Massa: Hamilton and Bourdais were to blame

Sunday 12th October 2008

Felipe Massa has denied any wrongdoing in the Japanese GP - and blamed both Sebastien Bourdais and Lewis Hamilton for the two controversial collisions he was involved with.

The Ferrari driver, who cut across the chicane to ram the side of Hamilton's McLaren after being overtaken, was given a drive-through penalty for the second-lap incident, but escaped any punishment for his involvement in the collision with Bourdais. Instead, the Frenchman was handed a retrospective penalty, which in turn promoted Massa to seventh place and cut Hamilton's lead to the Brazilian in the World Championship standings to just five points.

Incredibly, despite the weight of evidence against him, Massa insisted that he was not to blame for colliding with Hamilton.

"It was a racing incident," he said. "I was a little bit wide at the corner and he put the car inside while I was outside.

"Then he pushed me a little bit close to the gravel and then I put two wheels on the gravel and he closed in and we touched.

"I was already on the gravel so I couldn't do anything and we touched."

Asked if he felt the stewards were right to punish both himself and Hamilton, Massa replied: "For him yes, for me I am not sure. I had two wheels on the gravel. I could not stop the car and I was on the gravel because he pushed me into the gravel."

The Brazilian also denied any wrongdoing in the incident with Bourdais and instead pointed the finger of blame squarely at the luckless Toro Rosso driver.

"I was turning in the corner and then he hit me coming out of the pits. There is nothing to comment on. For me, he was a little bit too optimistic on the inside and to me it was completely wrong."

In an extraordinary heated exchange with Autosport's Jonathan Noble, Massa then suggested the journalist's viewpoint had been blinded by patriotism when he was asked about his engineers celebrating wildly in the Ferrari garage when Hamilton was shunted into a spin.

"Are you English? Is that your point of view?" he retorted.

After an undeterred Noble pressed him for an answer, Massa commented: "Any time you see a Ferrari ahead of a McLaren, it is a good thing for the team. I am not going to rise to put fire on the gravel. I have a good relationship with Lewis, and I will not do something to destroy something by purpose. That is true."

Your Comments

dezbo1960

"you know what, everytimei logon and se this story i feel obliged to slag massa and ferrari off, and me a grown man, the more i watch the incident the more im convinced of the payroll department of the prancing horse, okay no more bad comments, you didn't do owt wrong phillipe"

dezbo1960

"he was comming out of the pits..the idiot saw him yet took him out..we all knew that as soon as that happend the pound notes were handed out and eh presto..seb gets a penalty..ferrari are no longer a team that race with fairness, they are poor loosers and moan about anyone and everyone..with the F!A on thier side what chance has anyone got"

dezbo1960

"oh shut up you stupid little man, you are a cheat and a fraud and you are allowing the payrole department to fund another world title to your pathetic little outfit, it's such a shame that ferrari have stooped so low, over the years they have had crackin drivers who raced fair and square and wouldn't dream of accepting anything not won on the track,,sadly you go on about shumi but remember what he did to damo and all the other dirty trix..sadly massa is happy to have the stewards decide his fate..along with the gay and dwarf department of the FIA"

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