Felipe Massa was both frustrated and surprised at having seen his ‘great lap' pipped to pole position by chief
F1 World Championship rival
Lewis Hamilton at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend, as
Kimi Raikkonen's unbeaten run in the race came under threat on what would turn out to be a far-from perfect day for
Ferrari.
Massa is undoubtedly the in-form man at this stage of the season, having dominated the last two grands prix, and he would indeed be leading the title chase now had it not been for his costly retirement from the lead in Hungary with an agonising late-race engine failure. He did not, certainly, expect to be beaten by a
McLaren this weekend.
“I did a great lap, but it was not enough to be on pole position,” the Brazilian reflected afterwards. “Today we lacked a bit of speed compared to our main rivals, but the race is very long and, over a distance, we know we can be very competitive and therefore we are capable of fighting for the win.
“The start? It will be difficult to do a repeat of Budapest, especially as the start-line straight is shorter than at the Hungaroring. Then, we will have to see what the various strategy choices are and, obviously, how the weather evolves. If it was to rain, the race could be turned into a lottery.”
Despite the engine in his F2008 being newer than that of Massa and therefore in theory faster, defending F1 World Champion Raikkonen still could not match his team-mate around the longest circuit on the sport's calendar, as he lines up directly behind the sister car in fourth place – and looking increasingly unlikely to retain his unbroken record as the winner of the Belgian Grand Prix on every occasion since 2004. Only multiple world champions
Michael Schumacher and
Ayrton Senna have matched the Finn's achievement of triumphing in the race on three consecutive occasions.
