Massa vows to bridge gap

Ferrari star Felipe Massa has vowed to bridge the gap on Formula One frontrunners McLaren, starting at this weekend’s United States Grand Prix in Indianapolis.

Ferrari won three of the first four races of the season with Kimi Raikkonen taking the season-opening Australian Grand Prix and Massa winning in Bahrain and Spain.

Then the Ferrari campaign hit the skids, with the team drubbed in Monaco as McLaren’s Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton secured their one-two finish.

Then Massa was disqualified in Canada last weekend as the Brazilian ran a red light exiting the pit lane and Raikkonen was outpaced by BMW Sauber’s Nick Heidfeld, the Williams of Alexander Wurz and Renault’s Heikki Kovalainen as the Finn had to settle for fifth behind race winner Hamilton.

McLaren have a 28-point lead over Ferrari in the constructors’ championship, the sort of dominance enjoyed by the Italian team at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway since 2000, with Michael Schumacher winning six of the seven Grands Prix at the venue.

Massa sees that as a good omen.

“I expect a very good weekend,” said Massa.

“We were one-two here last year, and I expect to have a good race this year. I think our car will go much better.”

Massa is not daunted by the size of McLaren’s lead in the constructor’s championship or his third place in the drivers’ championship, seven points behind second-placed Alonso and 15 adrift of Hamilton.

“At the moment I am aware that the gap to the championship leader is quite big at 15 points and this is more concerning than the gap to the second-placed man, as my target of course is to win.

“Now we must try and reduce the gap and then move ahead.”

Massa made a hint of the reported friction between Hamilton and Alonso at McLaren this season by playing up the solid working relationship he enjoys with Raikkonen.

Asked about the suggested problems at McLaren, Massa said: “I don’t know what goes on in the Hamilton-Alonso camp, but I do know what goes on here at Ferrari and that is that we are working very hard and in harmony with the will to win.

“Here at Ferrari, there is a collaboration between myself and Kimi to improve and it is 100% commitment.

“I known Kimi better now than I did at the start of the year and although he does not talk a lot, I feel we have a good working relationship and are both doing a professional job of working with the team to improve the car. He is what I expected he would be.”

Massa also promised not make the same mistake he did in Montreal last week in getting disqualified, although he questioned the race stewards’ decision.

“I believe the rules are the rules and so, as the driver, it was my fault because I did not look at the light and it was also a mistake from the team because they didn’t tell me to look at the light. It won’t happen again because we have added this situation to our checklist.

“But I also feel the rules are not so clear as they say you have to wait until the last car has passed the line, but as I came out of the pits I was the last car and the light was red, so it is possible that the guy controlling the red light wasn’t quick enough, which would also be unfair on me. Two cars fighting for a good position were disqualified.”