Why Massa lucked in for one more year
Felipe Massa's form since the August break has been vastly improved in comparison to the start of the season, but Edd Straw argues that the Brazilian is fortunate to retain his Ferrari drive for 2013
An hour or so after the finish of this year's Malaysian Grand Prix, a small handful of journalists gathered in Ferrari's hospitality unit to hear from Felipe Massa. Fernando Alonso had just taken a shock victory in the lead Ferrari, so few were interested in what that day's 15th place finisher had to say about life.
He had failed to score for the second race in succession. Coming off the back of a poor 2011 campaign, questions were justifiably being asked about his suitability for a Ferrari seat. Granted, as Massa himself has pointed out, he'd been the subject of such questions for a sizeable proportion of his career with the team, but this was different. Never before had he struggled so much for so long.
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