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F1: No Chance to Race the McLarens, Says Massa
Written by: Adam Cooper
RACER Magazine   http://www.racer.com/speedtv
06/16/2007 - 07:00 PM
Indianapolis, Ind.
 
Massa knows it will take a breakthrough to get him off the nest-in-class postition against the McLaren drivers. (LAT photo) ยป More Photos

Felipe Massa says that Ferrari will have to work hard to catch McLaren over the rest of the 2007 season.

Massa finished third at Indianapolis, and while Ferrari appeared to be closer than in the last two races, the gap was still significant. In the last part of the race Felipe was pushed hard by teammate Kimi Raikkonen, who had gone on to the preferable softer tire while Massa was still on the medium.

"Yeah, there was big pressure," said the Brazilian. "Kimi was on different tires than me and for sure he had better grip, better track grip as well at the end of the race. So he was very much able to close the gap. But for sure you know, I did a good start, he didn't. I could manage to make a good gap there.

"And then he got close, but it was after the last pit stop. So then it was good, I managed to keep the car on the track, not making mistakes and just keep him behind.

"Kimi didn't have a new set of softs, so he didn't want to start on the scrub set of soft because maybe he'd lose grip on the start, then he would start on the new hard. But I think looking at the start, I didn't see it, but I saw that he lost some places so maybe it was not the right choice. But in the end of the race he was very quick, so it was very difficult for me to keep him behind
because he had better tires, but it was good to finish third.

Massa admitted that it was impossible to race the McLarens.

"In the first stint I was maybe a bit closer but they were pulling away the gap slowly, lap by lap, making three-tenths quicker and everything, and then he was difficult for me to follow. So they just created the gap, especially Lewis was going away quite quickly. And my car, I couldn't push so much because I started sliding around. Then I just saw them going away. So it was for sure quite difficult for us to beat them today. But it's good to finish third and fourth."

He says that the team expected to regain lost ground in the coming races.

"Well, I hope so. We are going to work, for sure, a lot these two weeks to try to improve the car. To try and understand what we couldn't make and McLaren could. I think that is the best way to approach the next weeks. Working very hard."



Catch up on the latest in NASCAR each month in RACER. Ben Blake relates Jeff Gordon's reflections on passing Dale Earnhardt Sr. in wins in our July issue, on sale now.