Q:
Felipe Massa took third in the drivers’, along with two wins - his first in Turkey and his second at home in Brazil at the season finale. How impressed were you with him? Has he shown what it takes now to go on and win the drivers’ championship?
MB:
He has shown a great deal of progress and his potential is starting to be exploited. But I am not sure yet whether he has got what it takes to fight for a world championship. He is facing something of a difficult scenario now, as in some ways he will be regarded as the team leader, as he has been at
Ferrari for a couple of season’s now and Schumacher has left. So, he will take over the mantle in a way.
But he has also got someone coming into the team -
Kimi Raikkonen - that has got the biggest of reputations in terms of speed and is definitely hungry for a championship. What worries me slightly is that at times Massa makes little mistakes, which are quite costly. We saw that come out at the front end of the season a little bit, which is an element of his career in
F1 so far.
Having said that though, he is definitely calming down behind the wheel and he has definitely made some big improvements. Whether there is the level of confidence there to take him to a championship, we will have to wait and see. Time will tell.
Q:
Were you disappointed with Giancarlo Fisichella’s form?
MB:
His form was a little bit patchy. There were certain times when you felt there could have been more come out of his efforts. But Fisi has sometimes been on the downside of some mechanical issues which have not always gone according to plan for him during a race. He has been around a long time now though and everybody expects a little bit more, in comparison to what is actually going on with his results. I think that is something that he has got to live up to - and only he can do something about that.
Q:
Honda’s
Jenson Button was the only other driver to win a race, when he came out top in a rain affected Hungarian GP. He ended the season by scoring more points than Alonso and Schumacher in the final third of the season. It seems that victory was extremely significant, wasn’t it?
MB:
Yeah it was. It was great how he pulled that win out and it does have an overall effect on what we expect now for the future. I am sure expectations will be as high in his mind though, as they are in ours. Overall a great result, and again that is something that has got to be lived up to and we will have to wait and see if that comes out in terms of results next year.
Q:
Of the other drivers’, there were a number of ‘new boys’ on the grid, including
Robert Kubica and
Nico Rosberg. Were you impressed with both of those drivers’?
MB:
I would have to say the impression with Nico Rosberg was big at the beginning of the season, but as the year went on, it dulled slightly, because he did have a bit of a tough time. Admittedly I don’t think he had the greatest of packages around him and I think he got a bit swallowed up with that. He tried to dig deep and find some resources within himself, but will so little experience in F1 he was always going to find it tough to get out of the rut. That is always going to be a problem for a rookie though, but that is what it is all about.
