New Felipe t shirt

[Agent Orange]

Thought I'd get myself a new t shirt

[FeelingLucky]

Hmmm, except you're not are you.

[Agent Orange]

Humour by pass FeelingLucky?

[FeelingLucky]

by pass (invention) similar to a block pass but money changes hands

bypass (verb)
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british...

you decide

On a more serious note, I have a lot of time for Massa. He really got the short end at Ferrari, and I'll bet he thought it was behind him at Williams.....not so it would appear.

I could have understood if Bottas was motoring, but he just wasn't, maybe it was me , BUT he never even had a go at Massa, what was he expecting?? Massa to pull over and wave him by??

If I had been in Philipe's shoes, my radio response would have been, "shure, as he pulls alongside, I'll let him by..."

IMO it was a bad call as.....1)Way too early in the season. 2)If he couldn't pass Massa unaided, there was no way he would have got Button. 3)Minimal gain for Williams (same constructor points either way) with a whole lot to loose (not just points but team harmony).

My earlier post was a reference to:- Was Bottas faster than Massa?? Not 100% convinced here.

[Agent Orange]

FeelingLucky said:

If I had been in Philipe's shoes...

Ooo... back at you? Who's Philipe?

As you might be able to tell I have little time for Massa. He's always struck me as lazy and only puts in a shift when its contract renewal time or he really forced too. Which is a shame because when he's been on it in the past he's been right up there in the top 4 or 5 drivers. He's got some real pace when he chooses to use it. Unfortunately that isn't very often.

After the initial "Valtteri is faster than you" Massa then responded with "...but now I'm faster than him."

Typical Massa. Only finding pace when he's pushed to.

Massa screaming like a baby when Bottas tried to overtake him in the early part of the race, his petulance in ignoring team orders and finding pace when pushed to do so only reinforced my views of him. When the team asked Bottas to hold behind Massa he did.

From the BBC site:

'Williams' chief test and support engineer Rod Nelson said: "We look to maximise constructors' points whenever we go racing. Felipe was running fairly high temperatures on his engine and we were a little concerned about it. We felt Valtteri had quite a good chance of getting past Button because his tyres were five laps younger.

Massa's petulance cost the team the chance of a couple of extra points yesterday.

One great thing to come out of this for the neutral fans is many thought the explosive team pairing to be Alonso and Kimi. Looks like the fuse is lit for Massa and Bottas.

[Mojocvh]

"Massa's petulance cost the team the chance of a couple of extra points yesterday."

BS.

[Agent Orange]

Mojocvh said:

"Massa's petulance cost the team the chance of a couple of extra points yesterday."

BS.

Care to elaborate?

[Gillett66]

Agent Orange said:

Mojocvh said:

"Massa's petulance cost the team the chance of a couple of extra points yesterday."

BS.

Care to elaborate?

I would imagine not, that's based on the fact that Bottas did have a very good chance of at least giving Button a hard time, something Massa managed for 4 corners before promptly giving up and settling for position.

That's why he's not a very good driver.

[Bombjack]

Gillett66 said:

I would imagine not, that's based on the fact that Bottas did have a very good chance of at least giving Button a hard time, something Massa managed for 4 corners before promptly giving up and settling for position.

That's why he's not a very good driver.

I'll play devil's advocate for a moment, although I actually feel Massa isn't #1 driver material either...

If Bottas had a good chance of giving Button a hard time, why was he unable to give Massa a hard time?

[oyster]

Gillett66 said:

Agent Orange said:

Mojocvh said:

"Massa's petulance cost the team the chance of a couple of extra points yesterday."

BS.

Care to elaborate?

I would imagine not, that's based on the fact that Bottas did have a very good chance of at least giving Button a hard time, something Massa managed for 4 corners before promptly giving up and settling for position.

That's why he's not a very good driver.

I agree, he must be rubbish to have lost that world championship by all of 1 point.

[Gillett66]

Bombjack said:

I'll play devil's advocate for a moment, although I actually feel Massa isn't #1 driver material either...

If Bottas had a good chance of giving Button a hard time, why was he unable to give Massa a hard time?

I would say that for Bottas to get on with chasing Button would have required Massa's rapid cooperation. In identical cars (even against Massa) it was a contest the team were never going to encourage in the closing laps.

There's a decent chance Bottas was never going to fight Massa for the place for fear of costing the teams points, I'll admit, relying on the team assistance isn't a good place for a budding F1 driver.

Williams need to be optimising these early season chances, they'll struggle to keep development with the big guns.

[CocoUK]

Gillett66 said:

There's a decent chance Bottas was never going to fight Massa for the place for fear of costing the teams points...

Agent Orange said:

Typical Massa. Only finding pace when he's pushed to.

Agent Orange said:

Massa's petulance cost the team the chance of a couple of extra points yesterday.

I'd say the quotes above pretty much sum it up.

The Williams team have obviously thrown out all sort of lines to play it all down - but the fact is there was opportunity for more points if Massa had played the team game.

Just to add - i'm not a Massa basher!
Everything pointed towards Bottas being faster and if it was not Massa in front i'm sure he would have made a committed move - sadly it was his team-mate & the team didn't do a good enough job to manage it.

Edited by CocoUK on Monday 31st March 11:48

[Agent Orange]

Bombjack said:

I'll play devil's advocate for a moment, although I actually feel Massa isn't #1 driver material either...

If Bottas had a good chance of giving Button a hard time, why was he unable to give Massa a hard time?

That's a very fair point but reading between the lines of the interview Claire Williams gave Sky and chief test and support engineer Rod Nelson's quotes on the BBC, it appears Bottas drove right up behind Massa with the expectation he'd move over straight away to let him through.

Whilst waiting Bottas spent a long time right behind Massa and along with Massa's already high temperatures Bottas's engine temps started to rise too.

So he didn't attack because he understood he'd be allowed to drive past. He then didn't challenge because team orders were then changed to hold station due to both having high engine temps.

[Jasandjules]

Did he get past Massa?

Nope. Now, was Massa not attacking hard because he was

1. Saving fuel
2. Saving tyres
3. Stopping the car overheating?


Then, when ordered to let someone by he might have though "f**k that" and threw caution to the wind to battle for his points.

There is usually more than meets the eye in such circumstances.

[Lucas Ayde]

Bombjack said:

I'll play devil's advocate for a moment, although I actually feel Massa isn't #1 driver material either...

If Bottas had a good chance of giving Button a hard time, why was he unable to give Massa a hard time?

Possibly because one of the worst sins you can commit in F1 is to take yourself and your team-mate out, especially when you are both in the points and it's close to the end of the race.

If Massa didn't want to yield without a fight you can bet that the team will have been yelling down the radio at Bottas not to do anything risky to get past.

[Mojocvh]

Bombjack said:

Gillett66 said:

I would imagine not, that's based on the fact that Bottas did have a very good chance of at least giving Button a hard time, something Massa managed for 4 corners before promptly giving up and settling for position.

That's why he's not a very good driver.

I'll play devil's advocate for a moment, although I actually feel Massa isn't #1 driver material either...

If Bottas had a good chance of giving Button a hard time, why was he unable to give Massa a hard time?

Indeed, he was no-where-near getting by him.

If he HAD such a great advantage in tyre performance he would have been all over the back of Massa's car and it would have been plainly obvious to all watching.

But he wasn't....

[zoomy]

Has anyone thought of the financial side of this?
I don't know but I imagine Massa's contract would be payment per point?
Letting anyone past Massa I would imagine to be a costly experience however from Williams point of view they get exactly the same constructors points and maybe save a few £'s if Bottas car comes ahead??

Food for thought for the conspiracy theory??

[Exige77]

Botas was right up Massa's chuff and tried to overtake.

Massa was on the radio saying "did you see what he did, he tried to overtake me"

Botas was then told not to aggressively attack Massa.

As nice a chap as Massa is, he is at the end of his career and Botas is on the up.

Both races Botas started quite a long way back and drove well to get well in the points.

[DS240]

I'm a Ferrari fan and normally support the drivers whatever.

However I was fed up with massa in the team. He is and always will be a No.2. On rare occasions he shines but he has usually spent his time being slower than his teammates.

How many times has Schumacher or alonso battled all day long and dragged the car into contention and massa would be no where at the end of the race in comparison. He is a moaner.

He was at Ferrari a good 2-3 years too long.

[MGJohn]

Mojocvh said:

"Massa's petulance cost the team the chance of a couple of extra points yesterday."

BS.

Agreed. Probably saved them from losing points. Bottas is a bit of a chopsy chancer. Witness his 'incident' in Aus which was costly for the team. Massa has been unlucky. Not just a suspension spring in the eye, but being under that Spaniard's thumb for all those dreary years would have demotivated a saint let alone a mere man.

The Japanese took him out in Aus ... if anyone is due to be smiled on by Lady Luck on the current grid, Massa is long overdue a change of luck for the better.