Williams technical director Paddy Lowe has described Felipe Massa as a “fantastic” driver for Formula 1 rookie Lance Stroll to learn from.
The Brazilian put off his retirement at the end of last season, to remain at the Grove-based team, enabling former team-mate Valtteri Bottas’ move to Mercedes.
So far in 2017, the 36-year-old has looked like a driver far from the twilight of his career and Lowe believes that is part of what makes him a perfect example for his 18-year-old team-mate to follow.
“I’ve admired Felipe as a competitor for many years, particularly 2008 when I was with McLaren and Lewis [Hamilton] and it was a really tough battle between the two of them and the two teams,” the Briton said.
“He did a fantastic job that year, and as you know, he was briefly world champion. So Felipe is a world champion-class driver, so it’s great to work with him. He’s always cheerful, wholly committed and enjoys the work.
“That is always a good starting point with drivers when they clearly so much enjoy what they do,” he added. “It makes it a pleasure to work with them. His experience is just vast, and he’s the kind of guy you watch in the car and you have no worries about what he’ll do and whether he’ll get it right because you can have complete confidence that he’ll deliver what you need from the car.
“That’s fantastic to have, especially at the moment with Lance being on his steep learning curve. At the same time, Felipe’s been very, very helpful with coaching across the garage to help Lance get up to speed.”
The Canadian does continue to gradually improve, with the early mistakes made pre-season becoming fewer and, in Sochi he reached the checkered flag for the first time in 11th place, removing another critique some had, had of him.
“It’s very, very tough to DNF on your first three events, particularly when for him there’s been a lot of pressure, a lot of attention, a lot of expectation,” the former Mercedes team boss explained. “It’s difficult. One of them was ours with the brake failure, completely ours, we hold our hands up to that.
“That’s part of the learning curve of entering the sport. You enter as a rookie, you make your space. I think part of that there is asserting your presence on the track that people don’t push you around. I think Lance is in that process at the moment.”