Massa Blog - Post Silverstone
Le Castellet, 15th June 2006 - The simplest way to sum up
our performance in the British Grand Prix is to say that we
all expected to do a bit better than we did. It was not a
great weekend for us, but we're not giving up on the championship,
even though Renault put on a great performance at Silverstone.
The talk in the paddock after qualifying was that probably
the Renaults would be stopping earlier than the Ferraris,
but honestly, from all our data, we expected them to go at
least as far as us in the first stint and that's what happened.
We tried to change our strategy by a lap or so to get ahead,
but it was not enough. They are strong, but to be honest our
tyres did not work in quite the way we had expected. But now
the important thing is to look forward and that means starting
with the next race in Canada. That's why I'm here testing
in the south of France, at the Le Castellet circuit. The next
two races need a different aero package - low drag - to what
we have been running so far this year and we have different
wings which should give us a very efficient car. We have only
done the one day of testing so far, but we are quite optimistic
about this configuration, because it has shown really good
performance in the wind tunnel. So these next couple of days
running here are to validate the changes and to get used to
the effect they have on the rest of the car. I think we can
be quite strong with this package. We are also working on
evaluating tyres for the next two races and different braking
materials, as Canada is tough on brakes although we really
do not have any issues in this area. I am testing here at
Le Castellet until the end of Friday, then I'm going home
to Monaco which is a very short drive away. Of course, I have
been watching the World Cup, even here at the test, once our
engineering debriefing was finished we watched the Germany
- Poland game. It's true that Brazil did not play great football
in our first game and it was not a brilliant match. But we
won and that's the important thing. Don't worry, we are going
to play well for the rest of the tournament. Next time they
play, on Sunday, I am actually going to be at the match in
the stadium in Munich and I'm really looking forward to seeing
them play, before heading off for Montreal on Tuesday.
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