Q & A with Felipe Massa

Felipe Massa: The green light went on and I drove forward. The only problem is that we had a human problem and the green light came in the wrong moment. Then everything happened with the fuel tank and everything. So that was the biggest problem.

Q. You must have felt it was pretty much over at that point and then you got the penalty as well. Do you feel that was justified?

FM: I don't know why we got a penalty - if it was because I ran through with the fuel hose in the car or because I closed on Sutil. I don't know why I had the drive-through. We follow the rules - if you do anything wrong you get a drive-through and that's it. Later I had a puncture and stopped again much earlier than I was supposed to. So it was a very difficult race for us.

Q. And potentially a very costly day in terms of the championship?

FM: We lost six points today so we are seven behind. We could have been first in the championship now because we had fantastic pace and could have finished first and second and things could have been different now. Racing's racing and these things can happen. We are all human beings and everybody can make mistakes.

I'm not the kind of guy who goes to the guy and fights with him, so I go to the guy and give him even more motivation because we need him and we need everybody together for the last three races of the season. Seven points is seven points but we have 30 in front of us and we have a quick car.

Q. Do you think it's time to revert back to the lollipop?

FM: Well, the problems we had today was not because of the signals. The problem we had was a human being. It can happen with the signaling and it can happen with the lollipop. We can maybe go back to the lollipop, but that's not really the problem we had today.

Q. Did you ever in your wildest dreams think this could happen?

FM: You know that anything can happen, but I didn't imagine that I would have this problem today! But anyway, it happens and we need to look forward. We know the championship can be very difficult in the next races and we have some difficult races ahead of us and we can finish with important points. That's the way we can think about it.

Q. How do you enjoy Japan and how are you looking forward to it?

FM: I think it's a nice track. Last year it was a big lottery ? it was raining like hell and we didn't enjoy it because in a race like that you just need to be lucky and finish the race, then you see what position you are. Hopefully we have a successful race and we can show a great performance from our car.