Stay positive - Massa
Although Felipe Massa lost his victory at Singapore due to an error in the pits, the Scuderia Ferrari team driver remains confident that he can fight for the championship title. Massa is now 7 points behind Lewis Hamilton in the standings and this with 3 races left to go.
Felipe Massa: "After the Singapore Grand Prix, the motto for the rest of the season has to be look ahead and don't give up. As our Team Principal Stefano Domenicali said after the race, we really need to try and finish first and second in all the remaining rounds. It's a tough call, but everyone in the Scuderia will be trying their best.
"So, now we come to that refuelling incident: as I pulled away from the pit stop after getting the green light on our traffic light system, I didn't feel anything strange at all and there was no sensation that I was pulling something behind me. Then Rob, my engineer, came on the radio and told me to stop because the fuel line was still attached to the car. Only then did I look in my mirror and see it, but by then it was much too late of course. We don't use this light system just to be clever, because when it works correctly it makes for a faster release from the pit stop than a man operating a lollipop. The system can work automatically, linked to the refuelling nozzle coming off the car or it can be overridden and used manually. At this point, we were using it manually because, as you may have seen, I ran over some debris on the track and the team was checking if it was still stuck under the car. And unfortunately, the guy operating the system pressed the wrong button. Add in the drive through penalty and the puncture and it was a day to forget and move on.
"Looking at a positive aspect of the weekend, our car seemed to have made a step forward as a result of our recent work and we had a great car throughout the three days, with a good enough performance level to have finished first and second, but for all the reasons you know, we failed to score a single point. The whole night racing experience was a nice idea, interesting and very different. However, this specific race did highlight the fact that the Safety Car rules still need to be looked at very carefully, because the idea of Formula 1 is that the race should be won by the best driver and car combination on the day. I know we made mistakes, but the current system, as you can see from the final result of Sunday's race, means that the Safety Car can promote someone from the middle of the grid to the lead, not because of a clever strategy but simply by luck. I think the system needs to be changed and this problem was highlighted by the difficult nature of the Singapore track. The bumps in the track surface is another area that should be looked at before we go back next year, but the track itself was nice and different, with more similarities to Monaco than Valencia. There are just a few little details need changing.
"I enjoyed Singapore and I stayed there until Thursday, which gave me an opportunity to visit various parts and get to know it better. Now, I have moved to an island in Malaysia where I am staying for five days before heading off to Japan for the next race. Last year was a very wet weekend in Fuji and a very wet race. It was a very tough event and I eventually finished sixth, which was not a great result at the end of the day. But I do remember that on Friday's sessions, in the dry we had a very strong pace from our package. Of course, that was last year, but I am confident we will be competitive again. The Fuji track was an enjoyable one to drive, at least without the rain!
"As for the championship, like I said on Sunday, it depends how you look at it: a seven point gap can be a lot or it can be a little. If you look at what happened to me in Singapore where my gap went from one point to seven so suddenly, then you have to consider it could easily go the other way as well. The most important element to consider is that we have a very good car. Without that, my chances would be much smaller. We have two good cars and we can try and get both of us to finish ahead of our rivals. It can be done and we need to think positive and we need to keep fighting to the last race."
