Luca Baldisserri, Ferrari Sporting Director isn’t happy. He says Ferrari could have easily finished one - two in Turkey if Felipe Massa kept Lewis Hamilton behind him for a couple of more laps. Lewis Hamilton caught and passed Massa on lap 23 in a much lighter car. Later of course Massa re took the position.

I’m not sure Baldisserri really knows how much faster a car is when light on fuel. After watching the pass a few times, Massa didn’t fight to the death over the position, but did keep his line as long as he should have before giving in to Hamilton and his faster car.

After the pass, Lewis Hamilton who was on a 3 stop strategy was 7 laps through his 16 lap session. That meant that he had 22 kilos of fuel left. Felipe Massa was only 4 laps into a 21 lap session and therefor his car had 48 kilos left. That’s 26 kilos more than Lewis Hamilton. That means that Hamilton is just about 9/10ths of a sec per lap faster than Massa. That’s just about a full second and in F1, that’s a lot faster.

Short of blocking Hamilton or maybe taking too many chances, he couldn’t hold Hamilton up. Massa was out to win the grand prix and compromising that position by continually defending against a faster car that in the end would not challenge him for the win is never a good idea.

Felipe Massa has turned his season around after 2 retirements in the first 2 races and up to now, but despite this turnaround (a turnaround where he has been better than Raikkonen over the last 3 races) his performance and results are pushed aside in favor of criticism.

Last 3 races:

Raikkonen

2, 1, 3 - 24 points

Massa

1, 2, 1 - 28 points

Fact is, Ferrari is all about Kimi Raikkonen and not Felipe Massa. I’m not suggesting Massa is becoming a better racer than Raikkonen, but he has out driven Raikkonen in the last 3 races.

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