last pit of Massa

[ss.vamsikrishna]

any idea on last pit stop of Massa at Japan , was that Ferrari team managament decision or Massa wanted it ..

[axle]

To get him out of the way of Kimi. It was soooo blatent.

[mep]

He was out of fuel.

[DaveKillens]

Oh please. Both Kimi and Massa had enough fuel to finish the race after their third pit stop(s). But as Massa has said, he will do whatever it takes to support Kimi, and in the end, Massa pitted a FOURTH time, lost third, and handed Kimi a podium and one more precious point. Ferrari team tactics at their best, and worst. Ferrari asked a lot of Massa to swallow three points and a trip to the podium in the interests of team tactics, and that's just the way things are in the vicious and cruelly competitive world of Formula One.
Ferrari have locked up the manufacturer's title, and are focused 100% on getting Kimi the best chance possible at the Driver's title.

[Tom]

yarbles, Massa could have oh so easily let Kimi through by 'sliding wide' at a corner and no one would have batted an eyelid. Instead he ran low on fuel (perhaps Ferrari expected a red flag and tried to make sure he was leading when that flag came out?) and that allowed 3 cars through. Ferrari surely would not allow 3 cars to overtake when they could have made 1 look natural.

[modbaraban]

yarbles, Massa could have oh so easily let Kimi through by 'sliding wide' at a corner and no one would have batted an eyelid. Instead he ran low on fuel (perhaps Ferrari expected a red flag and tried to make sure he was leading when that flag came out?) and that allowed 3 cars through. Ferrari surely would not allow 3 cars to overtake when they could have made 1 look natural.

+1 I expected him to move aside.

[checkered]

In some interviews

Todt explained something about the size of their fuel bladder etc. Impossible to tell whether there was anything to it as the team seemed so tactically clueless all through the race it was like anything was possible, starting with the tyre blunder. Fact is, however it came to be, they're very lucky either of their drivers is even within the slightest mathematical chance of a WDC anymore. There must've been about a dozen race events that benefited Ferrari, none of which they contributed to.

I can't avoid the thought, though, that F1 bigwigs knew what they were doing when placing the Fuji GP at this time of year. With an average rainfall of ~350mm for September for the region, such drama was almost a given ... especially as the raceway is situated on a mountainous slope which encourages condensation as the moisture is driven upwards towards cooler air, the localised precipitation can easily be double that. It was interesting, also, how the go-ahead for the quali and race could be issued by moving the medical heliport and closing a local road for ambulance traffic. Such contingency plans at least indicate someone might've seen this forthcoming. Some of the more experienced drivers certainly expressed some doubt whether the race should've been postponed, a visibility of 50m in F1 is as close to flying blind you can get. I guess manchild would've put this somewhat more forcefully.

Rainy races are entertaining and yes, the conditions are same for everybody. But it's one thing to race somewhere where it might rain due to geography (includes most places), and another to take cars that aren't really designed for this to a place where it's more likely to rain than not, and heavily so. I don't know if it rains less in springtime in Shizuoka prefecture but if it does, I'd recommend rescheduling the race accordingly.

[mep]

Indeed it looked strange,
but kimi also did an extra stop after the two ones during safety car.
So it's clear that massa must also be short on fuel, as he stopped at the same time and had a similar amount of fuel.


In this race it would have been the easiest procedure to change positions on track.

By the way hate the game not the players.

This rule is simply stupid.

[Scuderia_Russ]

Lots of drivers were forced to make last ditch stops. He would have just let him past and thus would have avoided losing so many points.

[Rob W]

I have two comments about the race:

1 - Massa seemed to pass someone on the last lap by driving completely off the track? I watched the reply and it seems he did. Surely he can't keep that place?

2 - If every team was told to use full wet tires, and surely the FIA has a way of communicating this and receiving confirmation from every team, shouldn't Ferrari be excluded from the results for ignoring the race director? No-one else gets a second chance when they ignore the set black/white rules and directions from the race director. (E.g. Montoya being black-flagged the other year for exiting the pits as the pit-exit showed a red light)

Rob W

[Tom]

No, Ferrari were shown a black flag with an orange dot.

Black, Red Spot Flag
Competitor with number shown has a mechanical failure and must stop at his pit.

[Tom]

Massa V Vettel http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-Hquirlf7k

Fantastic racing, you can't really penalise either of them as they were both bouncing on and off the track.

[NDR008]

It is so obvious that massa pitted to let kimi through. Ferrari have won the constructors championship and as such had no interest in massa finishing high up in the points. Massa sliding off track or making a mistake was what everyone was expecting to let kimi through, instead Ferrari made it look 'less obvious' by calling Massa in.

Massa was not out of fuel, any belief to that is absolute rubbish.

[Rob W]

No, Ferrari were shown a black flag with an orange dot.

Competitor with number shown has a mechanical failure and must stop at his pit.

That is for on-track discovery/event of mechanical failure and usually for safety.

Ferrari's issue not about a 'mechanical failure' but that they ignored/defied the directions of the race director. The rules say this is an automatic black-flag. Ferrari claim they weren't told about the tires which says to me they did know but thought their 'plead stupid' defense would work - which it did.

Moreso, if Ferrari had in-fact not been told, don't you think they would be claiming bias or screaming blue-murder in public by now? They do it about lots of other things - why are they so quiet on this one?

Rob W

[Tom]

Sorry Rob, thought you were objecting to Ferrari being shown a black flag and not being excluded. I see what you mean but at the end of the day their embarassment for even considering anything other than full wets should serve as punishment enough.