Felipe Massa has insisted he will put his nightmare weekend at
Silverstone firmly behind him – after encountering problems from the first day of practice right through to the end of the race.
The Brazilian went into the British Grand Prix meeting in control of the
Formula 1 World Championship standings, but he left again having to share that lead with
Ferrari team-mate
Kimi Raikkonen and McLaren-Mercedes' dominant race-winner
Lewis Hamilton, after crashing on Friday, seeing his qualifying efforts hampered by a stubborn wheel nut on Saturday and spinning no fewer than six times during the rain-lashed race on Sunday as an abject performance brought the curtain down on three days he would rather forget as soon as possible.
“This Silverstone weekend is one to be wiped out,” the 27-year-old underlined. “On Friday I had an accident, yesterday there was the problem in qualifying and today a series of mistakes at all levels. We have to look ahead, because there is still a very long way to go in the championship, and once again we've seen that it only takes one result to turn the situation around.
“After nine races I am in the lead in the classification, and I have every chance to fight for the title all the way to the end. Today, I could hardly keep the car in a straight line and it was always very difficult to drive. Only after the last pit-stop did things improve a bit, but by then I was a long way back. We have to do a good job in the forthcoming Hockenheim test to be as well-prepared as possible for the German Grand Prix that takes place on the same track.”
Massa's thoughts were echoed by the
Scuderia's team principal Stefano Domenicali and technical director Luca Baldisserri, both of whom stressed that such mistakes as had been allowed to happen on British soil – seeing Ferrari concede nine points to
McLaren and three to BMW-Sauber on the former's home turf – must not be allowed to happen again.
