Formula 1 News

Turkish GP: Felipe Massa expects tough Grand Prix 

Felipe Massa said he was “proud” of his performance in qualifying for the Turkish Grand Prix after claiming his second consecutive pole position at the Istanbul circuit. The Ferrari driver, who scored his maiden Grand Prix win in last year’s race, beat championship leader Lewis Hamilton by just 0.044 seconds with a last-gasp attempt.

Massa was delighted with his performance, but the Brazilian is expecting a difficult race tomorrow. “It was a very tough, very tight the qualifying you could see that in Q1, Q3 it was a big fight between all four drivers,” said Massa after qualifying. In the last one I put together a great lap and I am very proud, especially after the really bad result in Hungary. It is good to start on pole position here, the race tomorrow will be very tough so it is always a good start.” He added: “Turn 8 is fantastic, I just managed to do it very well in qualifying. I love the corner, I did good speeds through Turn 8 and had good balance on the car. I think the whole track is very nice, very technical, but it’s difficult to find right balance for every single part.”

Massa, who is 21 points behind Hamilton with six Grand Prix remaining, believes rivals McLaren will also be very competitive in tomorrow’s race. “We have a good race car for tomorrow as we showed in practice,” he added. “They are going to be very competitive as well. It will be a difficult race for us and a nice race for the people.”