Felipe Massa credits Fernando Alonso for his form turnaround in the season – Formula 1 news
Felipe Massa has credited Fernando Alonso for the turnaround in his form this year.
Massa has been struggling for some time now and has been under tremendous pressure to perform. The woes have not started with the start of the 2012 season rather the previous season.
Massa has not been able to perform to his potential for the last couple of season and that has started to make some noise amongst the Formula 1 circles that Ferrari needs to replace him.
Before the season even started Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo warned the Brazilian that he needs to perform in the season or face losing his race seat beyond 2012.
The start of the 2012 was so poor that speculations of a mid season replacement was even talked up. The problems were not all because of Massa the Ferrari car struggled as well and was clearly not up to the level that it needed to be in order to challenge
the top teams at the grid.
Ferrari has since improved the car considerably and Massa has slowly shown improvement. Massa showed at Monaco that he does have the potential to drive really well. He finished sixth at Monaco and then at the Canadian Grand Prix he did very well to secure
a point after he spun his car during the race.
Massa admitted that he had trouble earlier with the car but now is much more comfortable after the car has been updated.
“I think so, not totally but certainly we are working in a different way,” he is quoted as saying on the Ferrari website in response to being asked if he is going in a different direction to Alonso.
“Every driver has his own style, the way he turns the steering wheel, or uses the throttle pedal and if you don't feel comfortable with something then it definitely doesn't help. When something is not working for you, you move away from the right direction
and lose performance, as you are not operating at 100% yourself,” he added.
It will be interesting to see how Massa fares as the season progresses.
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