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Brazil exclusion is 'really strange' - Massa

Felipe Massa says he doesn't understand why he was excluded from the Brazilian Grand Prix, calling the incident "really strange".

The FIA found Massa's right rear tyre to be 27C over the maximum tread temperature on the grid in Brazil, with the Williams driver being excluded from eighth place a number of hours after the race. The team will appeal the decision and Massa himself told F1i that he doesn't believe the FIA's reading was correct otherwise he would have noticed a difference in the car's handling.

“To be honest I prefer not to answer about the exclusion because I don’t understand,” Massa told F1i at the Race of Champions. “I didn’t understand to be honest. What happened is really, really strange. I didn't feel anything different in the car, for sure if I had that much difference in temperature in the tyres I would feel it was much worse straight away at the first corner.

“Anyway, let’s wait for the team to decide what to do. I am really not worried about that because I trust the team 100% and they know what to do.

"But it was not a good weekend anyway, it was really bad. I expected a much stronger performance in Brazil, I was struggling massively from the first practice session. So I’m concentrated 100% on Abu Dhabi now to finish the season well and to then switch our focus completely to next year.”

Williams confirmed after the race it is appealing the decision, with Rob Smedley saying three separate indicators suggest the tyre was below the maximum temperature imposed by the FIA and Pirelli.

Technical analysis - Brazil

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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.