Massa was supposed to ruin Hamilton’s race in Singapore

Sunday, September 25, 2011. Marina Bay. Twelfth lap of the Singapore Grand Prix. After a duel in the DRS zone, Lewis Hamilton clips the right rear wheel of Felipe Massa’s Ferrari with the end of his front wing. While the Brit continues on with his shredded wing, the Brazilian limps slowly back to the pits, his tire in tatters. That evening, as the McLaren driver faces the media, his Ferrari counterpart approaches him, furious, and sarcastically congratulates him for ruining his race.

However, in light of the radio conversations revealed in the Grand Prix video summary on the official Formula One website, it seems that it was the São Paulo native who was supposed to ruin the 2008 world champion’s race. Indeed, it shows that Rob Smedley, Felipe Massa’s race engineer, encouraged his driver to hold up Hamilton as much as possible, to ruin his race as much as possible, just moments before the collision.

These encouragements illustrate the determination of the Ferrari driver and his engineer to make the task difficult for Lewis Hamilton, about whom the Brazilian had already complained the day before about his behavior in qualifications. Indeed, during an out-lap from the pits, the Briton delivered a thrust, fortunately without consequences, in one of the least appropriate places on the circuit, provoking Massa’s fury. He lamented on Sunday evening, after the race, that he had too often seen his race ruined by Hamilton’s maneuvers, which, according to him, did not involve using his brain.

Some, however, believe that the Brazilian’s mission was obviously not to provoke the collision with Hamilton, but to protect Fernando Alonso from a potential comeback by the McLaren driver, who had a poor start but whose MP4-26 seemed more lively than the 150° Italia of the Spanish driver.