MASSA Intends To Bid For 2008 WDC

I was never on Massa's bandwagon if you mean me. However, if he finishs in the top 3, I will eat crow. As long as Ferrari wins the best. I just happen to have been with Andreas and Ted from last year rooting for Kimi as I feel that he and Alonso are the two best F1 Drivers in the business. Unfortunately the best driver (MS) is no longer racing. Regardless, cheers anyway.

 

Bzzt. Massa finished ahead of JV in Saubers.
(Cue the "JV was a washed up has-been" responses.)

Repeating the mantra isn't going to make it so, in either direction. Massa's driving speaks for itself. Some people are just hard of listening.

Ask yourselves: If you're all that sure that Massa will never be WDC, why do you have this overwhelming need to keep saying so, over and over and over? (Like the little kid under the covers, chanting, "I don't believe in ghosts"...)

I, for one, thought Massa had a pretty good year in '07. Not a perfect one -- but then: who did?

Between Kimi and Massa at Ferrari, I think that McLunk and Renault (if they're lucky), with their designated "get out of the way" drivers, will be fighting with BMW for 2nd in the WCC. Even without a top car, BMW at least has two drivers who can collect WCC points without tripping over their egos.

Kimi and Massa can both take races without throwing things at each other. That's an optimum situation for a team, from where I sit.

'08 has the potential to be good --- if Max and the FIA micromanagers can keep their fingers out of it and let the racers race.
(Fat chance, with the hackmeister special ECUs in place.)

 

Massa...flickers of brilliance here and there, but not a single iota of putting that brilliance into a race and using it to his advantage race after race. Last year, Ferrari was gifted the WCC via the Spy Saga....if left alone, Ferrari would have lost the WCC and that loss falls upon Massa's shoulders, and Massa's shoulders alone.

Coming in fourth in a #1 car cannot be excused.

Despite his speed, he chokes, fails to perform unless the planets align just perfect and whatever. He is not good enough nor is he consistent enough to merit a drive with Ferrari or even Toyota or Honda or Aguri. He is middling at best and that the planets aligned in his favor speaks more of the pull of the Todt family name than Massa's rubbish racing CV give testament to. He is Ruben's all over again, but without Rbue's ability to bring home a WCC.

Massa is Jos Verstappen, but with more money and better connections.

 

News flash, Einstein:

Heidfeld finished right behind Massa in the point standings despite driving a markedly inferior car. Massa has a Ferrari, the best car on the grid, and all he does is barely finish ahead of the BMWs, well behind the 3 other race winnign cars.

Put Heidfeld and Massa in the same car and even Massa's father would admit that Massa would get buried...again.

 

OK, apparently I have to spell this out for you, since you are clearly the only one on the board who does not get the difference between relative and absolute comparisons.

1) When I say that Massa is untalented, it is a RELATIVE comparison as I am comparing him RELATIVE to his competition in F1.

2) When I say that you have absolutely no uderstanding of F1 it is an ABSOLUTE comparision as you have ABSOLUTELY no idea what you are talking about.

 

Oh really?

And on what basis are you making that statement?

Other than your demonstrably naive and ill-informed opinion?

 

No, but the fact that I have been racing since the late 1980s and following F1 since the early 1970s might have something to do with it...

 

The bottom line is this:

There are some people on this forum who have always thought Kimi was a talented driver. I was supporting him in the beginning of the season when he wasn't doing well, even when others were saying he is a drunken fool who has no talent. Other folks are Ferrari-blind. These folks previously hated Kimi because he was the best driver at the best team behind Ferrari. Kimi very nearly won 2 WDC's, one of them against Schumi in the Ferrari, and that made him despised here. For those blind folk, it takes a while to accept Kimi is a Ferrari driver now and there is still a lot of angst towards him.

Likewise, Massa is often given a free pass because he's a nice guy and drives for Ferrari. He never was anything resembling a competitor to Schumi at his previous teams and never had any game on track for Rubens or Michael, so by default he's liked.

So a lot of folks like Massa and dislike Kimi and that translates into their feelings that Massa is a WDC-caliber driver and Kimi was just lucky. Massa has improved, no doubt - but he just doesn't have the natural talent that Kimi, Alonso, Hamilton and others have. The car is 80% of it, the driver 20%. A great driver in a crap car is what you get 2 years back when Schumi almost beat Alonso for the WDC. A mediocre driver in a crap car can't come close to hanging, which is how Massa performed that same year. Thats the difference between mid-pack and leader of the pack.

The Ferrari was a great car in the beginning last year, it struggled mid-season and was the top car again at the end. That mirrors Kimi's driving - I think it took him a while to adapt to the car which I am surprised about, but he's still by FAR the best F driver and that's why he won the WDC and Massa was a distant 4th.

 

Actually I was thinking a similar thing about Massa and his "bid for the WDC": He is like the kid in the forest whistling to himself that he isn't afraid of all the competitors and that Ferrari will not establish team orders and that he will fight for the title.

A bit harsh, but sums it up.

I don't mind Massa as a support driver to Kimi. He did a good job at it last year. I'm just irritated by all the talk about "his bid for the WDC". He is bidding for that title about as much as Kovalainen or Piquet. He only has a chance if Kimi gets injured.

I marked that. We'll get back to this at the end of the season.

 

Your logic is spot on as usual. Kind of like if MS had retired in 2005 and Montoya went to Ferrari with Rubens as No. 2.

 

As did I.

For that, we were labelled as closet McLaren fans for supporting Kimi over Massa...

 

with due respect to Raikonen, Massa could have done it even more dominantly,

he had a tough luck in season, you can see he was the fastest he got 6 poles, he is the bravest of them theres no doubt

if the car wasn't inconsistent in some of the last rounds, Massa would have won it all

I would love to see Felipe Massa winning this year in Red

 

Uh oh...here we go again.

 

I'm not jumping on Senna3xWC's bandwagon of calling Massa a glorified taxi driver, but this statement is ridiculous. Massa made plenty of idiotic mistakes and had too many subpar performances during the season to think he had an actual shot at the WDC. Granted there was luck involved that screwed him over a time a two, but even if you took these into consideration he wouldn't have won the title with the other stupid mistakes he made. He does great getting on pole and holding the lead (most of the time) but until he improves even more than he has I don't think he'll be consistently beating Kimi. I don't get what makes you think he's the bravest of them....if we're giving out trophies for that I'm handing one to Kubica for getting back into the car.

I like Massa and think that he's a good driver, up to the standards of Kimi Hami and Fred perhaps not but I think he deserves a little more respect that some here give him. I hope to see another great year for Ferrari and the WDC coming back to Finland, or making its way to Brazil.

 

Yep, it's hard to keep the Massa fans from wandering into your clubhouse.

(Ifens we could keep 'em out -- we could pretend there warn't any setch thang. )

Massa, Kimi, and the team all made some rather surprising blunders in '07. But it was the incredible blunders in the "other camp" that gave either Ferrari driver a chance to snag the WDC. Up until Monza, it was pretty neck-and-neck as to which red car driver was the "leading" one.

Now you could say that Massa had a good year, and Kimi had a pretty bad one, but Kimi wound up with the WDC, simply because he came out of Italy with more points, and Massa put himself back into 4th by moving aside for Kimi, to give him any chance at all at the WDC (thin as those chances seemed until Hamilton choked).

I'm hoping Kimi will get "out of the gate" earlier, this year, so Massa may have a harder time matching him. But I think Massa is still improving -- which seems to be a major contention point. Some people are downright infuriated by the suggestion that skills can come from hard work, rather than from being born with "the force" (called "talent").

But I'm a boring engineer -- I don't believe in magic.

Now that we can agree on.

 

I'm not going to write off Kovalainen just yet. He's fast, learns well and is very competitive. I'm not going to say that he's another Mika (who was also slow to start), but he is showing the beans of a very good racer. Massa has beans to be a good driver, but in F1 driving is only part of the picture. Beans to be a good driver and racer. Massa has no racing beans.

Enough about beans.

I'm pretty sure that Kova is going to lay down some fine performances in 2008. If McLaren deliver in 08 the way that they delivered in 07, Hammy would do well to keep an eye on him.

 

Last year Massa had the advantage of familiarity with the cars, with the Bridgestones, and with the team. Kimi had none of those and, once he got the car to suit him, he was gone.

This year Massa will have none of those advantages, nor will he have the electronic aids that he so clearly requires.

The gap between Massa and Kimi will only widen this year. You can archive this statement and revisit it at the end of the season. You can be sure that I will as well.

The whole argument about Massa improving is simply based on his longevity. There is a saying: "You can have 20 years of experience or you can have one year of experience, twenty times over." Has Massa learned from his mistakes? I don't see it. I see him making the same mistakes over and over again.

As far as your comment about some people being infuriated by the suggestion that skill is not innate, you are completely mis-stating that entire discussion.

The point that was being made is that there is some terminal limit to how good an individual may become. I can practice my golf swing until I am blue in the face and I will never be able to beat Tiger Woods. It is not a question that people do not improve, it is an argument that people can ONLY improve to the maximum of their capabilities. There are plenty of NBA players hard at work on improving their game but there is only one Michael Jordan. You can only become the best that you are capable of becoming, the rest is dependant on your physical...read: INNATE...potential. Some people have better rflexes than others, they are BORN like that. Some people have better eye-hand coordination, they are BORN like that. The issue at hand is not whether Massa is improving, it is whether Massa's potential can be included in the ranks of Kimi, Alonso, or Hamilton. The answer to that, not just from me but from virtually every F1 insider and journalist, is a resounding NO.

I fail to see how that is so difficult to understand.

 

No need to try and keep the Massa fans out. I happen to like Massa too. I feel he's a great supporting driver and a very important part of the team. However, claiming that Massa's a legitimate WDC contender that is on the same level as Kimi, FA or Hamilton...well, as I stated before..."here we go again".

 

You are saying that people are born with inherent limits that cannot be overcome. Just because I disagree doesn't mean I don't understand.

If you are convinced that you can't overcome your limits, you probably never will.

 

all that crap about Kimi getting used to the BS tyres are all nonsense! these guys have been racing for years, now, it'll only will take a couple of laps to get used to the tyres.

face the fact that Kimi had a dip in form at the start of last season. it's pretty normal, he's a human too.

watch Massa go for the 2008 title anyways.

 

Brian, ease off the coffee, remember that when they went to grooved tires, it was the beginning of the demise of JV. In addition, Kimi and Alonso drove for years on the Michelin tires, it is not a matter of a couple of laps. The tires in F1 change through out the laps as well act differently on different circuts as well.

 

Whilst the latter part of your statement above is true, you must admit that people are born with attributes so they do not need to be overcome, a headstart so to speak. A natural talent then can be honed, others can be trained to the edge of greatness but up against naturally gifted talent they probably never overcome or breakthrough.

 

c'mon. we've all been following F1 for a long time, thus should know that big differences in tires mean big differences in car design/setup. it was a combination of the those two things that make things iffy. when Kimi and the engineers finally got the car more inline to his style/technique, we saw a difference. now, with the F2008 built around that knowledge, and Kimi now fully tucked in, i expect progress from where he left off last season. he will be hard to beat, and rightfully the odds on favorite to repeat as WDC.

 

not this again, but anyway, it depends on what you mean by 'overcome'... probably what most would consider 'working around' a limit/obstacle. if you're saying humans don't have inherent limits (of any kind) from birth, you're crazy i know for dang sure i was born with limits that won't allow me to beat Lebron James in a dunk contest! but that doesn't mean i have a negative view of my abilities...

anyhow, here's a bit from the Mark Hughes article, something to chew on...


"It’s to do with the difference between core ability and how much of that ability the driver can access.

The core ability is pretty much static – it’s what he’s been blessed with at birth and is largely to do with his inner ear’s sensitivity to changes in lateral force and the efficiency of his motor responses.

But the level of access varies wildly. At its most basic level, it’s about experience.

In the initial stages of his career, a driver’s improvement curve will be very steep as he builds up a data bank of what is possible and what isn’t and why.

But that levels off. By the time drivers graduate to F1, they’ve got plenty of experience.

It then comes down to how well they can match up their preferred driving style with the characteristics of the car, and how much application they bring to the job. Here are the real driving factors behind the variations we see.

In 2007 we saw several drivers struggling to make the transition from Michelin tyres to the standard-supply Bridgestones, something with a big impact upon technique and therefore with variation in the extent to which it compromised individual drivers.

The extreme technique of Robert Kubica was probably hardest hit, with Fernando Alonso quite close behind for similar reasons.

Alonso furthermore initially had to struggle with brakes that were of a harder compound than ideal because the McLaren’s brake cooling was inadequate for the first few races.

Because of his greater reliance on the brakes for direction change, this further compromised his performances relative to his team-mate."

 

Here we go again.

I call this "The Little Train That Could" argument. I think I can, I think I can...

All the wishing in the world isn't going to grow me any more fast-twitch muscle fibers nor am I likely to suddenly spurt to a taller height than Shaquille O'Neal (his weight maybe but height? no).

There ARE inherent limits to an individual's potential otherwise the NBA would be filled with all Michael Jordans and Tiger Woods would have a winning percentage no greater than any other golfer. What do you think? Are you saying that the only reason guys like these become the all-time greatest is because everyone else is lazier? You don't believe that their innate potential might just be a wee bit higher than others?!? You think the only reason David Coulthard did not break Schumacher's records is because he didn't work quite hard enough?

This argument is not only ridiculous, it is patently absurd.

It is not a question of whether Massa is improving to his maximum potential, it is a question of whether his maximum potential is good enough. The answer to that is a resounding no.