04/02/2018
NEWS STORY
Felipe Massa took the diplomatic option in response to Lance Stroll's claim that the Brazilian veteran gave him no assistance or mentoring during his rookie season.
Taking to social media, the Brazilian, who contested 269 Grand Prix over the course of a 15 season career, tweeted "better not to comment" along with a couple of 'face screaming in fear' emojis.
The comment was in direct reaction to Stroll's claim that he had received no guidance "whatsoever" from the Brazilian during his rookie season.
"I don't think I had any guidance from him last year, whatsoever," Stroll told Motorsport.com. "He was a teammate like any other," he continued. "He was busy trying to drive as fast as he could, and I was trying to drive as fast as I could. That was it. There was nothing more to it than that.
"I don't know why people seem to think there was a coach or a mentor thing going on," added the Canadian teenager. "There wasn't, it was just him doing his job and me doing mine, and whoever did it better finished ahead.
"Whether my teammate is someone with fifteen years' experience or someone of one year's experience, my approach doesn't change."
Of course, with his father having spent many tens of millions in 2016 on an F1 test programme that saw Stroll carry out race weekend simulations on a number of tracks he would race on in 2017, and further simulations throughout his rookie season on circuits he was unfamiliar with, one has to wonder how much mentoring the youngster really needs.
For his part, Massa said on several occasions in 2017 that working with the Canadian rookie reminded him of his own apprenticeship with Michael Schumacher at Ferrari.
While denying he received any help from Massa, who was appointed President of the CIK/International Karting Commission in December, Stroll suggests that the addition of Robert Kubica to the team, will be beneficial.
"Robert can be a big help for sure," he said. "Felipe was a good help in that way of helping the team develop with the new regulations, and Robert can definitely help us.
"He seemed to have a good understanding of what the problems were with the car," he said of the Pole's outing in Abu Dhabi, "we got some feedback from the Renault he drove in Hungary. So that was good, I can think we can use him and integrate in the team to help us get further up the grid."