Massa - Last Season in F1?

[Agent Orange]

Cards on the table - I don't rate Massa and never have done. This season though he's been going on of his way to prove my some what bigoted view.

For the most part of his career he's been beaten by his team mates but this year Botta's seems in a different league to him.

He's often gotten into tangles but again this year forever tripping over others or through qualifying mistakes placing himself amongst slower cars at the start of a race. Seems most of the incidents where he genuinely wasn't to blame he shouldn't have been there in the first place. And same old Massa it's ALWAYS someone else's fault.

People talk of his consistency but the only consistency I see is his ability to blame everyone else.

So what am I missing? What is it he brings, other than Brazilian money, that makes him worth retaining? I cannot see it.

[Agent Orange]

thatguy11 said:

Bottas may be outperforming him on track but it's at the factory where Massa's value and experience is really being felt, helping to develop the car and drive the team forward. I'm expecting them to be even stronger next year.

Massa has had a fair bit of bad luck. The Hockenheim retirement was his fault, but he was blameless in his Australia, Canada and Silverstone retirements. Plus he's still got fantastic pace on his day, he's been very solid in qualifying, not to mention grabbing the only non-Merc pole so far this year.

This is exactly the view I've never understood about him.

I don't buy the bad luck tag. If you go back through his career retirements those that people believe were bad luck usually have some sort of incident completely under Massa's control preceding it. ie. out of place on grid due to under performing in quali, off track incident just before component failure etc. Granted though I'd be hard pressed to make him responsible for Rubens shock.

Equally fantastic pace on his day. This is the Massa trait that gets me the most. When pushed, when seemingly he's absolutely at the last chance saloon he pulls out some pace only for it to disappear as quick as it arrived. Usually around contract time.