There are several aspects of the Gilles Villeneuve circuit in Montreal that remind one of the “good old days” of Formula 1 and holding the FIA press conference in a tent is certainly one of them! Today, Felipe Massa was one of the six drivers on the panel and the first topic for him was his unfortunate Monaco weekend.
“I am one hundred percent fine,” he reassured the media about his physical condition. “The two accidents looked very similar from the outside but were completely different in their cause. In the first one, I locked up over the bumps, went straight on and hit the guard rail, whereas the second one was down to suspension failure. I did have a slight pain in the neck, which is normal if you have two accidents in two days with the impact going in the same direction, but it was only muscular pain and it’s gone now. And my confidence has not been affected by these incidents.”
After a poor showing in the Principality, it goes without saying that the Scuderia is hoping to return to more competitive form. “This is an important weekend for us,” agreed Felipe. “I hope that everyone, me, Fernando and the team, can do well and fight for the podium again.” Asked if there was a specific reason why he has never got a podium in Canada, the Ferrari man had no simple answer. “I don’t know, there’s no particular reason. Last year I was quick, but had a spin, but I do know I will be trying a hundred percent to change that situation this time!” Perhaps that’s why the Brazilian also struggled a bit to remember a “favourite memory” of Montreal, when asked by a local reporter. “Maybe my fourth place in 2004 with Sauber when I had a good race.”
As a few drops of rain began to fall while the conference was in progress, the topic of the experimental Medium Pirellis was raised, as each driver will have a couple of additional sets of these to test in free practice this weekend. “Rain is forecast for the next two days, so I am not sure how useful they will be!” said Felipe. “Even in the dry, this is a difficult track to use for tyre evaluation, particularly because the grip level increases a lot as the weekend goes on, so it might be difficult to draw an accurate conclusion.” Still on the subject of testing, there was a final question regarding the pros and cons of using simulation versus testing on track. “A simulator is useful, but it is just a simulator,” was the Brazilian’s view. “But with real testing on a track, you always understand better what the car is doing.”