“Qualifying on Saturday afternoon is of absolute prime importance,” he stressed. “If you look at qualifying in Barcelona, I was pretty strong and able to fight for pole, but unfortunately on my last attempt on new tyres I was unable to put together the perfect lap. I did my best lap on the first run, when Kimi did not and that made the difference. That meant I started third, and for sure that made things immediately more difficult for Sunday.
“If the situation had been reversed I would have had a very real chance of winning. When you have identical cars, a very small difference between your performances on Saturday can make the difference between winning and coming second on Sunday. You can't win all the races, though.”
Whilst also expressing his relief that
Heikki Kovalainen emerged relatively unscathed from his horrific high-speed accident a third of the way through the race, Massa said in his opinion the sport's governing body should examine the construction of the tyre barriers – after the Finn's car became embedded deep within them – as well as the rule that prevents drivers from re-fuelling in the first laps when the safety car has been deployed, a regulation that cost
Nick Heidfeld dear in Barcelona.
“I was very pleased to hear that Heikki was okay after his accident,” the Bahrain winner underlined. “For sure, if you have a failure on the car, there is nothing you can do as a driver. Given how hard the impact was and the fact that he escaped injury means the track safety features were generally the way they should be, and the car stood up very well too.
“The only unusual feature was that the car went under and through the tyre barrier and so did his head. That is a bit scary, and I think the
FIA should look into the construction of the whole barrier system.
