Eurosport.yahoo.com - Tue, 16 Sep 15:23:00 2008
Felipe Massa has revealed that he and Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen are far from friends away from the circuit in Formula One.
The Brazilian said that he expects no help from the Finn as he endeavours to defeat McLaren rival and World Championship leader Lewis Hamilton for the 2008 drivers' crown.
Raikkonen may be the sport's defending champion, but Massa - currently 20 points ahead of his team-mate and just a single marker adrift of Hamilton in the standings with four races left to run - is irrefutably Ferrari's principal hope for glory 12 months on. There have been a number of suggestions that the Scuderia should focus on giving Massa the best chance possible of winning the title, but he is adamant that he will fight his own battles and revealed that his relationship with the driver of the sister F2008 is strictly professional.
"Whether I do it [win the championship] or not is completely separate to what Kimi or anyone else does," the 27-year-old driver told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
"I am sitting in the car - I am the one who wins races or makes mistakes. It is my game."
"We work with each other and want Ferrari to be world champions, but we are not friends; we have no private relationship."
"If we are together in a meeting, when it is finished he opens the door and is gone."
Massa added that he is much closer to his previous team-mate Michael Schumacher - now a Ferrari advisor and a man he describes as being 'like an older brother' - and again underlined his conviction that he can be world champion this year. "Otherwise I should not even be sitting in a Ferrari," he said.
Felipe Massa has revealed that he and Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen are far from friends away from the circuit in Formula One.
The Brazilian said that he expects no help from the Finn as he endeavours to defeat McLaren rival and World Championship leader Lewis Hamilton for the 2008 drivers' crown.
Raikkonen may be the sport's defending champion, but Massa - currently 20 points ahead of his team-mate and just a single marker adrift of Hamilton in the standings with four races left to run - is irrefutably Ferrari's principal hope for glory 12 months on. There have been a number of suggestions that the Scuderia should focus on giving Massa the best chance possible of winning the title, but he is adamant that he will fight his own battles and revealed that his relationship with the driver of the sister F2008 is strictly professional.
"Whether I do it [win the championship] or not is completely separate to what Kimi or anyone else does," the 27-year-old driver told German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
"I am sitting in the car - I am the one who wins races or makes mistakes. It is my game."
"We work with each other and want Ferrari to be world champions, but we are not friends; we have no private relationship."
"If we are together in a meeting, when it is finished he opens the door and is gone."
Massa added that he is much closer to his previous team-mate Michael Schumacher - now a Ferrari advisor and a man he describes as being 'like an older brother' - and again underlined his conviction that he can be world champion this year. "Otherwise I should not even be sitting in a Ferrari," he said.
Crash.Net / Eurosport
No comments:
Post a Comment