Felipe Massa earned a famous victory against former Ferrari teammate Michael Schumacher at the 2006 Turkish Grand Prix. However, his victory irked former Ferrari team principal Ross Brawn, who wanted the seven-time F1 champion to win.
Massa’s former race engineer Rob Smedley recently revealed the details of the same on the Pitlane Life Lessons podcast. He said,
“I remember the first win, which was Turkey, and everybody was like kind of sat with their head in that. I was like, yeah, we just won a race. And like, Ross Brawn’s like, oh my God, what have you done? Like, those points were Michael’s.”
Although Massa had a huge amount of respect for Schumacher, he too was a competitor after all. Hence, the Brazilian former driver did not want to lose out on the opportunity to win when he got it.
However, from Brawn and Ferrari’s perspective, they wanted Schumacher to win as they revolved the team around him and did not want any friction within the side. Therefore, they did not want Massa to take points away from Schumacher, who was in a title fight with Fernando Alonso in 2006.
Although Schumacher’s presence in the team meant that Massa often had to play second fiddle, the Brazilian yet has nothing but respect for the seven-time F1 champion.
Massa continues to be all praises for Schumacher
Massa joined Ferrari when he was 25 and in his fourth full F1 season. Since the Brazilian was still relatively inexperienced, he was delighted to have the opportunity to work alongside Schumacher.
As quoted by Express, he said, “It was a great time to be able to be teammates with Michael Schumacher. I learned a lot from him. He was an amazing driver. The way he was working… We were very close as well. In the end, I was lucky to be part of that experience“.
This respect toward Schumacher is shared by many as the German is one of the greatest the sport has ever seen.
