A race ruined, but precious points gained - Massa

Scuderia Ferrari driver Felipe Massa returned to his home country, Brazil, to relax after a difficult Canadian Grand Prix. The Brazilian reflects the race at the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit where he finished in 5th position.

Felipe Massa said: "I am back home in Sao Paolo at the moment, as I am not scheduled to drive in this week's test session. As you can imagine it was a rather frustrating weekend in Montreal, even if a few points for fifth place might prove very useful when it is time to add up the final scores, when the championship finally reaches my home city in November.

"The weekend had started well and we looked strong on Friday, even if the McLarens were quicker, because I think we had been carrying more fuel and we seemed in pretty good shape. On Saturday morning the situation was the same, but then in qualifying, the track conditions changed completely and I was surprised that especially at Turn 10, I was losing around a second. It seemed to also affect Kimi and some other drivers. After qualifying, I even watched it on TV to see the line that others had taken through this corner and looking at Lewis' line for example, it was no different to ours. It was very strange why this happened and why we suffered so much on the broken track surface. On Sunday, while the track was not what you could call in great condition, it was much better than the day before, when it had been a disaster for us.

"On Sunday, in the race we were competitive again. But unfortunately, my race was ruined when we had a problem with the valve on the refuelling rig as we all came into pit lane under the Safety Car. It worked fine for Kimi, but in my case, not a single litre of fuel went in the car. I guess in a way it was lucky that it happened under the Safety Car, as it meant I had come in to refuel earlier than planned. If the refuelling problem had happened under normal circumstances, I would have run out of fuel and been left parked out on track. It was a real shame because we threw away many points because of that, especially when you saw what happened to Kimi, Lewis and Nico in pit lane. It's strange that it seems to be Canada where these red light problems happen, even if mine last year was rather different. I'm not sure what happened exactly with Lewis and Kimi, because it was strange the way the incident happened. I can only think Lewis was maybe looking at something on the steering wheel, or changing some settings, because the pit lane was clearly blocked by two cars that were stopped, whereas last year, in my case I was the first car to leave the pits which means it is easier not to notice the lights.

"As for the rest of the race, I was very happy with it in terms of mine and the car's performance and the pit stop was the only reason to be unhappy, as we lost some possible championship points. But my race pace was very good and I had some fun overtaking other cars, the best being when I went past Rubens and Heikki at the same time at the hairpin. I was a bit further back from them, but then I saw Heikki trying to pass Rubens. I knew that corner was rather dirty off the racing line and when I saw them both go into the corner together I thought to myself that one of them would probably end up on the dirty line which would give me a chance to get by at least one of them to move up a place. Then I saw they were still fighting one another and I went for a better inside line and I was able to get both of them, pushing Heikki a bit more off the ideal line which meant I got even better acceleration out of the turn and that was it - two places gained in one move!

"If the Canadian result was not the best for Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro, in terms of the excitement in the Drivers' championship, last weekend's race has certainly added to the interest for the race fans as the top of the points table is very close now. This helps make the next few races even more exciting. Talking of excitement, while we were in Montreal, some of the Ferrari team, including Kimi, went to the famous Montreal ice hockey stadium for a bit of a game, but I have to say I gave it a miss. I don't really understand what ice hockey is about as, in case you haven't noticed, it's a bit hot in Brazil to play this game and I much prefer football. So, while I'm home here in Sao Paolo, until I leave for France this coming Monday, I've been enjoying watching the Euro 2008 championships on TV."