The 27-year-old may be something of an Istanbul Park specialist – having now stormed to both pole position and victory across the Bosphorus for the third consecutive year – but he is optimistic of going well in the next round in Monaco too, despite the
Scuderia having struggled around the tortuous streets of the Principality in 2007 as chief rivals McLaren-Mercedes were left to dispute the win amongst themselves. Massa has twice finished in the points in Monaco, taking fifth position for Sauber back in 2004 and the bottom step of the rostrum with
Ferrari last year.
“Last year was okay,” he affirmed. “I finished third in Monte Carlo, but
McLaren were very strong there. We have been working a lot on the set-up for Monte Carlo for this year, so hopefully we will have a good car and a good chance to win there as well.
“Having a good weekend would definitely be a good result, even being on the podium as you always want to score as many points as possible. We know Monte Carlo is a track which can be very tricky – especially without traction control – but I am looking forward to being very strong there as well.
“For sure, McLaren was very, very strong [in Turkey] on race pace, but we had a completely different choice of tyres, so maybe we need to wait and see when we have exactly similar conditions, run-by-run. They had a different strategy as well, so we need to wait and see, but for sure, they were very, very competitive there.
“It was a very difficult race actually, and Lewis was pushing me very hard for the whole race. Knowing that he was on three stops, though, it was maybe not so good to fight and risk the car knowing that it was pretty possible to get in front again.
“For sure that was a little bit of help, as he was very strong and I couldn't hold him on the track. When he tried [to pass] I saw him on my inside and I said ‘okay go', and we will see at the next stop how it is going to be. I knew I still had a good chance to win the race as three stops were a little bit optimistic.
