Felipe Massa believes Sebastian Vettel shoulders more responsibility for failing to win the 2018 Formula 1 championship than his Ferrari team.
The German had looked set to challenge Lewis Hamilton throughout the year as the Scuderia developed a car which was more than a match for Mercedes and the lead in the standings changing hands on multiple occasions.
A crash for Vettel at Hockenheim would trigger a swing in momentum that would ultimately carry the Briton to a fifth world title, however, as Hamilton won six of seven races while the Ferrari driver got involved in more incidents at Monza, Suzuka and Austin.
“Vettel and Ferrari lost an opportunity this year, but I think Sebastian is more guilty than the team,” Massa told Globo ahead of the Brazilian GP.
“Germany was especially painful, where Vettel could have won, but lost the full 25 points, but there were also errors in qualifying, wrong strategies, unnecessary contact with Bottas in France. I think Vettel made more mistakes than Ferrari.”
There has been speculation of a deteriorating relationship between the 31-year-old and his team but on Thursday, Sebastian maintained the job now is to regroup and come back stronger in 2019.
“I know my job and I know my role and I don’t think it will change next year in terms of what I have to do,” he insisted.
“Certainly there is a lot of stuff that happened this year and we will be able to, as a team and as an individual, be able to learn from it and take it forward and raise the bar next year.”
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As for whether he remains motivated to obtain that fifth title, Vettel added: “Yeah. I still have a mission here and I still want to win. That hasn’t changed.
“Obviously the last race was a tough one to swallow and probably the winter will be as well. Giving up is not an option.”
