for a similar strategy to the one used by my team-mate Fernando in Monaco this year when he could not qualify either: as Marina Bay is also a street circuit, we felt there was a good chance that a Safety Car could come into play and at least let me move up a few places through a strategy gamble. That gamble did not pay off on Sunday evening, because having come in immediately to switch to the hard tyres, the Safety Car did come out, but really it was too early by maybe just one or two laps. Without that, I might have got in front of Hulkenberg and had a different sort of race. But, as it turned out, I had a rather boring, but very tough race. I was stuck in a train of slow cars with no possibility of overtaking and the heat and humidity feel even worse when you are in someone’s slipstream all the time.
I love that last bit about the heat and humidity, and I’m sure Grace can commiserate with poor Felipe.
I wonder how his admission about his season will play out on the track during the next four (three?) races. And I wonder how having a supportive team mate will help Fernando Alonso versus his four title competitors — who are all competing with their team mates still.
