Eurosport - Sun, 06 Jul 15:02:00 2008
Ferrari apologised to Formula One championship leader Felipe Massa after letting the Brazilian down in British Grand Prix qualifying.
Massa, the first Brazilian to lead the standings since the late Ayrton Senna in 1993, qualified ninth for Sunday's race after mechanics struggled to change his car's right rear wheel in the final session.
The delay meant the winner of three races this season, who had also been fastest in Friday practice, did not have enough time to get around the circuit to start a second timed lap before the chequered flag.
"This is definitely not the result we expected nor the one we wanted," said team principal Stefano Domenicali in a statement.
"Problems such as the one that befell Felipe are serious and I am very sorry for him as we prevented him from giving it his best shot.
"We need to understand why our performance, even taking into account all the unknowns regarding the various strategy choices, was not up to our usual standard."
Massa leads BMW-Sauber's Robert Kubica by two points after eight races with Ferrari team mate and world champion a further three adrift.
Raikkonen, winner at Silverstone last year, qualified third and will expect to slash his team mate's lead or overtake him entirely after Sunday's race.
If Massa's hopes of victory appeared to have evaporated, he still had reasonable hopes of picking up some points in what could turn out to be a wet race at Silverstone.
"I think I could have done a good time, maybe not enough to take pole but at least good enough for a place on the front two rows," he said.
"Tomorrow I can definitely expect to be fighting all race long to move up the order and I will do all I can to bring home a good result. But it won't be easy."
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Punky Chips
Massa good in the wet is he, wait until after the race and think beore you talk, the best driver won today a driver who can drive in the wet Monaco was just sightly damp compared today enough said eh!!!!!!
I wish some of you would use a 'spell checker' and read what you write before posting, it really difficult to understand just what it is you are trying to say sometimes, especially when using expletives, if you wish to swear then replace 'one' offending letter with an asterisk and we'll have a better chance of understanding.
As far a the Ferrari/Massa problem...Sh*t happens, but he's a good driver and it's a good car, with rain he still has a good chance of a podium, I can't see Ferrari being stupid enough to scupper their chances of Manufacturers points in order to favour a driver that may or may not be leaving at the end of the season.
I hate to break it to you Peter but you've also made spelling mistakes. 2nd line it should be it's not it, also 2nd paragraph, 1st line, u put "As far a", it should be "as far as". My point being read your own before having a go at other peoples' writing.
I wish some of you would use a 'spell checker' and read what you write before posting, it really difficult to understand just what it is you are trying to say sometimes, especially when using expletives, if you wish to swear then replace 'one' offending letter with an asterisk and we'll have a better chance of understanding.
As far a the Ferrari/Massa problem...Sh*t happens, but he's a good driver and it's a good car, with rain he still has a good chance of a podium, I can't see Ferrari being stupid enough to scupper their chances of Manufacturers points in order to favour a driver that may or may not be leaving at the end of the season.
McLerrari sour grapes !!
Massa is not ther no.1 driver and will not be, even leading the championship. As things are still close they will help Kimi as much as possible to be in front of Massa in order to pic up some points in sundays race and upcomming races.
Ferrari are a great F1 team-guilty
Ferrari have been bending and breaking regulations and issuing team orders of driver priority-guilty !
Ferrari get the preferential treatment because of their history in the sport and financial and political backing in the sport.- guilty
I am starting wondering what's wrong with Ferari and Massa. I don't think ferari gave the best effort to Massa. In my opinion they apply Driver no1 and no 2, in this case Massa is number 2.
It look strange now, remember how many times it happened? This year alone twice, in Canada no fuel pumped to the tank, and now in Silverston they can not fixed the tyre problem before Q3. Sorry for Massa.
I can't believe how blind some people are talking down Felipe Massa...he is an excellent driver, not as good as Senna but certainly no comparison to Barrichelo and he could easily have won either last year or could win this year if Ferrari didn't keep messing things up for him. At this point I'm not even sure it's just a matter of bad luck.. shame on Ferrari anyway. Felipe has helped them a lot and they keep making most of their mistakes on his car...maybe they've given him the second best mechanichs? Don't know, but it's a real shame.
Do not care who wins providing it is not Hamilton and McLaren drop points
massa will never win the championship. it was all a scam by ferarri to let raikonen win.
This latest tyre lost in the pits incident smacks of a match fixing scandal at the Nuerburgring involving a red car a tyre and My Irvine and I think the team was called Ferrari :-)
I seem to remember there being some apology for the @#$% up but none for the lost drivers championship.
I wonder how many peeps lost money on Massa's misfortune and who made money on it ?
Something smells tres fishey to me. I bet Enzo is laughing his socks orf :-)
Goodnews rumours about Ballacks smart move to The Academy have been hears at Vimbledon.
Looks like the weather is going to triumph today if you are going out do not forget your umbrella :-)
Barichello was a better Ferrari driver than Massa. Go Kimi!
Poor Massa. Hope he can still be in the podium in RACEDAY.
rockyfox4u what do you mean a hollow victory? mclaren drivers last year should also be punished for driving a ferrari in that car (ok not alonso since mosley promised him no point reduction if he confesses the spy scandal). and look at the wonderboy lewis hamilton, he had a pretty chance on securing the title in china, even though he couldn't win the race he could win the title. and yet with nobody around, he blew it all by himself. oh and this is the best part, that 2 mclaren drivers are in the top position to win the title at least for the glory of mclaren, but no, kimi won the title! now what do you think, mclaren is not spying anymore. look at their championship. they're even worse that BMW, lying low in 3rd place. and lewis hamilton, last year at this time he had secured a 8-podium in a row, and now, 4 podiums, and 3 failed to make a score, one of it was retiring, with ruining kimi's race. why? because this season there is no ferrari in that car!
I cant beleive there are idiots out there who are trying to blame ferrari when maclaren where proved to be complete and utter cheats last season,and as for siverstone losing the grandprix serves them right!
Just wondering why people are so bias regarding Ferrari apologising to Massa, their own drivers and their own family business?
Ferrari has in the past apologise to Schumi and their drivers when the team mistakes. It is a family business. Has nothing to do with other team, so just shut up and race.
Is has not nothing to do with Mclaren or LH. Mclaren brought the penalty on themselves last years for refusing to admit they had the secret information from ferrari and tested using them. Plain cheating. Period. LH loses his championship by his own rookie mistake in the final 2 races. Nothing to do with Ferrari. Period.
@a.bice & rockyfox4u: pathetic comment
"Erm massa hasn't blown anyone away with his performances he has been ordinary and lucky"
ARE YOU KIDDING!?!?! He's always been treated as the step-child at Ferrari, and has never once complained, and delivered when the team's needed him. They won the 2007 constructors title by 103 points! Kimi didnt do that all by himself.
He's finished 3rd and 4th respectively in the past two years in the driver's championship, and leads now! Its not by accident and its not luck. Compare those to Ruben's final two years in Maranello, where he finished 2nd (in the ridiculous F2004, the absolute most dominate F1 car we will ever see) and then in '05 he finished 8th. And that was with the freebie 2nd place finish in the US GP.
Rubens in 5 years at Ferrari won 9 times and had 13 poles. In 2 1/2 years, Massa has 8 wins and 12 poles.
I can't help feeling that if it had been a Mclaren driving around the circuit with a flapping piece of exhaust that might at any second fly off and kill someone in the crowd or the driver behind... they would have been penalised.
Ferrari did not pass on information one of their employees did McLaren should have not accepted it . Lewis Hamilton And Alonso were lucky they was not disqualified too
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