Massa happy to help Kimi to title

Felipe Massa said he had been happy to put the team’s Brazilian Grand Prix ambitions over his own after he helped team-mate Kimi Raikkonen win the world championship.

The Brazilian driver comfortably led his home race from pole position up until his second round of stops, but Raikkonen used his couple of extra laps of fuel to switch places and ensure he was in a position to win the world championship.

Massa says he had the pace to win the race, but had understood he would have to play the team game if needed.

“Yeah, for sure we had everything to win the race today,” he said.

“The car was phenomenal, the team did a fantastic job, but I think it was pretty clear that the team was fighting for the championship and it was not going to be me who would stop that, so I was playing the game for sure, and trying to help the team if possible.

“We were talking beforehand that the only way for Kimi to win the championship was that Lewis should have to be out of the top six and if he was out of the top six and the team needed my support, I would be very happy to help and that’s what I did.”

“When I started my career, Ferrari was a team that gave me all the support I needed, who put me in other teams, who helped me, who taught me, so for sure I was very proud to help the team to win the championship, especially to see all the hard work the team has done.”

His own title dreams ended at Fuji last month and he admits after seeing Raikkonen take title glory, he would now love the chance to come to a final race in Brazil in the future with a championship chance of his own.

“I would [have] loved to have arrived here fighting for the championship but unfortunately this year we had some ups and downs which didn’t allow me to come here with the chance to fight for the championship,” he said.

“But hopefully one day I can come here and fight for the championship and have the same feeling as Kimi, but I’m happy for him, I’m happy for the team and it was a fantastic job for everybody.”