Felipe Massa carshed heavily in FP3Free Practice 3 at Monaco was an expensive affair for Ferrari, Lotus and Force India as each of the teams had a car crunch the Armco during the course of the one hour session.
First victim of the mean streets was Felipe Massa who around the 30 minute mark his Ferrari appeared to lock up and go straight into the barrier at high speed just after the start/finish line, before bouncing out of control and slamming the barriers in the middle of Sainte Devote.
All four ends of the F138 well and truly bent. The Brazilian climbed out of the car clearly dazed and confused at what had happened. The session was red flagged as marshals cleared the debris. Massa’s body language was that of one very disconsolate driver.
Familiar sight at Monaco this weekend: Romain Grosjean’s damaged LotusFerrari said afterwards, “Fortunately, the Brazilian [Massa] was uninjured, but the same cannot be said for his car which is badly damaged after hitting the barriers hard at the first corner. The team is now checking it over carefully and the crew faces a race against time to try and get it repaired in time for qualifying.”
About 15 minutes later, Adrian Sutil (with the soft tyres bolted on) slithered up the hill as he lost the back end of his Force India through Beau Rivage, before clattering into the barriers at Massenet.
With a few minutes left in the session there was another metal on metal incident, this one involving Romain Grosjean (for the third time thus far) as he went into Sainte Devote far too hot, lost the back-end of the Lotus, grappled trying to catch it before smacking the Armco, bouncing across track and coming to a stop on the exit of the pitlane.
None of the drivers were injured, although Massa was escorted to the medical centre for a check up. He was fine. (GP247)