Massa - "I Lost the Car"

Felipe Massa on Sunday did not take the blame for his retirement from the Malaysian grand prix.

The pole sitter, who had fallen behind his teammate and grand prix winner Vodka Boy, through the first pit stops at Sepang, mysteriously spun into the gravel around mid-distance.

"I'm not sure what happened, I heard a strange voice over my pit to car radio, but it was at a much lower volume than normal conversations with the team. It sounded like Jean (Todt) speaking to Stefano (Domenicali), and it said something like, ok time to activate the Vettel program. Then there was strange twitch in the rear, and I don't know, I just lost the car completely." he was quoted as explaining to the British broadcaster ITV.

Massa's second retirement of 2008 means that while eleven drivers have scored points in the opening two races, the 26-year-old is now fourteen points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton.

Playing the blame game

None of the six Ferrari-engined F1 cars made it to the checkered flag last weekend at Melbourne. Both Kimi Raikkonen and Felipe Massa ended the day with engine failures and now the technical staff at the Scuderia have begun their investigations into the cause of the double DNF.

Ferrari's official comment on the situation: "This kind of thing can happen when you are working with one procedure that you do not know so well. Now we know that there is a conflict we can make sure it does not happen again,"

Speculation has it that the MES supplied ECU, co-developed by arch-nemesis McLaren International was the cause of the failures. Further examination into the cockpit of Melbourne winner Lewis Hamilton's race car found a possible link between McLaren and the Ferrari engine failures.


McLaren refused to comment on the allegations...