Massa could extend his stay at Williams into 2018

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Only six months ago it looked as though Felipe Massa's time in Formula 1 had come to its natural end. Then an unexpected recall over the winter gave his Grand Prix career a new lease of life.

The Williams team needed him back in the cockpit at short notice, after Mercedes signed up Valtteri Bottas to replace the departing Nico Rosberg.

Now it seems that his unretirement could be extended into another season at Williams. The Brazilian veteran is reportedly so happy with how things are going at Grove that he's considering staying on.

"If things continue to go so well, I would consider staying," the 36-year-old is quoted as saying by Germany's Auto Motor und Sport newspaper.

And a lot of that is down to the return of Paddy Lowe as chief technical officer. Lowe worked at Williams for six years from 1997 before spending two decades at McLaren. Most recently, Lowe was an executive director (technical) at Mercedes.

"Development is now much more logical and aggressive," said Massa, crediting both Lowe and the team's new head of aerodynamics Dirk de Beer.

Massa acknowledges Lowe's big contribution to Williams

"What [Lowe] has done is unite the different departments," Massa told Brazil's UOL Grande Premio.

"Before, one area would fight with another because a part was taking time to be ready, for example.

"That has changed.

"Now the areas are united in the right way, just like a big team," Massa explained.

Even so, Massa admitted that Williams' position as the leading independent team on the Grand Prix grid put them at an inevitable disadvantage.

"I think we cannot compare on the financial side," he agreed. "There are a lot of things that make the difference between a big team and a middle team."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.