During the F1 tests at Monza last week, I was fortunate to be able to spend some time chatting to Felipe Massa about the challenges that driving at Monza present.

Geoff Collins: Felipe, thanks for taking the time to talk to me. What I'd like to do is ask a few technical questions, taking a lap of Monza as the starting point. The first thing I noticed when I arrived this morning was that the track appears very much narrower than at circuits like the Nürburgring or Turkey where you raced last weekend. Is that a problem?

Felipe Massa: It's not really a narrow circuit; it's more the speed that makes the difference here. And it's the only low downforce circuit that we race at. At Spa and Canada maybe we run with quite low downforce, but here there's even less.

GC: And the speed also makes it seem slightly narrower?
FM: Yes, although the main problem is that there is really only one line at most of the corners, and especially at the first and second chicanes.

GC: Obviously at the first chicane you're braking really hard and a lot of people have been locking the inside front wheel today - is that a big problem?
FM: The problem is that as we're running so little downforce, the car feels very light. We're braking very hard, reducing speed from about 360 km/h down to 120 km/h in quite a short time.

GC: How far away from the corner are you hitting the brakes.
FM: It's round about 120m away from the chicane. We get most of the braking done and then start to turn in, we get a bit of oversteer, release the lock and get back on to the throttle before the second part of the chicane.

GC: The first race I ever saw you in was for Euro F3000, here back in 2001 which you won quite comfortably. Can you remember where you were braking in those cars?
FM: It's not that different really, probably around 150m but the big difference is the speed that you reach on the straight in an F1 car.

GC: When you're talking to your engineer, do you split all corners into three sections, even tight ones like the chicane?
FM: Yes, we talk about braking and entry, mid-corner and exit. At the first chicane we turn less under braking than we do, for example at the Lesmo, where as we add more lock we increasingly come off the brakes. Then on the exit we're on the throttle as we're reducing lock. At the first chicane, you need to get the car straight before applying the power.

GC: But aren't the sectors in a corner like that very short?
FM: Yes, but as you get more experienced in driving an F1 car you become more able to describe the difference. It's quite easy to say whether the car is oversteering on entry, understeering mid-turn and then not having enough traction on the exit for example.

GC: OK, after the chicane you're into the Curva Grande, which appears to be completely flat now?
FM: Yes, it's not a difficult corner.

GC: If they removed the chicane and added a large run-off area there, would it become an interesting corner again?
FM: No, I don't think so, not very. We're already doing 300km/h through the corner and without the chicane we'd probably be going only 50km/h faster so it wouldn't be too hard.