JUNE 9, 2013

Massa criticises F1 medical response after Monaco crash

Felipe Massa criticised the reaction to his Monaco grand prix crash during the drivers' briefing ahead of this weekend's race in Canada.

Felipe Massa criticised the reaction to his Monaco grand prix crash during the drivers' briefing ahead of this weekend's race in Canada.

That is the claim of Germany's Auto Motor und Sport, reporting that the Ferrari driver was disappointed in the aftermath of his Ste-Devote crash that left him with a sore neck in the wake of an earlier, near-identical high speed incident.

"It took 13 minutes for the ambulance to get there," the Brazilian is quoted as saying.

"Then I had to climb over fences to get to it."

The frustrated 32-year-old was speaking in Montreal on Saturday, where he had yet another high speed crash, his third in the space of two weeks.

"It's like a movie plot," Massa groaned to Brazil's Totalrace. O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper quoted him as saying the crash hurt "not physically, but psychologically".

"I'm very upset about what happened and I got out of the car very angry because I don't remember anything like this happening in my career -- three accidents so close to one another," he said.

His second crash in Monaco was caused by a suspension failure, but on Saturday Massa accepted the blame for his latest incident.

"My time was not good and so I was risking everything and ended up risking too much and braking on the white line," he said. "It was all or nothing."

Reportedly pushing for a new contract for 2014, Massa denied that his recent crashes have hurt his standing with Ferrari.

"We are a team," he insisted. "We win and lose together.

"There are situations where it is not the drivers' fault, maybe it's the car or the strategy, but it's all teamwork," said Massa.

(GMM)