- Brazilian Grand Prix - Ferrari
Massa slams 'unacceptable' drive-through penalty
Felipe Massa says the drive-through penalty he received for cutting across the pit lane entry during the Brazilian Grand Prix was "unacceptable".
The stewards handed Massa a drive-through after he repeatedly cut in to the pit lane entry when he wasn't coming in to the pits, and the penalty dropped him from fourth place to an eventual seventh. With a number of other drivers doing similar throughout the weekend Massa said the stewards had got it wrong and robbed him of a podium on his farewell race for Ferrari.
"I think it's pretty unacceptable to be honest," Massa said. "I mean, why a drive-through for this? I'm sure I was not the only car which passed that line but I was the only one who got a drive-through for that. I didn't do anything wrong, I didn't overtake any cars outside of the track…
"But it's like that. They believe they have all the power, they believe they know everything they are doing and normally they are doing a lot of things which is not right, which is not correct, and it's a shame. So the race today would have been in fourth place and maybe even third. Fernando [Alonso] maybe was going to back off at the end and let my by and the race would have been much better than what it was."
Reflecting on his time with Ferrari, Massa thanked the team for their hard work during their eight seasons together.
"I'm for sure more happy now for what has happened in the race because it's my last time in the Ferrari car so I need to get used to a different colour! But also I need to say thank you to everybody; everybody who I've worked together with, everybody who gave me the opportunity to race for Ferrari but also everybody who works in the team. The engineers, the mechanics, everybody, really thank you to everybody and I will be around definitely. I'm not going away, I will be around."
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