Massa: Williams winning the fight to be best of the rest - MotorSportsTalk

Felipe Massa believes that Williams is winning the race to be the ‘best of the rest’ in 2014 behind the all-dominant Mercedes team.

The Brazilian driver has suffered a great deal of hard luck so far this season, with the latest incident seeing him get taken out on the first lap of the British Grand Prix. Across the garage, teammate Valtteri Bottas stormed to second place in the race, and Massa is sure that this proves the team’s position as second quickest to only Mercedes.

“I think so,” the Brazilian said. “Honestly the car was so competitive in the race, so we couldn’t be so competitive in the practice because we changed something on the setup which was not positive, then we went back to the car we had in Austria and the car was competitive in the race – unfortunately not for me because I couldn’t do the race.

“But for sure it was a very positive result for us because it shows the car was the quickest car in Canada apart from Mercedes, and also the second quickest in Austria just after Mercedes, and even here, so I think that’s really positive for us, and I hope we get to Germany and we have also the second quickest team.”

Williams currently sits fourth in the constructors’ championship, trailing Ferrari by just three points. For Massa, this kind of form will put the British outfit in good stead to take the fight to the Italian marque and to second-placed Red Bull, but he did not feel that the test at Silverstone on Tuesday will have contributed to the performance in Germany.

“I think this can be important to recuperate points and put the team in the big fight for the top three positions in the constructors’ championship,” he noted.

“The testing today is a little bit different. The testing today was also trying something, some ideas for the future, maybe even next year, and just doing some laps as well, so I didn’t do so much for Hockenheim but the car shows good pace straightaway so it was good to feel the car like that.”

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In a continuing effort to help fans keep track of the on track action, SuperMotocross is in the process of developing and implementing leader lights for the unified series.

Currently Supercross (SMX) utilizes stanchions in the infield that are triggered manually by a race official. At least two stanchions are used in each race as a way to draw the eye to the leader, which is especially useful in the tight confines of the stadium series when lapping often begins before the halfway mark in the 22-bike field. This system has been in place for the past two decades.

Later this year, a fully automated system will move to the bike itself to replace the old system. At that point, fans will be able to identify the leader regardless of where he is on track.

The leader lights were tested in the second Anaheim round this year. An example can be seen at the 1:45 mark in the video above on the No. 69 bike.

“What we don’t want to do is move too fast, where it’s confusing to people,” said Mike Muye, senior director of operations for Supercross and SMX in a press release. “We’ve really just focused on the leader at this point with the thought that maybe down the road we’ll introduce others.”

Scheduled to debut with the first SuperMotocross World Championship race at zMax Dragway, located just outside the Charlotte Motor Speedway, a 3D carbon fiber-printed LED light will be affixed to each motorcycle. Ten timing loops positioned around the track will trigger the lights of the leader, which will turn green.

SMX’s partner LiveTime Scoring helped develop and implement the system that has been tested in some form or fashion since 2019.

When the leader lights are successfully deployed, SuperMotocross will explore expanding the system to identify the second- and third-place riders. Depending on need and fan acceptance, more positions could be added.

SuperMotocross is exploring future enhancements, including allowing for live fan interaction with the lights and ways to use the lighting system during the race’s opening ceremony.

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