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[richindarlo]

It's only been 3 races, and I say it's way too early to be coming to conclusion.

i think thats a good point.
There are arguements to be made for both drivers, but as i have already said elsewhere, i personally think Massa is better, and will quietly get the job done. that said, the season is too early to know "for sure"!

[Hexagram]

Two points for this thread. 1) Massa is under rated he is a superb driver who almost won the 2008 WDC. 2) He is not as good as Alonso. The mere fact that he has used Alonso's car set up for the last two races and then ended up holding Alonso up in the race is pretty bad but Ferrari do not have any team orders and that I think is good.

Also RC, Button is ahead of your babe in the points, clearly Button is better.

[antoniob]

I think people forget the reason Lewis was able to overtake so much was because of that f-duct and mercedes engine giving a huge advantage down the straights.

You can complain that Massa couldn't overtake the Toro Rosso, but we seen a similar situation last weekend with Schuy. Fact is, overtaking is still near impossible unless you have a straight line speed advantage, adverse weather conditions, or a driver in front is either much slower, around 3 seconds, or they have a poorly balanced car and are making mistakes.

Despite all that, he still pulled off a mighty impressive move on Jenson Button.

I don't like people cliaming, oh Alonso was just as fast as Massa despite the gearbox probelm, because he just wasn't. When the Toro Rosso's pitted and Massa was in clean air he was undoubtly pulling away from Alonso.

Yes Alonso was quicker in Melbourne, no one is stupid enough to say otherwise, Massa clearly struggled that weekend with tyre warming issues. But Massa also out-qualified Alonso in Bahrain, and managed to cling on to him in the race despite engine troubles and having to turn the revs down a short while after the pit stops.

It's only been 3 races, and I say it's way too early to be coming to conclusion.

agreed - way to early. also on the point that people forget why lewis is able to overtake. give him last years car and he will still be at the back somewhere. its not him thats fast. its the car and his ability to keep it on the road. obviously a talent shared by many and definately all the drivers on the track. Also on points at the moment. Massa is ahead and i truly hope it stays that way. Only other driver I would like to see up there is Vettel.

[cap-dude]

Two points for this thread. 1) Massa is under rated he is a superb driver who almost won the 2008 WDC. 2) He is not as good as Alonso. The mere fact that he has used Alonso's car set up for the last two races and then ended up holding Alonso up in the race is pretty bad but Ferrari do not have any team orders and that I think is good.

Also RC, Button is ahead of your babe in the points, clearly Button is better.

Where did it say Massa was using Alonso's set-up out of curiosity

I heard that this year most of the teams are actually relying on one driver to do set-up work. Something to do with it taking longer to do tyre evaluations. Can't remember the details, think it was James Allen was saying that one driver would do set-up whilst the other would work on the tyres, so Force India might have Luzzi on setup and Sutil with tyres. Not sure if it's true, or if it's true for all the teams, or just a few.

[Jamie]

Right;

I can see were all of the views are coming from and i do agree & disagree. Massa is a very talented driver that is not noticed because he has not got the wow factor. I am even surprised Vettel gets as much coverage to be fair. He's small and quiet and doesn't want the amount of media coverage some drivers get. Like Nico, he is just there. Driving and would win but nothing much would be said. Alonso or Hammy win? Boom, the Sun newspaper would have 2 back to front pages of F1. It's just the driver himself in which he doesn't really make a big deal. He is a winner and i think in a year or 2 or even 2010 he could potentially win the WDC. He's fast? He's competitive. But as Kubica said, if there was a fast driver behind me i would of been scared. & that is what Massa is branded as. It is sad but he does need to scrap that name, in 2008 he did remarkably to be fair but as Gaz has said Lewis had allot of penallties. Alonso brings a circus with him every where he goes? And he just gets allot of media interest due to his chracteristics and the love/hate thing he has going for him. Everyone loves massa and no one see's him as a threat. If he won 8 of 18 races no one would really consider him to be a threat....Unfair, but like now? None of you are even considering him winningthis years title even though he is number 1. When Alonso was there most of us were thinking right, maybe Alonso has a 50% chance of getting it. I love Massa and believe in him, but he doesn't carry what Kimi, Alonso, Schumi or Hammy had and that was a BANG!

[EwanM]

Why aren't we discussing Jochen Mass like we should be?

[bud]

Why aren't we discussing Jochen Mass like we should be?

What? i thought it was Sunday Mass?

[Damonhillfan]

I come at this from a very different viewpoint I think Massa is Overated. I personally think he's got a very fast car that all he's done with so far is got in his teammate's way. Alonso was putting in faster laps than Massa managed even with a broken gearbox. If we look back too before 2008 he's never looked even in the same league as his teamate I think 2008 and 2009 Ferrari made him the guy they wanted to win races with and the effect that had was it crushed Raikkonen's motivation and personally I believe the car was faster than the results Massa got out of it until suddenly he got injured then Kimi suddenly started to go much quicker. People say in 2008 he came 2nd in the championship but I personally believe that there were maybe a few stewards decisions that went his way that probably shouldn't have and he wouldn't have even been in with a shot of taking the tittle without those decisions. I think of Massa just like Jarno Trulli. He seems able to drive the car but as a racer not great. I don't really remember Massa overtaking anyone impressively ever. I think there are alot of young guys that if given the opportunities Massa had would have brought home a world tittle. Ferrari worked hard to develop Massa into a racing driver and clearly are 100% behind him....I think thats actually a weakness though, Sunday was a perfect example. When both Ferrari's were sat behind the Torro Rosso Massa never looked likely to overtake and for me the correct thing to do would have been to allow Fernando Alonso to pass and give him a chance to overtake the Torro Rosso car my guess is he would have made progress through the race.

[Gaz]

Why aren't we discussing Jochen Mass like we should be?

What? i thought it was Sunday Mass?

Damit guys, i thought it was Body mass index i was wondering why nobody had mentioned montoya.

[EwanM]

Why is everyone discussing Massa? The Thread title says Mass is so underrated so surely we should be talking about the great German driver who won the 1975 Spanish Grand Prix and was on the podium 8 times during an on and off career which spanned nine years in Formula One.

Mass drove for many teams including McLaren, Team Surtees, March and Arrows.

What a man.




Discuss.

[7UpJordan]

Mass was certainly underrated, his move to ATS practically killed off any chances of a good end to his F1 carreer, although he did drive the pretty nifty A2 Arrows car in 1979.

[EwanM]

Mass was certainly underrated, his move to ATS practically killed off any chances of a good end to his F1 carreer, although he did drive the pretty nifty A2 Arrows car in 1979.

Did he get out of F1 too early? I know that he retired from the sport in 1982 after a crash with Mauro Baldi at Paul Ricard. Sounds an all-mighty shunt. I can understand why he was too scared to race in F1 after that. Both cars flew over the catch fencing...

[7UpJordan]

Mass was certainly underrated, his move to ATS practically killed off any chances of a good end to his F1 carreer, although he did drive the pretty nifty A2 Arrows car in 1979.

Did he get out of F1 too early? I know that he retired from the sport in 1982 after a crash with Mauro Baldi at Paul Ricard. Sounds an all-mighty shunt. I can understand why he was too scared to race in F1 after that. Both cars flew over the catch fencing...

And especially after the other tragic events from the 1982 season.

[Gaz]

Mass was certainly underrated, his move to ATS practically killed off any chances of a good end to his F1 carreer, although he did drive the pretty nifty A2 Arrows car in 1979.

Did he get out of F1 too early? I know that he retired from the sport in 1982 after a crash with Mauro Baldi at Paul Ricard. Sounds an all-mighty shunt. I can understand why he was too scared to race in F1 after that. Both cars flew over the catch fencing...

He was lightly burned apparently, quite lucky

[EwanM]

Mass was certainly underrated, his move to ATS practically killed off any chances of a good end to his F1 carreer, although he did drive the pretty nifty A2 Arrows car in 1979.

Did he get out of F1 too early? I know that he retired from the sport in 1982 after a crash with Mauro Baldi at Paul Ricard. Sounds an all-mighty shunt. I can understand why he was too scared to race in F1 after that. Both cars flew over the catch fencing...

He was lightly burned apparently, quite lucky

Yeah I know, he did quite well out of the remainder of his career though. Drove a few sportscars and was a commentator for German TV for a while. Probablycould have won more GPS. I think he won some of the non-championship events.