Zoom The centre of attention in Brazil

Rubens Barrichello on Thursday played down suggestions his friend and countryman Felipe Massa has changed since his serious accident in July, while future Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso was keen to play down the Brazilian’s comments.

Massa has been particularly outspoken in recent times, suggesting that Alonso knows more about crash-gate, and saying Jenson Button might blow the world championship – both valid questions. Barrichello was asked if he thinks Massa's absence has changed him.

"No, I don't think he has,” the Brawn driver said. “I think he's been the same person and all my wishes, when I was at the hospital, were that he was the same guy.”

Barrichello said he believes Massa's apparent outspokenness is a combination of his sitting out races, and the media paying particular attention to his comments.

"In Formula One if you're not travelling with everyone all the time and not hearing what the same people are talking about, you just get different ideas and maybe you're flying on your own ideas," he said. "He's been out for a month and then he comes back in and talks about something and it becomes a lot more important.

"For me it's just the fact that he's been out and not living the world that we're living in," Barrichello added.

He also said Massa appears to be the same driver as before his Hungarian shunt. "After I saw him with my own eyes and I saw that he was the same, I wished that he could drive the same way, and he went to Fiorano and did that," he said.

"From all the people that I've spoken to and to himself, it looked like he got into the car and on the third lap he was on the pace.”

Meanwhile, Alonso has played down Massa's dubious welcome to the Ferrari team after the latter insisted that he must have known about Nelson Piquet's notorious deliberate crash in Singapore last year.

"It's not very important for me," Alonso said. "I'm not too worried. It will not affect anything, me or the relationship - I actually think we will be great. It will be a good group and we will be very strong next year," he said.

Massa will be in the Interlagos paddock this weekend to meet with his colleagues and wave the chequered flag, but Alonso said he is not planning to sit down with the Brazilian to discuss the crash-gate comments. "Maybe we will have a chat, but I'm sure it won't be about this matter," he said.

"If we do have a chat it will be more about his recovery, that he seems well, about his experience at Ferrari. He has been there three or four years and I need to learn, to adapt myself a little bit quicker if possible. So anything I talk to Felipe about these days or in the future will be a huge help for me to know the team.”

E.A. © CAPSIS International
Source: GMM