Massa gets creative

Felipe Massa has been doing a lot of thinking over the winter judging by some comments he made on the official F1.com site in an interview today.

Massa thinks that the races are too long and boring and also that teams and drivers should make more of testing, make it more of a spectacle and encourage crowds and sponsors to come along. The unspoken part of this is that he would like to do more testing miles during the season as, like many people, he feels that the ban on testing from the first GP to the end of the season is not a great idea.

"I have some ideas that maybe the race can be slightly shorter, because in the last 15 laps nobody really cares about the race any more, " (mmm...what about Brazil last year, Felipe?)

"And as we have seen that Friday is not so important for the show, we could extend the Saturday morning a bit and take away the Friday altogether. In addition to that, we could do two, three or four (test) sessions during the season - not together but separately - and make a ‘testing championship’ and the winner could take a bonus for the championship. Like that, you could have a lot more sponsors following the testing, and of course more media. Maybe we could have a nice practice in the morning and a big qualifying (type session) in the afternoon. I think if everybody gives his opinion and brings together some good ideas, we could make a good championship all together. "

Having opinions and bringing ideas to the table is precisely what the Formula One Teams Association has been doing and they will report their findings tomorrow at a press conference I will be attending. Autosport is saying that we will be treated to an overview speech by FOTA president Luca di Montezemolo and then speeches on the technical side form Ross Brawn, the sportng side from McLaren boss Martin Whitmarsh and the commercial side from Renault boss Flavio Briatore ("I belieeeeve we need bring down cost, make more show..." and so on.)

Back to Massa, he did a long interview with Donald McRae in the Guardian newspaper yesterday, where he got all poetic while reflecting on how he lost the world championship in the final kilometre of the season.

"When I won I didn't know what to believe. Was I champion or not? I knew something unpredictable was going to happen. It was like I was in a big bubble. I was driving around the track and I could see people were screaming and jumping up and down. But I was not quite sure what it means. It was very unreal. It was insane.

"This is very difficult to put into words. It was a mess. No one knew what was happening. And then suddenly Rob came on the radio to say, 'Hang on, Hamilton is challenging Glock.' And then Hamilton was past. But even as he said it the message from Rob was not 100% clear.

"And then he told me. It was over. Hamilton was fifth. For me the only thing that mattered was that I had lost the championship. So, the frustration comes out of me, and the tears. I am crying inside my helmet – because I lost while winning one of the most special races ever, in my home town."

"I went out and got pissed – in the circumstances what else are you going to do?"

It's impossible not to like Massa, who elsewhere in another interview has also stated that he is the reference point for the Ferrari team now. He's double hungry now, after what happened last season, but there are those within the Ferrari team who think that what happened to Kimi last year was an anolmaly and that he will be stronger this year. That line of thinking has Massa falling backwards, unable to live with the surge of Raikkonen.

That particular dynamic will be fascinating and with Lewis Hamilton now a Schumacheresque undisputed number one at McLaren, it will be interesting to see how the two teams handle their drivers tactically.

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