Felipe Massa suffered yet another miserable race at the Circuit de Catalunya earleir today, as the Brazilian driver was struck with a drive-through penalty which demoted him further down the order amongst the likes of Paul di Resta and Heikki Kovalainen. However, the Ferrari driver is adamant that the penalty was not necessary.
Throughout the support races from the GP2 and GP3 Series, many drivers’ were penalized for ignoring yellow flags, including GP3’s Vicky Piria who suffered a 10-place grid penalty on Saturday morning for her respective race. On lap 28, both Felipe Massa and Sebastian Vettel were issued drive-through penalties for ignoring yellow flags.
The reigning World Champion was penalized as his DRS flap was open throughout the yellow flag zone, thus visibly showing the Red Bull driver was not slowing down as the rules stipulate he should’ve. Massa, however, was adamant he didn’t try to overtake anyone, and that he obeyed the rules during the race.
“Today my race was affected by a penalty that I had to take on lap 28.” Explained the Brazilian driver, “Honestly, I don’t think I did anything wrong and I believe it is better to look into the detail of what happened, because I was in the middle of a group of cars and I definitely did not try to overtake anyone. It’s a real shame, because up until then, the race was going well for me and a place in the top ten was comfortably within my reach.”
With Ferrari’s team principal Stefano Domenicali confident that Felipe Massa will fight back at the Monaco Grand Prix, the Brazilian is in desperate need of success. Many drivers’ have been linked to replace the ailing Brazilian driver, and if decent results fail to materialize soon, Massa could find himself without a drive in 2012.
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