Felipe Massa says he will not stay in Formula 1 next year if he cannot find a competitive drive should he lose his seat at Ferrari.
The Brazilian’s future at the team has been in doubt for some time after a poor start to the season. Massa has scored 23 points in 10 races and lies 14th in the championship, 131 points behind team-mate Fernando Alonso.
Ferrari has been in talks with other drivers, including Red Bull’s Mark Webber, who decided to extend his contract with the world champion team.
“What I want is to stay in F1, but I want to stay in F1 with a possibility to race, not just to participate,” said Massa.
“I’m interested in racing. I think if for whatever reason I don’t have the chance to stay at Ferrari I will try to find a direction to race.
If I don’t find a direction to race, because it’s maybe only smalls teams available, then I’m not interested.”
The Brazilian, who re-discovered some of his form after struggling with the car at the start of the year, says he only needs to be able to have clean races in order to get positive results.
“Having a clean race,” he said when asked how he could help Alonso.
“I’m sure having a clean race would help a lot, and not just him, but myself and the team. That’s the only thing. In the last race I had a good pace.
“Unfortunately in Q2 I couldn’t do the lap straight away and then I couldn’t improve because it was raining a lot. But even after the incident the pace was very good during the whole race. A clean race is what it counts in the end.”
Massa admitted he is ready to play a supporting role to Alonso now that he is out of contention.
“I have no chance in the championship. I’m completely out of the fight for the championship and Fernando in in front with a good margin.
There are many races to go but the margin is good and I will do the best I can do be in front all the time, to try to win all the time, but also to try to help Fernando as best as I can to win the championship.”
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