Autosportfoto

Massa: Small F1 teams can't do a Leicester City

Felipe Massa says the current rule structure and politics in Formula 1 means smaller teams have no chance of winning or springing surprise results over the manufacturers compared to other sports.

The Williams driver feels making the competition levels fairer in F1 needs to be a key change in the next set of widespread changes, expected to come in when the 2020 Concorde Agreement ends, but in the current climate of politics and manufacturer control Massa believes the smaller teams aren't able to compete at the same level.

Massa has drawn comparison to the 2015-16 English Premier League which saw a fairy-tale story of Leicester City winning the league title against teams with budgets four or five times bigger. Despite the comparison being made in F1, Massa says the same could never be achieved in the current situation.

"How can a team that has 80 million fight with a team that has 400 million? You will not see it," Massa said. "It might happen in the Premier League but it's not normal. It's quite difficult to see in football that a team has no money and beat everybody. It's quite difficult, you know? But maybe it's easier in football than in Formula 1.

"This is something that's a lot more difficult than just helping the show, helping the people, that's one thing. But this is something that you need to change the mentality and the work around that to help things. Winning now is just not possible.

"Maybe it will happen one day but it's taking time. Formula 1 they have this Concorde Agreement that is going to end in 2020 so before that I think it's possible to expect more teams fighting for the championship.

"Everybody wants to change, everybody wants to help, but it needs to stop the politics and it will take a little bit more time."

The last race to be won by a team outside of the big three - Ferrari, Mercedes or Red Bull - was the 2013 F1 season opener in Australia where Kimi Raikkonen led Lotus to victory.

Zdroj: crash.net