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DC Thumps Critical Massa
Saturday April 30 2005
F1 fisticuffs? Well, not exactly. But David Coulthard has admitted that he went looking for Felipe Massa after the San Marino Grand Prix and grabbing him by his collar whe he stopped his car.
As competitions go a fist fight between Felipe Massa and David Coulthard would be a bit of a non-starter. DC has been relating how he grabbed hold of "the midget with the digit" as he exited Imola after the San Marino Grand Prix.
The revelation is interesting for a number of reasons – for a start you wouldn’t have caught him doing that when he was at McLaren last season.
Since the 2004 season ended, though, we’ve had Kimi Raikkonen going on wild drinking sprees in the Canary Isles and getting chucked out of lap dancing clubs, so maybe it would be okay now, but certainly not in the past.
Now normally when these stories get out it’s someone else who relates them. Nigel Mansell once tried a similar manoeuvre on Ayrton Senna after Senna drove aggressively in a race. But in this case it’s Coulthard himself who revealed it. So does that mean Red Bull like the idea of a wild, claymore-wielding Braveheart Scot seeking revenge on those that have done him wrong and encouraged David to reveal it?
It sounds like the Fizzy Fruit Drink team, whose self-proclaimed mission is to bring ‘fun’ back into F1, like the idea of having a bit of a character in their team. In Bahrain he was making fat jokes about Juan Montoya and surprising a naked Jacques Villeneuve in the shower (supposedly). This race he’s exacting punishment on the Brazilian with a charisma bypass.
Most interesting of all is that Coulthard was STILL angry all that time after the race had finished. To be attacking Massa when he was leaving the race circuit means that the incident must have happened a good twenty minutes after the race finished and possibly a lot more. We’ve seen DC angry in the past but only immediately after an incident.
Yes, he used to have some waspy digs at Irvine (who no doubt will be penning something for a Sun newspaper column as we speak) but that was as far as it went. This is totally unexpected.
What must have driven DC mad was that Massa was completely in the wrong. The Brazilian tried an overtaking move early in the San Marino Grand Prix and got his nose knocked off for his troubles. He started from too far back and was never alongside, David turns in, BANG!
Had Massa been a little more patient at this stage of the race – we weren’t up to first pit-stops yet – he would have got a lot further. He would have cleared Coulthard easily on the pit-stops. As it was, he had to do it all over again. He might well have thrown a away a 7th or 8th place finish with that manoeuvre.
Michael Schumacher showed in the race that patience is a virtue, and that if you have a car that is so much quicker than the car in front, you can take advantage. Provided you are prepared to wait.
Coulthard had a similar experience himself at the Monaco Grand Prix a few years ago when problems with his McLaren meant he got stuck behind the Arrows of Enrique Bernoldi. DC moaned that Bernoldi should have let him past as there was no way the Arrows was going to finish in front of him.
As a result Coulthard was lambasted by all and sundry who told him it was his job to get past Bernoldi, not Bernoldi’s job to move over.
So David sticking to his line was absolutely the right thing to do. Further down the road was team-mate Tonio Liuzzi who would have come under attack had Massa got past. For Massa to criticise the Scot's driving was remarkable.
After getting a new front wing and presumably making a one-fingered gesture at the Red Bull team Massa came back, eventually caught Coulthard up and tried to take him going into Rivazza – again without getting his Sauber alongside first. As a result Massa’s tyre bounced Coulthard’s sidepod and pushed him over the kerbs.
Whereas you might have expected an ordinary driver to acknowledge his mistake with a wave, Massa gave Coulthard the finger.
Extraordinary stuff, but not for regular Massa watchers. Massa, who once deliberately bumped the car in front going into Ste Devote at Monaco to get him out of the way, has behaved like he was something special ever since he got into F1.
One of the funniest F1 TV moments came when pitlane reporter and F1 Racing magazine journo Peter Windsor tried to interview Massa after he retired once during his first season. Peter had been waxing lyrical about how brilliant Massa was, how he was the future of F1 and super talented – a real brown-nose job.
Massa had retired just beyond the pitlane and was walking back towards the camera and so Peter had to wait for him to arrive. He filled his commentary with all the complementary drivel then as Felipe arrived Peter put his microphone up to get the Brazilian’s reaction.
Massa waved him away like he was a virus. At which point Peter said, “So, back to the studio…”
Sunday’s demonstration by Massa showed why Peter Sauber would be very wise to hang onto Jacques Villeneuve in his team. Villeneuve is beyond all that. I’m not sure that the corporate image that Credit Suisse and Petronas want to present to the World is sponsoring a driver who makes one-fingered gestures all the time.
He ought to be driving for Red Bull…
