Massa: Car felt undriveable after first lap contact

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Felipe Massa says his Williams "felt undriveable" following first lap contact which eventually forced his retirement from the German Grand Prix.

Jolyon Palmer ran into the back of Massa at the Turn 6 hairpin on the first lap of the race, damaging the Renault's front wing. Williams couldn't see any problem with Massa's car on the data, but the Brazilian slipped back through the field as he struggled with the car's handling.

A precautionary pit stop allowed Williams to inspect the car and take photos before sending Massa back out on track, but with the problem unclear the team decided to retire in order to properly investigate the issue.

Massa says it reached the point where it was not worth attempting to continue, such was the extent of his struggles with the handling.

"It’s such a shame that someone hit my rear right tyre on the first lap because it felt like something definitely happened to that area of the car," Massa said. "Perhaps a toe issue or something, because the car felt undriveable. Although I tried to carry on with the race, I was suffering massively.

"The pace was just so slow to the point where it was better to retire than carry on. Now, I’m going to take the summer break as an opportunity to relax with my family and prepare for the second half of the season to make it much better than the first half."

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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.