- United States Grand Prix - Ferrari
Massa critical of Pirelli tyre selection
Felipe Massa criticised Pirelli's tyre selection for the United States Grand Prix as he struggled to 12th place.
Pirelli supplied the hardest two compounds available from its range - the medium and hard - for the race at Austin, just as it had done 12 months previously when the race was won on a one-stop strategy. Having struggled to get heat in to the tyres during qualifying and started from 13th place having benefitted from two other grid penalties, Massa made little progress in the race and blamed Pirelli for his struggles.
"They already made a mistake with the tyres, to be honest," Massa said. "Bringing very hard tyres to a place where last year it was undriveable here, so they made a very big mistake and some drivers were suffering more than others. If you see I was suffering a lot more than Fernando, [Nico] Rosberg was suffering a lot more than [Lewis] Hamilton and [Jenson] Button as well."
Massa added that the track characteristics did not help his cause as he attempted to fight through the field.
"It was really a difficult weekend, a very tough one. I was struggling all weekend to get the tyres working - in the race was a little bit better - but all the time I was in traffic. I would say this track is very difficult to overtake because it's very difficult to get close to the other cars on the straights. Suddenly looking how the race was going, nothing was happening so we decided to stop, put on quicker tyres but it was definitely not enough; there was no degradation from the guys in front."
© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.
