Rob Smedley Says Massa Won't Give Up on Title

Felipe Massa's race engineer might be getting sacked from Ferrari today after giving Lewis Hamilton some compliments when he vowed that Massa would not give up hope on overturning Hamilton's seven point lead in the drivers championship.

Sunday's race saw Hamilton drive a near-perfect race and no matter what Ferrari did all weekend, they couldn't get close to the MP4-23 of the young Brit.

Despite Ferrari's lack of pace this weekend, Rob Smedley has vowed that Ferrari aren't giving up all hope yet.

“It is never over until it’s over

“I’m a north of England boy and I will keep pushing right to the end, as will all the lads on the car of Felipe.

“It’s not over until it’s over.”

Smedley, from Middlesborough, continued on to praise Hamilton's driving and admits, although he isn't throwing the towel in, Massa and the team have a lot of work to do to make sure their man wins the title in two weeks time.

“It [Massa’s race] wasn’t too bad, but we were just a little bit outclassed by McLaren and Lewis especially,” he said.

“I take my hat off to the kid, he has driven a really, really good race, no mistakes and he has won the race by like 16 seconds or something.”

Smedley puts Ferrari's poor pace down to the type of circuit, saying, "You come to different tracks, [with a] different surface, different tyre temperatures, different down-force requirements for the cars and it can swap, as we have seen many, many times this year.

“You can also put it down [to]: is McLaren the fastest car, or is Lewis the quickest driver?

“If you look at him compared to poor old Heikki, he completely outclassed him this weekend.”

We will just have to see what happens in two weeks' time.  Hamilton can finish as low down as fifth and still clinch the title.