Massa not happy with size of McLaren penalty

Felipe Massa suggested at Spa Francorchamps that he is not happy with the size of McLaren's penalty for espionage. The Ferrari driver hinted to the Spanish news agency EFE that he is not happy that drivers whose team was found guilty of breaching F1 rules should still be free to fight for the world crown.

"Personally I do not like fighting against people who know things about your team that they shouldn't (know)," the Brazilian said. Massa would not say explicitly that he believes Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton should have been disqualified, but he insisted: "I believe that the drivers are a part of the team."

Spain's World Motor Sport Council member Carlos Gracia, meanwhile, revealed more detail about the possible harsher penalties that were nearly imposed on the McLaren team on Thursday. He told Diario As that Alonso and Hamilton would have had all their drivers' points taken away, while test driver Pedro de la Rosa would have lost his Super License for an indeterminate time.

Massa had suspension problem - Ferrari

Title aspirations now effectively over

Massa now 23 points down with four races to go...

Ferrari's Sporting Director on Sunday admitted that Felipe Massa retired from the Italian Grand Prix probably with a rear suspension failure.The Brazilian, who struck trouble at Monza on lap ten after banging wheels with Lewis Hamilton at the start, has now fallen 23 points behind the championship leader with just four races to go.

"We still have to look into it more closely," Stefano Domenicali told RTL, "(but) it seems to be probably a problem of the suspension." Massa's team-mate Kimi Raikkonen finished Ferrari's home race just third, telling reporters that despite a sore neck, the F2007 was simply outpaced by McLaren this weekend.

Massa was asked by reporters if he thought emerging as the 2007 world champion was now an impossible task. "Impossible no, but for sure not easy," he said. "I'll just keep my head up and be competitive. I'm sure we can fight for more victories."

Italian GP - Massa: "until the last lap of the last race"

The winner of two consecutive Turkish Grands Prix met the media in the Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro Media Unit this afternoon, on the eve of what is the only home race for the team this year. "Turkey is in the past now but it is always good to come to an event having won the last race," began Felipe Massa.

"Now I am fully focussed on this weekend and I hope we can repeat what we did in Istanbul. I think we have quite a good chance of doing that. We need to work hard to carry that momentum forward. We will need everything to be perfect and concentrate on every aspect of the weekend and on the preparation and performance of theF2007."
Asked about any specific strategy aimed mainly at the championships rather than just at Sunday's race, Felipe explained that the current situation was too close to call. "At the moment, the only important thing is to put two Ferraris in front of everyone at the end of the race. With only one point between me and Kimi in the Drivers' classification, all we can do is keep fighting to the end of the championship. Every race is equally important. We will be pushing one another hard. We are one hundred percent motivated to do our best for the team and we will be driving our hardest until the last lap of the last race." Massa spent two days running here in testing last week and feels that the
Monza-specification F2007 is a reasonably strong package. "Monza is a very important race for us. I think that every single improvement on the car makes a lot of difference on a circuit like this with its long straights.
Apart from the obvious aerodynamic package required just for this track, we also have a new Shell oil for the gearbox and even that can give us an advantage. Racing in front of the home crowd is also very special. There is such a big tradition for Ferrari here and seeing so many tifosi watching you from the grandstand is amazing and I hope we can do a good job for
them."