{"id":22352,"date":"2014-06-22T07:28:48","date_gmt":"2014-06-22T11:28:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=22352"},"modified":"2014-06-22T07:28:48","modified_gmt":"2014-06-22T11:28:48","slug":"barrichello-alonso-hail-fastest-massa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/barrichello-alonso-hail-fastest-massa\/","title":{"rendered":"Barrichello, Alonso hail ‘fastest’ Massa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Felipe Massa’s first pole in more than five years was no surprise to Fernando Alonso.<\/p>\n

\"Felipe-Massa-2\"It was the thrilling finale in Brazil, 2008 – where for an instant the Ferrari camp thought its Brazilian driver had pipped Lewis Hamilton for the title – that Massa last started a grand prix from the very front.<\/p>\n

“It’s the first time since 2008,” he confirmed on Saturday, after surprising the world of F1 by leading a Williams one-two at the Red Bull Ring.<\/p>\n

“Being the quickest on the track against everybody, it’s always the best feeling a driver can have,” the emotional Massa, who was ousted by Ferrari at the end of last year, added.<\/p>\n

But even before qualifying, when it was clear Williams’ car was highly competitive on the Austrian layout, many were placing money only on Massa’s teammate Valtteri Bottas.<\/p>\n

“Everybody was thinking ‘Here is a chance for Williams with Bottas’,” said Massa’s friend, countryman and former F1 driver Rubens Barrichello, in Austria to commentate for Brazilian TV.<\/p>\n

“Then Felipe went out and did it after so long.\u00a0 I’m happy to be here for it,” Barrichello told Brazil’s Totalrace.<\/p>\n

“After so long without being in front, Felipe had to believe in himself,” he added.<\/p>\n

“To feel wanted by the mechanics, his new team, was a very positive thing for him to be able to work better on the mental side.<\/p>\n

“There will always be people wanting to be negative.\u00a0 He has to rely on himself,” Barrichello said.<\/p>\n

Also not surprised on Saturday was Spaniard Alonso, who for the past four years was paired alongside Massa at Ferrari.<\/p>\n

For 2014, Ferrari replaced Massa with Kimi Raikkonen, but so far Alonso has utterly humbled the struggling Finn.<\/p>\n

“I always said that Felipe is very, very fast,” Alonso said after Massa’s Red Bull Ring pole.\u00a0 “Few people believed me, but I still think he was the fastest teammate I’ve had.”<\/p>\n

\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Felipe Massa’s first pole in more than five years was no surprise to Fernando Alonso. It was the thrilling finale in Brazil, 2008 – where for an instant the Ferrari camp thought its Brazilian driver had pipped Lewis Hamilton for the title – that Massa last started a grand prix from the very front. “It’s …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[5262,130,149,5340,4171,352],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22352"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22352"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22353,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22352\/revisions\/22353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}