30/09/2008
FEATURE BY STUART GARLICK
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There are some who believe that Felipe Massa should not be in the 2008 title hunt. That somehow the Brazilian has lucked-into the best car on the grid, and that, if not for Kimi Raikkonen's inexplicable loss of form, Massa would be playing his natural role in life, that of back-up.
Maybe it is the cheesy grin, the overt need to be liked, the earnest, matey, banter, making him look like a bit of a walkover. Maybe Massa-sceptics have been reviewing the five spins at Silverstone, in a confidence-sapped wet-weather performance reminiscent of Damon Hill lousing up his 1996 Spanish Grand Prix. Spa 2008, in which Massa was awarded the victory in spite of never being a contender for the lead, proves that Massa is by no means the foremost rainy-day performer of his generation. And the true greats have always been masters of inclement weather. But that should not mean Massa cannot have a place in our hearts.
Ferrari again conspired to steal defeat from the jaws of victory in Singapore. A team which seemed so well-drilled that nothing could go wrong under Ross Brawn now seems chaotic. Massa had been faultless after starting the race well. His strengths lie in new circuits and street circuits, and Singapore is both of those. He knew what he had to do, he would have been encouraged by the pre-race chat with his engineer, Rob Smedley, and the start he got was a rocket. Who was going to win this one? Massa, fair and square, it seemed. Just as in Turkey and Bahrain, he had this one nailed. Like the very best Scalextric driver, he kept to the racing line, kept his pace consistent, let others confuse themselves over things such as strategy. All was going according to plan until catastrophe struck. One can bet that McLaren would never release a car from the pits with the fuel hose still attached.
That kind of occurrence is becoming all too frequent at Ferrari, and it is hard to be sure that the almost limitless tiers of management currently in place at Maranello know how to prevent the same difficulties from re-occurring. Ferrari, of course, has previous in the respect of panicking under pressure in 2008; it was the way Massa and Ferrari were let off with a fine for "unsafe release" in the pits in front of another driver which ignited the debate about the way in which Ferrari and other teams were treated by the FIA. Going back further, Raikkonen was given a drive-through penalty at Monaco because his team had not fitted his tyres with three minutes to go until the start of the Grand Prix. Management don't fit the tyres, but they can create a culture that either inspires or frustrates staff.
If Massa and, it could be argued, Raikkonen, were operating under the Schumacher-era Ferrari organisation, maybe they could have more confidence that it was possible to concentrate on driving alone, as all other issues were being dealt-with. As it is, the succession of blunders seem to imply a lack of the level of attention to detail prevalent when Schumacher and Brawn ruled over the team. F1 drivers, like other sportsmen, are singular beings, and will respond best if they know that all they have to do is turn up and do their job to the best of their ability. Although neither driver has said as much, failure outside of a driver's control, whether it is mechanical or team failure, can spread the seeds of doubt. If Massa had not been allowed to leave his pit with the fuel hose attached, he probably would have won, and would have a Championship lead to take to Fuji. As it is, it's catch-up time again.
To a certain extent, Massa suffers from an image problem amongst F1 fans and media. This might explain why there are still people who doubt that he is World Champion material, even when he is only seven points behind Lewis Hamilton with three races to go. When he first joined Sauber in 2002, he was exciting, but also ragged and unpredictable, so much so that the team dropped him from the race line-up for the ever-reliable Heinz-Harald Frentzen for 2003. Although the likes of Vittorio Brambilla had lengthy F1 careers in spite of being "crashers", because teams trusted them to produce the occasional extraordinary result, it is much more difficult to justify that kind of patience with an unruly driver in the modern, corporate era. Takuma Sato's employment with the "works" Honda team ended for that reason; few drivers are lucky enough to have a satellite team formed around them in the manner of Super Aguri and Sato subsequently.
When Massa was first chosen for promotion to the Ferrari race team alongside Schumacher, focus was drawn to his management contract with Nicolas Todt, the son of the then team principal at Ferrari, Jean Todt. And amid the rumour and hearsay when Schumacher retired, there was speculation that Massa's management links might have been key in allowing him to remain as Raikkonen's team-mate in 2007. The constant carping about why Massa got the gig in the first place seems to have obscured, to a certain extent, the fact that Ferrari hired a sharp, tough racing driver.
It is noticeable that although Raikkonen's descent into the ordinary over the past four to five races has drawn headlines, they generally focus on some kind of implied professional issue which must be making Kimi slower (typical pop-psychological example cited: "he's probably a bit upset because he might have heard Ferrari has signed Fernando Alonso for 2009"). When Massa clashed with David Coulthard in Melbourne (prompting the funniest driver interview of 2008), and followed that by spinning off at Sepang, the focus amongst commentators was on his diminished ability to control an F1 car without traction control. With Kimi, it seems there is always a good, solid reason. With Felipe, a raft of people say that he is just plain not good enough.
The point is this. Massa has been sent to the dustbin of F1 opinion for as long as he has been an F1 driver, but has shown the talent and ability to learn to pull himself out and dust himself off. Although not the polished "product" many would like, Massa is immensely quick, but also a man who listens to input from others, and has the intelligence to know he is not the finished article. True, he has benefited from assistance from Michael Schumacher, but many people would not have asked advice of a former World Champion, Raikkonen being an example as he tried to create clear distance between himself and Schuey. By listening and learning, Massa has changed from decent backup on his day into someone who can lead a team from the front.
Massa is a natural entertainer, someone Formula One is crying out for. He may have flaws in his game, but in this respect, he is an heir to a proud dynasty of lovable buccaneers. Jean Alesi, Nigel Mansell, Jacques Villeneuve, Hunt; none of these drivers were the outstanding natural talent of their era, but they provided enough enjoyment for fans to still be espousing their talents years after their retirement. Gilles Villeneuve cannot be ranked with those men as he was the leading talent of his generation. His downfall was Massa's blessing: he drove a Ferrari, then more poisoned chalice than vintage Chianti.
The same could possibly be said for Alesi. During an awesome one and a half seasons with Tyrrell between 1989 and 1990, in which he provided an engaging alternative story behind the Senna-Prost rivalry, Alesi looked like a future World Champion. In the first Grand Prix of 1990, the US Grand Prix at Phoenix, in spite of driving the previous year's Tyrrell 018, he led Ayrton Senna's McLaren for much of the race. Coveted by Williams to race alongside Riccardo Patrese in 1991, Alesi instead chose to join Ferrari, presumably following his heart. For many, this was the defining moment of his career. After that, people admired Alesi for driving the wheels off unwieldy Ferraris, in a startling show of commitment. It was great to watch, but did little for his career. Especially since many saw him winning titles.
Jean Alesi never got the car required to win the World Championship. Forget Hamilton's "lost victory" in Belgium, a greater Formula One injustice is that the talent which became evident at Tyrrell should only manage one win in F1 by the time of his retirement from the category in 2001. He raced on in DTM, to sometimes spectacular effect, also winning the Speedcar championship in the Middle East in 2008, but it was never the same for his fans. Having Felipe Massa in a position to compete for the world title does not make up for the way in which Ferrari failed to capitalise on Alesi's talent, but it goes a long way. When I see Massa, in a car set-up perfectly for him, on a perfect lap like that which won him pole in Singapore, I see Alesi. And then I wonder what the boy from Avignon with the Stallone chin and a grand sense of the possible would have done with such tremendous equipment. In my eyes at least, Felipe Massa is aiming to win the title as compensation for all those entertainers who missed out.
Stuart Garlick
stuart@pitpass.com
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