Massa: “I still have a few years ahead of me in F1”
The Brazilian driver, who took part in his 150th race in Korea, believes he still has many good years ahead of him in Formula 1.
After starting with Sauber in 2002, Felipe Massa quickly joined Scuderia Ferrari in 2006 to become an important driver.
Lewis Hamilton’s runner-up in 2008 and the unfortunate hero of one of the most thrilling championship finales in the sport’s history that same year, Felipe’s career came to a brief halt with his terrible accident at the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix.
Since then, Massa has been criticized for his performance and has disappointed many observers. However, this does not prevent him from being proud of his career and planning for the long term, still in Formula 1: « Korea was my 150th Grand Prix and almost all of them were raced at the wheel of a Ferrari, in fact my hundredth race with the Scuderia should coincide with the last round of the season, at home, in Interlagos.
It’s always exceptional to reach the milestone of 150 races. I still have a few years ahead of me in this sport, and since I’m not that old, I intend to keep pushing for better results than the one achieved in Korea, for example, which didn’t lead to a great celebration for my 150th Grand Prix. Nevertheless, I enjoyed driving in Yeongam, a track we practically discovered this year, as there was so much rain in 2010.
Massa, who experienced a serious accident during a race, also takes advantage of the platform offered to him on his personal blog on the Ferrari website to address the two tragedies that motorsport has faced in recent weeks: « For now, all my thoughts are with the families and friends of Marco Simoncelli and Dan Wheldon. It seems that when bad things happen, they all happen at once. Due to the time difference between Malaysia and Brazil, I learned about the MotoGP accident as soon as I woke up on Sunday morning when I was at home in Sao Paulo. It was unbelievable, I was in shock. Simoncelli was a good guy and a great talent.
So soon after the death of Dan Wheldon, who was one of my friends, these moments have been really difficult and it is simply incredible that these sad events occur just a week apart.
Felipe is aware that he risks his life every weekend, but he tries not to think about it too much: « Of course, people like us always know that the risk is there every time you go out on the track. When you’re racing, you don’t think about the risks and you always push, sometimes too much. But even so, it’s always a terrible shock when you see something like that, and it reminds you that the risk is present. »
Despite everything, the fight for better safety during races is far from over for the Brazilian: I am not qualified to speak about Simoncelli’s accident because I have no experience in motorcycle racing, but in the case of Dan’s accident, I hope that the only good thing that could come out of this tragedy would be that it acts as a wake-up call to improve the safety level in IndyCar, in much the same way that what happened at Imola in 1994 led to increased safety in F1. In my opinion, IndyCar needs to do a lot to improve safety.
It is pointless to complain about it and blame others because what is needed today is a calm analysis and then a response from the sports organization. Perhaps IndyCar should start, given the type of circuit and the number of participants, trying to launch single-seaters with a closed cockpit, but that’s just an idea, and the overall safety package needs to be thoroughly examined.
