Will Felipe Massa be able to shrug off his nerves to perform better in Malaysia?
Felipe Massa is under tremendous pressure going into the second race of the season the Malaysian Grand Prix.
Massa has had a terrible couple of seasons and the start to the 2012 season was one of the lowest points of his performances since his accident in 2009.
“This has been a really poor weekend for me. Already yesterday I suffered because the car was badly balanced and today, it was probably even worse, because after a few laps I was struggling with the tyres. I had got a great start and had managed to make
up a few places and I was hoping to finish in the points,” he said after the Australian Grand Prix.
Massa did have a good start to the race and found it hard to gain pace. He also conceded that he realises that the race weekend has not been a good one for him. He chose to blame the car for his poor showing and said that the balance was not there in the
car. He added that he struggled a lot with the tyres.
He said that the car was sliding and the compounds were degrading very faster than other cars on the grid. He said the medium tyres did not fare any better for him. Massa added that going into the Malaysian Grand Prix the team will need to work really hard
to understand where the car lacks and what the reasons behind its poor performances are, the balance needs to be fixed.
Massa also talked about his incident with Bruno Senna during the Australian Grand Prix. He said, “I think we can consider it a racing incident. A Toro Rosso tried to pass me on the outside of Turn 3 and Bruno had better traction on the inside, so we went
into Turn 4 side by side: that where we tangled and it ended as you saw it did.”
It will be imperative for Massa to pick up his game as soon as possible as his race seat with Ferrari is in serious jeopardy. Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo has already warned Massa to come up with better performances in the season or face the consequence
of losing his race seat.
Massa has been a nervy driver since he returned from his injury and that may cause him to come up with another poor showing in the Malaysian Grand Prix. He will need to refocus before the race and play it safe first and then try to move up the ranks.
The Malaysian Grand Prix is scheduled for March 25th 2012 only a week after Australian Grand Prix which means teams will not get much time to regroup and focus on the job at hand.
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