Planet-F1

Bourdais: Show a little respect, Massa

Sunday 12th October 2008

Sebastien Bourdais launched a scathing attack on Felipe Massa's driving after he was handed a retrospective penalty for a collision with the Ferrari driver in Japan.

The Toro Rosso driver made contact with Massa when he rejoined the track after his pit stop on lap 50. The Japan stewards found that Bourdais was to blame for the incident and handed him a 25-second penalty.

The decision means Bourdais drops from seventh to ninth in the classification while Massa moves up a place to seventh.

Frenchman Bourdais believes Championship contender Massa should've showed him a little more "respect".

"For me it's very clear. Yes, I exit the pits, yes I'm supposed to be careful and I was," he said. "I stayed inside and I didn't push him out, I didn't overshoot the corner.

"I did everything I could not to run into him and he just squeezed and turned and behaved like I didn't exist, like I wasn't there. What am I supposed to do?

"I've been in this position many, many times and I never had any incidents. It's just a little bit of respect, you give each other room and then everything goes right, but if you don't for sure it's going to be an incident."

Bourdais says he was surprised by Massa's antics as he took a few unnecessary risks.

"You've got everything to lose and nothing to gain. He was going to pit in three laps, I was ahead of him and he was going to finish behind us anyway. Why would you even think about doing something like that? I don't understand."