In the aftermath of the extremely close finish to this year's World Drivers Championship, I have noticed a huge wave of sympathy for Felipe Massa in the death of his hopes at the last. This is all very magnanimous from Lewis Hamilton supporters (and I have no doubt that Massa supporters would have been equally gracious had their man won) but I am going to stick my neck out and question whether it is deserved.
Felipe Massa
Massa did something this year that negates all the praise being heaped upon him now, as far as I am concerned. I can accept that he was not responsible for the stewards' decision at Spa, where he gained a useful six point bonus on Hamilton, and the same applies to his token penalty for unsafe release from the pits in Valencia. The moment that I cannot forgive him happened as a result of Massa's collision with Bourdais in the Japanese GP.
Just another weird decision by the stewards, you might say, so why blame poor Massa for it? To understand why I look on this one differently, we have to look at what the advisor to the stewards, Alan Donnelly, had to say on the matter:
Other times, as was the case with Bourdais, we have to wait until after the race to talk to the drivers.
That makes it clear that the stewards listened to the drivers' viewpoints before deciding on blame and penalty for the incident. And it means that the stewards opted for Massa's wildly unrealistic version of events and did not consider Bourdais' question of where else he could have gone. That was astoundingly bad judgement on the part of the stewards (they had the video evidence that made Massa's version a complete fiction) but, more importantly in our consideration of Felipe, it displays a worrying lack of sportsmanship.
Any reasonably honorable F1 driver in Massa's position would have put the collision down as a racing incident. They might deny being responsible but I cannot see them claiming that it was all Bourdais' fault. Yet that must have been what Massa did or the stewards would have had no reason to penalize anyone. It is plain dishonesty and reminds us of Massa's ludicrous claim that he passed Raikkonen in Shanghai through superior speed.
That is why I feel that Massa did not deserve the championship this year and why I have no sympathy for him in his loss. Let him win fair and square and I might accept him as genuine championship material.
Much is being made of the terrible disappointment evident on the faces of Massa's family and team members as the realization that he was not champion dawned on them but, again, I have little sympathy. How much sympathy was meted out to Hamilton's family and team when they had a race victory stolen from them after all the celebrations and champagne? The comparison is there to be made and I might suggest that it is an easier matter to have the spoils ripped from your grasp only seconds after you think they are yours, than to be similarly cheated after having owned the victory for several hours.
The single point gained through the Massa/Bourdais incident in Fuji turned out to be very significant. Without it, there would have been no heart-stopping tension down to the wire in Brazil, no wild fluctuations in fortunes and no exultation that ended in tears or vice versa. That lonely little point, so sordidly gained, proves to have been the cause of so much joy and sorrow and I am left reflecting that, in a very odd way, justice has been served in this too.
Sympathy for the loser? No, not me - the rightful champion won in the end.