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Felipe
Massa, who has been part of the Ferrari
family in Formula 1 for ten years and for
whom tomorrow’s Brazilian Grand Prix will be
his one hundredth F1 race at the wheel of a
Prancing Horse car. For this double
celebration there was a gathering in the
Ferrari garage yesterday for the obligatory
cake cutting ceremony, including his family,
his closest friends and the entire team, who
presented him with a piece of bodywork off
the 150° Italia covered in everyone’s
autographs. Alongside Massa was team-mate
Fernando Alonso and Team Principal Stefano
Domenicali, as well as old friends and
colleagues including Michael Schumacher and
Rubens Barrichello, and Peter Sauber the
team boss who gave Felipe his first Formula
1 drive. |
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For Scuderia Ferrari, the
result of the final qualifying session of the 2011
season ended in almost identical fashion to the very
first one: in Melbourne’s Albert Park, Fernando Alonso
qualified fifth and Felipe Massa was eighth, while
yesterday afternoon in Interlagos, the Spaniard again
recorded the qualifying position he has started from
most often this year, nine times in total, while the
Brazilian went one better than back then, which will see
him start from the clean side of the grid. Tyre useage
through the session was as follows: Fernando used two
sets of Medium tyres in Q1, one of Soft in Q2 and two
Soft in Q3, all of them new. After a first run on Medium
in Q1, Felipe went out as a precautionary measure on a
set of Softs, which he then used again for his first run
in Q2. Here he had to make use of a second set, thus
finding himself with just one set of new tyres for Q3,
which led to him opting for just a single timed lap.
The qualifying session saw Red Bull monopolising the
front row, Vettel taking yet another pole ahead of
team-mate Webber. Row 2 features the silver cars of this
year’s silver medal team, the McLarens lining up with
Button third and Hamilton fourth. Mercedes seem to have
found some extra speed and so Rosberg lines up next to
the Spanish Ferrari driver on row three, leaving Massa
to get the benefit of the clean side of the track,
seventh on the grid for his home race, which he has won
twice before. Today, the partisan but knowledgeable Paulista crowd will know that making it a hat trick is
unlikely and will simply expect Felipe to do his best:
no doubt about that as he brings the curtain down on his
first decade in Formula 1 at his one hundredth race for
the Prancing Horse.
Interlagos is no stranger to chaotic wet
races and the weather forecasts are leading the teams to expect a downpour for
today, but the Scuderia crew will have prepared for
every eventuality, as they get ready for the final
curtain call of the season.
Stefano Domenicali: “If the numbers and
the equation are always the same, there is no reason for
them to deliver a different sum! We ended development on
this car several months ago and everything we are doing
now is aimed at next year. In the meantime, we are
trying to squeeze out the maximum from what we have got,
in order to finish this season in the best way we can.
The outcome of that therefore is that today it was
difficult to expect anything more than a fifth place,
don’t you think? Fernando gave it his all on his final
lap, getting very close to the McLarens. Felipe probably
paid the price for having only one set of new tyres left
to run in Q3: if he’d had one more, he would have also
managed to make it onto the third row. We go into this
final race of a very long championship in the same way
in which we have tackled the others: with concentration
and determination aimed at getting the best possible
result. The weather forecast for tomorrow is for a high
chance of rain: in that case, anything can happen and it
will be crucial to react properly to any eventualities
that might arise.”
Fernando Alonso: “My subscription to
fifth place has been extended for one more Saturday!
This time however, getting to my classic starting place
on the grid was a bit more of a struggle than usual. We
are not very pleased with the balance of the car and we
were expecting a very competitive Mercedes. However, in
Q3, we got much closer to the McLarens than we could
have expected, while the first of the Mercedes was left
a few tenths back. What this means is that we managed to
get a little bit more out of it than our potential would
indicate. I certainly can’t say the way qualifying went
was much of a surprise. If it really rains tomorrow, it
will be a very exciting and open race: no one really
knows how competitive they can be in the wet and then it
requires next to nothing – one lap more or less out on
track at a time when the conditions change – to turn
around a situation that looks set in stone. It’s true
that for us, the problem of getting the tyres up to
temperature are more acute in the wet, but then it’s
equally true that when the track does dry, we are
quicker than our rivals: the various stages of the race
at Silverstone demonstrated this to be the case. If
however, we were to race in the dry, then maybe there
will be a lot of stops because today the tyres seemed to
degrade more than yesterday. The perfect recipe for the
last race of the year? The four in front of us stop and
me and Felipe are ahead of the rest!”
Felipe Massa: “I was expecting more
from this final qualifying of the year and I definitely
cannot be happy with this seventh place. Unfortunately,
we were unable to find the right balance throughout the
weekend. In some corners I was locking up the front and
in the slower ones I suffered with understeer, in others
I lacked traction: all in all, the car was rather
difficult to drive. On top of that, it was a rather
complicated day. I had to use two sets of Softs in Q2
and I paid for that in Q3, as I could only do one run.
Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain so the situation could
change. It’s difficult to make predictions on the
relative strengths: this year in the wet, sometimes we
have seen a very strong Red Bull, other times McLaren
have been very quick, but it’s also true that anything
can happen in these conditions. The important thing is
to be prepared for all situations. For me, it’s always a
fantastic feeling racing at this track, in front of my
amazing home crowd: I will try my all to do well and to
finally make it onto the podium at the end of such a
difficult year. It would be a nice way to end my tenth
season in Formula 1 and to celebrate in a worthy manner
my hundredth race with Scuderia Ferrari.”
Pat Fry: “Honestly, there’s nothing
much new to say at the end of the final qualifying
session of 2011. We are aware we have the third best car
in the pack: the consequence of this is that, if nothing
strange happens, then fifth place is the most logical
result. Then, taking into account that we did not manage
to find a perfect balance on the two cars and that here
we have seen a Mercedes very much on the ball, we must
look at this result as a glass that’s half full,
considering the gaps to Fernando of those directly ahead
and behind him in the classification. Felipe had to use
an additional set of softs in Q2, which definitely
penalised him in Q3. Given the weather forecast, we can
expect an eventful race. However, if it is run in the
dry, then it will be interesting to see how the tyres
behave, considering that the track conditions seem to
change significantly even when there is not much of a
big change in temperature. Our aim will be the same as
ever: to fight for a place on the podium, while trying
to help Fernando to reach second place in the Drivers’
Championship.”
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