The Rise of Felipe Massa

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Originally Posted by DimitraF1

ferrari spend so much money to get raikkonen...they will never let massa beat kimi , and if massa is faster they will use their usual tricks..ferrari rolls

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If Massa truly becomes more consistent in winning than Raikkonen, I don't think Ferrari will be stupid enough to trash Massa just because they paid more for Raikkonen. In MS era, although Barichello/Irvine can be faster sometimes, but they can't match MS in terms of winning consistently. The #1/#2 status is based on probabilities of winning, not the cost. Bottom line, money spent is for the goal of winning.

Although...it's only slim probability that Massa can be consistently winning over Raikkonen, except if Raikkonen is really a "car-breaker". With a Ferrari he can no longer find excuse in the reliability department.

This will be Massa's year to shine. In his career he has not been slow and has raced with the best and held his own.

Alonso or Button and maybe Kimi are the greatest drivers of F1 currently, but i'd rather stand for step son like Massa to chalange the title

Massa is not WDC material. He got badly trashed by MS this year. He is really bad in the rain. I like him as a person, but I dont see him being a WDC this year. Testing times is no indication about him being WDC. Kimi will beat him easily....

I admit it but he is not bad either, i talked about support and expectation, usually there is reason why should expect something and support someone, and i see it is possible, he is a hard-worker that sometime more important than skill itself.

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Originally Posted by f1rocks

Massa is not WDC material. He got badly trashed by MS this year. He is really bad in the rain. I like him as a person, but I dont see him being a WDC this year. Testing times is no indication about him being WDC. Kimi will beat him easily....

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Not yet proven. All efforts at Ferrari were for MS. This year Massa will have the car and attention he deserves. If Kimi kicks his butt then I will agree. However on this one I am going to reserve judgement until a few races.

Actually I recall a race at hockenhiem where if memory serves correctly he was brilliant in the wet and drying conditions. maybe you could be more specific in a history of wet races for massa.

gracias

I think he was referring the wet race of Monza, the extremely worse i could remember, the rest wet races weren't worst than it.

The more he tries wet races i think he will improve how to get better with it, obviously a matter of time.

What concerns wet, then in 2006 Shanghai qualifying Massa was running well and during the first two sessions was making faster times than Schumi, but at the end of the second session in drying conditions Ferrari let Schumi to make his last attempt to get into Top10 and Felipe had to stay in the pits not to take that "vacant Top10 position" away...

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Originally Posted by jens

What concerns wet, then in 2006 Shanghai qualifying Massa was running well and during the first two sessions was making faster times than Schumi, but at the end of the second session in drying conditions Ferrari let Schumi to make his last attempt to get into Top10 and Felipe had to stay in the pits not to take that "vacant Top10 position" away...

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Because there was no more place for Massa on the track or what?
Why would Ferrari not want both drivers in the top 10?

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Originally Posted by ioan

Because there was no more place for Massa on the track or what?
Why would Ferrari not want both drivers in the top 10?

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Remember, Michael on his last attempt managed 9th fastest time, so he was really close to falling out. Before this attempt Felipe and Michael were somewhere 12th-14th, if I remember correctly. If Felipe had also driven in the last minute and he and also someone else had made a faster time, then it would have been over for MS.

It was a risky situation and before the last minute in those conditions it was clear that at best one Ferrari can manage into Top10 and even that seemed unlikely. So better give the opportunity to get into Top10 to the driver, who was fighting for the WDC title. I remember Felipe watching Michael's last attempt in the garage.