Q & A with Felipe Massa

Felipe Massa: Holidays are always very good, but sometimes it is a little bit boring so it is nice to get back to work. I'm happy to be here to start to learn about all the new rules.

Q. Do you like the rule changes for next year?

FM: The car is different to drive with much less downforce than we were used to this season. But the tyres are much nicer to drive. When you have new tyres the feeling is quite good but the tyres get old quite quickly and then the car starts to become very difficult to drive, especially on the rear. But this car is not the car we are going to race next year.

We just tried to take away as much downforce we could from this car to simulate how it is going to be next year. But it's not the same because you completely change the balance of the car. We are building our new car to have a good balance with the low downforce so the concept from this car to next year's car is a little different. But it's good to understand and to learn on the tyres especially on the downforce.

Q. Do you have to change you driving style?

FM: Yes - everybody has to. You have to be much more smooth with the car. Not so much on the new tyres, but more on the old tyres. On the old tyres we need to drive a little bit different.

Q. What do you think of the shape of the new cars?

FM: It looks like we got back to 1995 or something! It is pretty strange the shape of the cars. To be honest, the car we are using now is much more beautiful compared to what we are going to use next year. But that's the rules and we're going to try to do the best we can. The shape of the car is going to be the same for everybody.

Q. What is your reaction to Honda's withdrawal from Formula One?

FM: It's bad for Formula One. It was not very good news. It's always nice to have as many cars racing against you especially when you win against the very factories like Honda, Toyota, Mercedes, BMW. When you lose one of these teams it's always sad. But hopefully someone can buy the team and be competitive maybe with another name. Maybe a Brazilian company can buy and we can see another team running this old Honda from next year? A Brazilian team maybe would be very interesting.

Q. Are you worried that other teams might withdraw?

FM: I think not this season. The economic crisis is pretty bad for the moment but it will get better. We don't know if it will be straight away, or in the middle of the season or at the end of the season, but it should get better and we will see other teams running again. Next year maybe just Honda is leaving and after that maybe the situation will be better. I hope someone will buy Honda and we keep having 20 cars next year.

Q. How long did it take you to get over the disappointment of losing the championship at the last race?

FM: One day. Some hours...I'm not the kind of guy who gets frustrated about this kind of thing. I won the race, I did the best job that I could and unfortunately we were not lucky enough in the last 15 seconds. That's life and I'm not frustrated because of that. I had a fantastic season, I learned a lot and that's also another important experience for the future.

Q. You had a lot of support after the Grand Prix at home - how did it feel?

FM: I'm very happy with the support I have not just in Brazil but all around the world. We showed that we are competitive, we showed that we can win races and fight for the championship and that's enough to have good support. Support is always important to give you some good energy and some good motivation and I'm really happy to keep fighting and to make my experience and motivation even higher.