Felipe Massa has said that a strategy error by Ferrari cost him a top five finish in today’s Abu Dhabi Grand Prix as the Brazilian driver was forced to settle for eighth place come the checkered flag.
Massa has been running as high as P2 at one point, and he showed good pace throughout the grand prix to lie ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso after the first round of stops. However, a slow second stop saw him fall behind the pair, and he was unable to catch them using the medium compound tire.
“The team made a mistake,” he said. “I didn’t expect to use the mediums at the last stop, I expected to use the softs. I did nineteen laps in the beginning, and then we decided to stop in the last moment, the second time, and I expected to see the soft tires on the car, and I was saw the other one. That was the mistake of my race.”
The purpose of doing such a long first stint was to allow him to finish the race on the soft tire like Fernando Alonso, who eventually finished fifth.
“Without this problem I would have finished easily in the top five. I would have get obviously behind Ricciardo, pass him in two corners, I would be behind Hamilton, I would pass him easily on a different tire, maybe one second quicker with a free track in front. That was a mistake.”
However, Massa rejected the idea of there being anything more sinister behind the error as he prepares to leave Ferrari at the end of the season.
“For sure not,” he affirmed. The team needs bonds, the team needs to score as many points as possible, you would never do that. It’s not really even close to my mind.
“I believe in the team and I will believe until the last moment. But today, the first thing I said: it was a mistake. That’s the thing, we could have scored more points today.”
Massa is still without a seat for 2014, but he is thought to be leading the race to replace either Pastor Maldonado or Valtteri Bottas at Williams next season. Nevertheless, the Brazilian driver will be disheartened that a simple error cost both him and Ferrari valuable points in Abu Dhabi.
Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.
Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.
On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.
One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.
After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.
The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.
Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.
Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports
“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”
Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.
“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”
As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.
But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.
A block pass by Haiden Deegan led to a series of events that eventually led to Jordon Smith failing to make the Main. – Feld Motor Sports
“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.
“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”
Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.
“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.
“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”
The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.
