Why not? Just because someone drives for Ferrari doesn't mean every Ferrari fan should like him. PS Personally I have nothing against Massa.
I would have still posted this. It was more so that they didn't good any good testing in. They changed tracks due to weather but it still followed them. Oh, I like Massa and thinks he is a good drive. Kimi is and always has been my favorite driver.
Would you have supported MS for the last 10-14 years if he stuck with a backmarker team and never won a single race ? That's Doubtful... Would MS have done as well as he did if the team's second driver was not out there testing new parts in races ? I think Ferrari is a team where one driver uses the tried-and-true parts while the second driver generally is the 'mule' for the team. I find it difficult to be a 'Ferrari fan' and yet not like one of the drivers; you said it yourself: 'Ferrari fan', you either are, or you are not. Apparently you are a 'Kimi/MS fan', and not a 'Ferrari fan'.
If one is a Ferrari FAN, how is Ferrari going to win the Constructor's title if Massa loses to another team? If one is not a Ferrari fan they should just man-up and say so. PNH
Guys, all I'm saying is that just because Ferrari choses a driver doesn't automatically mean you have to like that person. Let me exemplify - a lot of people dont like JPM saying he's arrogant and drives bad. Now suppose Ferrari hired JPM - would you suddenly like him and say what a swell guy he is? Does the fact the he drives for Ferrari change him AS A PERSON? No.
No, I would have supported Ferrari. Sorry, but I feel what you wrote there backs MY logic. I'm a fan of the TEAM, irrelevant of who drives for it and my feelings towards that person. Hence "Ferrari fan" and not "Driver X fan".
This happens all the time in all shapes and sizes in all types of sport. Take this past year's legally challenged Cincinnati Bengals. I grew up in Ohio, and here you either root for the Browns or the Bengals. I don't care for either team, or pro football in general, but I'd rather root for the Bengals than the Brownies. Do I have to like every single member of the team? Chris Henry (arrested 5 times in the past 2 years or so)? Deltha O'Neal? I understand that there aren't 100 or so drivers like there are players on a football team, but the principal remains. Now on to a more Formula One related tangent -- Do you really think that the thousands and thousands of Spanish fans Fernando has brought to the sport will still be wearing their Renault team colors on race day this summer? I think not. There are just as many fans that are drawn to a team by a driver as fans that root for a team first and foremost. Massa scored serious points last year, yet he notched seriously dumb mistakes as well. The fans have a right to moan about him, because the way I see it, the only reason he's still with Ferrari is so there's at least have one driver who isn't totally green to the team. Face it, had Schumacher stayed/not retired, Massa would have been out faster than an aboriginee with a McDonald's voucher. I have been a Raïkkönen fan since he joined the sport. I can't tell you why, but I always thought he had the coolest name in the biz, so there you have it. That said, it makes me proud to say I can finally cancel my McLaren team fan membership because he left the place. I used to root for McLaren solely because of Raïkkönen, but now I can root for Ferrari. Kimi is the Iceman, he's a bad***.
I'll cross the JPM bridge when it happens. You never know he may be coachable, he may get religion. But I'll wait. PNH
That's precisely the dilemma I had after 2003: I was no longer a fan of Schumacher, yet he was driving for "my" team. Luckily his departure and Kimi's arrival fixed that split personality in my support.
BWAHAHA! Yeah? Well, I would have won 17 if my car had been set up properly. Good thing I'm going to NASCAR where they really know how to put a state of the art car together!
+1 The problem I have is that a lot of the critics here seem to to think that simply because a driver drives for Ferrarri, he is automatically conferred Hero status. I am a Ferrari fan, not a Schumacher fan and certainly not a Massa fan. Just because Massa drives for Ferrari does not make him a frontrunning driver. I think it makes him a mediocre driver yielding far less than what his car is capable of. You have to separate the car's performance from the guy driving it and if you do, you'll see that Massa falls short. In fact, if you took the time to go through archived posts from prior to Massa's joining Ferrari, I doubt you would find a dozen posts commenting on Massa being a title contender. In fact, prior to Ferrari signing him, I think the consensus opinion would easily place him in the backmarket status. No one talked about Massa before but now that he drives for Ferrari, a whole lot of folks seem to think that he has suddenly been transformed into a world-beater. Mark my words, Massa is no different than Irvine or Rubens. Neither driver could win before they joined Ferrari and neither could win after they left the team. They won only because they drove a superior car, not because they were superior talent. Make no mistake, both of them were nothing more than support drivers and so is Massa. Once Massa is booted from the team (and he WILL be booted, eventually), he will go back to being just another backmarker. He is extremely fortunate to even have his seat and more so to have kept it after Ferrari flirted with replacing him with Rossi. Had Schumacher stayed on, Massa would be back to driving for a team like STR or Spyker. He will never be a consistent frontrunner and he will never challenge for a title. I support Ferrari and I want to seem them do well this season but I am not about to pin my hopes on a driver like Massa. If Ferrari wins the constructors title, it will be in spite of Massa, not because of him. I would much rather see the team hire a true top driver to partner Kimi, like JB or JPM. Massa is a mediocre driver who will occasionally pull together a halfway decent ride out of a car that has much higher potential than he is yielding from it. But to think that he is adding more value to the team than any one of a half dozen other F1 drivers could is ludicrous.
Going off track in testing is no big deal IMHO. This time it was Massa, but the time will come for Kimi as well, no doubt... Massa showed last year he is a good F1 driver - hopefully this year he will shine as a GREAT one. He seems like a genuinely great guy to me, and I wish him all well. Now... whether it will be Massa or Kimi as the front-runner for Ferrari this year remains to be seen, but I would not rule out a Ferrari double in the final standings... I am hoping 2007 will be a fantastic F1 year for Ferrari - the combination of Massa, Kimi and the F2007 could make it happen.
How long have you lived in Massa's pants? Kidding, just kidding. Going off track is one thing but crashing is another. It doesn't even have to be the drivers fault but they still carry that cross.
I was a huge MS fan right from his first race in Spa. It was obvious back then that this guy would go far. And I supported him all the way. Eventually I wanted nothing more than MS finally break the 5 time champion Fangio record. That was accomplished in 2003. The seventh title was really just unnecessary gravy. Plus more than ten years supporting the same driver was more than plenty (of course with the intermezzo of rooting for Irvine in 99). In general I don't like multiple champions, I much rather have an even distribution of titles. I prefer a field with several champs to a field with one champ with multiple titles. As you know I was a great Alonso fan (and still like the guy a lot), but now that he has won two titles I'm quite happy for him to take a sabbatical and leave the podium to somebody else. Change is the spice of life. 2004 was one of the most boring season in F1 in years.
I use to past state my support for Massa, but have since stopped because anything pro Massa ended up being endlessly berated and ridiculed. It ended up not being worth the time to write an opinion that would be so vigorously shot down and I bet I am not the only one who has stopped showing support on one subject or another so they would not have to hear other peoples flak. Mark
It would be hard when your driver is called Kimi's water boy, or Ruben' little brother. Chin up, he drives for Ferrari! Kimi=2007 WDC
Massa crashes F2007 ... so what If you think that is a big deal then you have no idea what testing a race car involves. While I do not rate Massa, crashing during a test session does not reduce his stock what-so-ever in my book. Infact the guy that does not crash is the guy that needs to be talked to ... ie. the idea is to find the fastest way around not the safest. Now if he was asked to do a race length simulation for engine testing, then not so good, but accidents happen. Consistency is everything in a test driver, but last time I looked Massa was no longer just 'the test driver' and thus he rightly should be looking for the very fastest way around. This thread is a waste of bandwidth ... Pete
Massa finished third in the overall standing last year, and he won two races. I would think that was more than anyone would have expected from him before the season started... Maybe he will exceed expectations this year as well. I think the F2007 looks good so far and would LOVE for Massa to surprise everyone and win the world championship this year, although a second place finish will be ok if #1 is Kimi . Kimi is obviously the most likely to bring the championship back to Ferrari, but I would not rule out Massa just yet...
