30/05/2007
NEWS STORY
Despite finishing third on Sunday, almost being lapped by the McLaren steamroller, Felipe Massa is happy with his performance in Monaco, a performance that leaves him third in the Drivers' Championship.
In his blog for the Ferrari website the Brazilian writes:
"A couple of days after the race and I'm still home in Monaco where the Grand Prix can be summed up by saying that I am really happy with my personal performance over the weekend. However, we were not so happy with our car performance at this track. If you look at how McLaren started on the first day, we knew it would not be so easy to be in front of them. But we managed to limit the damage and third place is not a disaster, when you look at how close and competitive the championship battle is at the moment.
"But certainly, we cannot be a hundred percent happy with the result, given that our rivals filled the top two places. They have some elements of their package that worked better at this circuit than ours. But my personal opinion and I don't know if it is right, is that it was not just McLaren being impressive in Monaco, it was also Ferrari being weak. If you look at the difference between McLaren and Renault in Monaco and compare it to the gap between them in Barcelona at the Spanish Grand Prix, there was not much difference. In Monte Carlo Renault's pace was similar to ours which shows that something in our package, something related to our team, did not work at this track. What we can be sure of is that this situation will not continue, because our car is better than that, which in itself is further motivation to do well at the next race, where our car should have a good package."
Looking ahead, Felipe is full of optimism
"The championship is still looking good for me after these important points for third place. We have done five races, I am five points behind Fernando and Lewis and there are still twelve races to go. That's not a big difference and I feel that everything is still a hundred percent open in the fight for the title. But we need to be ahead of them. I have won two races and Fernando has done the same and the difference as I said is five points. So consistency is what matters over the rest of the season and that is why it is always important to be on the podium. My worst result this year is a sixth place, which is actually not that bad, but you have to make sure you are always in the top three.
"Away from the racing, I enjoyed the Monaco Grand Prix with family and friends staying with me at home here, which made it a nice weekend. On top of that, we should not forget that this was my first podium finish here in Monte Carlo which is a good result in itself. For sure, when you have a very good car, a podium is not as much as people expect from you, but for me it was a good result and I was particularly happy with my performance. I just want to finish ahead of those two guys next time. Now, I'm staying here at home until next Tuesday, when I fly out to Montreal."