Felipe Massa has hit back at those who claim he does not possess sufficient consistency to be able to challenge for the
Formula 1 World Championship, insisting that regular points-scoring will be the key to success at the end of the campaign.
The Brazilian has triumphed twice in 2008 to-date – in Bahrain and Turkey – and indeed would be leading the drivers' title chase were it not for having thrown second place into the gravel trap in Malaysia. He has out-qualified defending world champion team-mate
Kimi Raikkonen four times to one, including setting pole position in both Sepang and Istanbul, and is the best qualifier of the season to-date, with an average starting position of 2.2.
“I'm right in there in the fight,” Massa underlined after triumphing in the Turkish Grand Prix at the weekend. “If you look at the past races, Kimi won one, I won the next one, Kimi won again and I won this race.
“For sure it's always very tight [and] the competition is very high, but after some races I feel I can be competitive everywhere and I'm just happy to reduce the gap a little bit, being similar to Lewis [Hamilton] and just concentrating on the next races.
“We know that sometimes you can win, sometimes you cannot win, but you need to score points like Kimi did [in Istanbul]. It's important to be competitive and then in the last three races you're going to see who is going to have the greater chance to win, but it's important to be consistent and to try to get a lot of points race-by-race, even if it's first or third or fifth, whatever.”
