Felipe Massa

Brilliant driver on his day but is he championship material?

In 2008 he proved he was but thats only one occassion, plus that season the Ferrari TBH was a bit quicker and won more races that season. In 2009 he nearly suffered a career ending head-injury and since coming to back to the grid he hasn't really shown that promise he did in 2008.

Don't get me wrong he's a driver i very much like, but i do wonder if he'll be a title challenger again for Ferrari season in season out or if he'll stay at Ferrari much longer?

Whats your thoughts on Massa?
 
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I think its about getting in on the ground floor. If Nasr becomes a super star then they've funded him to get there and have their own amazing marketing tool. Until then its spending money to make money.

With today's economy though that makes less and less sense so the sponsors play it safe and insist on an established name such as Hamilton/Vettel/Alonso/Button/Raikkonen/Massa so they had a marketing play thing.
 
RasputinLives Kimi can consider himself very lucky but that was partly down to two things i) His potential replacements were either too expensive to buy out (and/or) ii) the offer was only for 1 year not really offering some security and time to embed themselves into Ferrari

Back to Massa - I don't see there being the same issues with Williams having to pay to buy a driver out of their contract seeing they are going to be covered by team sponsors like Nasr, they are cheaper options available like Lynn or the pressure from the engine supplier as well possibly
 
Bottas has yet to actually beat Massa all that convincingly. When you award back points lost through bad luck in 2014 the two were extremely closely matched, with Bottas marginally ahead. This was repeated in 2015, with Bottas again only marginally ahead. I doubt this will change all that much for 2016.
 
I am still not convinced by Bottas and this year when the Williams was not as good proves it somewhat.

2016 will be important to both Williams drivers who are at different spectrums of their careers.
 
Both Williams drivers have the unfortunate handicap that they'll be tactically sabotaged by their own team if they look even close to the Mercs. So it's hard to tell who is actually doing a good job or an average one.
 
Maybe not too the extent I make it out but I do believe Williams are very careful not to step on Mercs toes. They are painfully aware that their team has been brought back to life by the grace of Merc's hand and upsetting them could lead them to fall back down where they were.

It's nothing new to F1. It's quite common for teams to be 'very friendly' to their engine suppliers A team and I see that in Williams. I get on their back about it because I think they should aim to win and I Don't think they do.
 
Remember when Perez in a Sauber spun a few years ago in Malaysia when closing on Alonso and the accusations were that he did deliberately because they did not want to upset Ferrari
 
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He's not been helped by Williams unfathomabley standing still while others have made strides forward. That said, between his head injury and then 'faster than you gate' his career was never going to return to his best years.
 
The writing certainly has been on the wall for some time.

Such a shame that he wasn't allowed to win at Germany 2010 exactly one year on from taking a Brawn spring to the head.
 

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