Felipe Massa is expecting qualifying in Monaco to be like that of a lottery as he joins the list of drivers expressing concern over traffic around the historic circuit.
Earlier this week both McLaren drivers expressed some concern over the backmarkers causing problems for the quicker teams. Bruno Senna even suggested splitting qualifying, which looked like it could happen until Lotus vetoed the idea.
Massa expects Ferrari to approach qualifying differently in Monaco to limit the effects of traffic. He suggests fuelling the car to do more than just one flying lap to act as a safety margin.
“Getting the car to work as well as possible on Saturday afternoon will be even more important than usual, because traffic has always been a problem at this race,” Massa said in his blog.
“With four more cars out on track at the same time this year, and without wishing to be too critical, I would say six rather slow cars out on track, Q1 can become a lottery.
“No doubt we will use a different strategic approach to qualifying, maybe fuelling the car to do a few more laps than usual, to have a safety margin, so that you are not left without a competitive time in Q1.”
The Brazilian also reckons traffic will play its part in Sunday’s race, possibly becoming a deciding factor in who takes victory.
“In fact, Sunday’s race will also see traffic play its part, because even if strategic choices are different this year with no refuelling, trying to avoid coming out of the pits and finding yourself in slow traffic, could make or break your race.
“In the end, even if the race engineers will be monitoring the situation closely in the race, you need an element of luck to get it completely right.”
