Massa: Stupid mistakes can lose the title

Massa: Stupid mistakes can lose the title

Felipe Massa concedes that too many "stupid" mistakes like Ferrari's Malaysian qualifying could ultimately cost the team the World title.

Ferrari, opting like McLaren to use the weather radar rather than looking up the skies, ventured out late in Q1 believing that they would miss the worst of the rain. Instead they caught the worst of it as a second shower hit the track late in the 20 minute session.

The result was Massa qualified down in 21st place while his team-mate Fernando Alonso could only manage 19th.

"There is no point avoiding the subject: our race was pretty much over by the end of the first part of qualifying on Saturday afternoon. In simple language, we made a big mistake, me and the team together," Massa told Ferrari's website.

"It was wrong to trust too much in the weather forecast, thinking it was going to get dryer, especially as it was already raining prior to the start of the session. We ended up on track at the wrong time and failed to get out of Q1 and it is no consolation that we were not the only team to make that mistake.

"It was a stupid strategic mistake really and we must learn from what happened and try not to do it again, because in such a closely contested championship, these are the sort of incidents that could win or lose the title come the end of the year."

The Brazilian, though, did draw some positives from the Sepang race, which he finished in seventh place, taking the lead in the Drivers' Championship from Alonso.

"Even after a difficult weekend like the one just gone in Malaysia, I always try to look on the positive side and although Friday and Saturday free practice showed that the F10 was not the quickest car on the track, in the race, when I was able to run alone and in clean air, the pace was reasonable compared to the Red Bull, which was the winning car," he said.

"Also, when compared to the McLarens, the verdict was quite good. In the early stages, Lewis, who along with Jenson, also joined us down the back part of the grid, was able to pass a lot of cars thanks to having excellent top speed which we were not able to match. However, after a while, I was able to close the gap on him quite easily in the later stages.

"So, I have to say that our race pace is good, but we still need to improve our performance over the single lap in qualifying. That is clear from the fact that Red Bull has been on pole position for all three races so far.

"If we improve this aspect of our package, we will therefore improve even our race performance and that is what we will be trying to do in the coming races."

Ferrari's blunder handed rivals Red Bull Racing the perfect opportunity to claim the 1-2, which they did with Sebastian Vettel leading home Mark Webber.

The team's dominant display led to some saying that Red Bull are now the team to beat, as coupled with their Sepang they would've won the previous two races had it not been for reliability issues.

Massa, though, has downplayed Red Bull's pace, saying he believes Ferrari are not that far off the pace.

"I heard people in Malaysia on Sunday saying that Red Bull was now by far the quickest car and it is true they were in the first two rows of the grid.

"But over a race distance, I believe the story is a bit different and you have to remember that in Sepang, they were racing pretty much on their own as the two teams who would have pushed them hardest, started from so far back.

"You need to keep that in mind when assessing the race. They are definitely not unstoppable, but we need to improve a bit to be in a better position to stop them."

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