Massa Reviews his Bahrain Grand Prix

By Jamie Makin
April 10 2005

After a difficult start to the season for team SAUBER PETRONAS, Felipe Massa's drive to 7th place in last weekend's Bahrain Grand Prix finally game the team something to celebrate.

"For sure, it was a fantastic feeling to dedicate these points to the team at a very special moment, and I am proud of this," said an upbeat Felipe Massa. "And also because these two points came at a good moment for the team, after our difficult start to the season. We have to take this momentum now to the next races."

Massa started in twelfth position, his best qualifying result so far this season. While other teams, notably the Ferraris, struggled with their tyres, Massa made the right decision to go with the hard compound and was able to take the fight to Michael Schumacher on track. "When I made the choice on Friday, the harder compound showed excellent consistency, and with the weather forecast predicting temperatures of more than 40 degrees C for the weekend it made sense," explained Massa. "I knew that this choice would cost me three to five tenths in qualifying, but I really concentrated on the race performance."

New rules that prohibit changing tyres during the race have made the job of choosing the right compound even more critical than ever. It also challenges the drivers to pace themselves during the race to preserve the tyres to the end. "It's a demanding challenge, but I like it," Massa said. "First of all it's even more important to make the right choice on Friday, and then, secondly, you really have to find the right balance between driving aggressively to be quick, and yet smooth to conserve the tyres. It's really important not to exaggerate and not to push too hard. It's an interesting task, and I like it."

High attrition in the race helped Massa gain several places, but he still had to have nerves of steel on a slippery track in order to finish in the points. "My whole race went well from the beginning to the end," Massa said. "In the opening laps I was considerably slower than the drivers on soft tyres, but after 10, 12 laps my performance started to improve consistently. My quickest lap time in the race does not really reflect the performance since I always got stuck behind other drivers towards the end of my stints when you would normally set your best lap times as the fuel load has gone down. In addition, I didn't make the smallest mistake during the whole race, which is not easy here because the track is really slippery off the racing line and quite a few drivers had some hairy moments."

Despite the hot air temperature and blazing sun beating down on the circuit, Massa easily withstood the challenges a race in the desert can bring. "It might surprise you, but the race in Bahrain was physically easy," said the young Brazilian. "I was not exhausted at all when I took the chequered flag and I didn't sweat too much. Although the temperature was higher than in Sepang, the race in Malaysia was much harder because of the high humidity in combination with a track layout which is physically more demanding. Bahrain was really an easy race from this point of view!"

It was only bad luck that prevented Massa's teammate, Jacques Villeneuve, from scoring his first point of the season as well. He was about to take over 8th place from the struggling Ferrari of Rubens Barrichello when David Coulthard hit him from behind, breaking his rear suspension. Although Coulthard apologized and both men dismissed it as a racing incident, the team can see that their C24 is slowly but surely becoming more competitive.