Massa column: Why the US Grand Prix left me with a bitter taste

The United States Grand Prix was one of those weekends that left me with a bitter taste. Together with the Williams Martini Racing team, we worked really well, and a few laps from the end of the race there was a real opportunity to have finished in fifth pace – which would have been a great reward for our efforts.

But let’s rewind a little bit to the middle phase of the race when I was in front of Toro Rosso’s Carlos Sainz by about six seconds.

I came in to the pits for what would be my final tyre change and switched to the medium compound tyres. As soon as I got back out on track, there was a Virtual Safety Car, and Sainz took the opportunity to complete his pitstop – and managed to get out in front of me by five seconds.

All was not lost at that point though, and I tried hard to grab fifth place in the final laps knowing that Sainz on soft tyres would suffer higher degradation compared to my mediums.

Unfortunately my hopes were dashed by Fernando Alonso. A few laps from the end of the race, I arrived at the braking point of Turn 15, and Sainz blocked me a little bit with his braking.

I looked in my mirrors and could see that Alonso was quite far away, so quite calmly I opened up my line for a better exit.

It was a shame then that Alonso tried an impossible move, because if I had not been there he would have ended up off the track. Actually, it was me being there that helped him make the corner because, if you look at the on-board camera, you can see that he clearly comes with locked wheels, we bang tyres and he pushes me off the track.

I lost not only one place, but the collision with the McLaren left me with a puncture. In the end, thanks to an additional pitstop, I finished seventh – but my bitterness did not end at the chequered flag.

I was sure that Alonso would be penalised for the move that clearly cost me – and he even passed Sainz later after running off the track.

We were summoned to the stewards to explain what happened, but even as I spoke to them I noticed the expression of those in the room and I realised they would not take any action.

I don’t understand why they even called me if they wanted to be lenient with Fernando – because they could have done that without me being there.

I accept the stewards decision but personally feel it wasn’t the right call on that occasion. We have spoken many times about the lack of consistency of rulings in F1, and I think this is a good example. It is a shame that it came on a weekend when we did our best as a team. We should have closed in on Force India by six points, and instead we only recovered by two.

Now, we head to the demanding weekend in Mexico, and I really hope that what happened in Austin is not decisive for the constructors’ championship classification.

That would just be a further insult.