Although fighting for a World title today, the 2008 title that is, Felipe Massa concedes maybe he was “too nice” as a Formula 1 driver and Lando Norris could have the same problem.

Massa raced in Formula 1 from 2002 to 2017 and while he came close to winning the World title in 2008 where he fell short by a single point that’s now under litigation in light of Crashgate, he was all too often the number two driver.

World title for Max Verstappen, lessons for Lando Norris?

But being the “nice” guy didn’t help him.

So much so the former Ferrari driver says he would rather have Max Verstappen’s aggression than fall into the same category as the Red Bull driver’s rival Norris‘ “less” aggression.

“Max is a complete driver,” the Brazilian told Formule1.nl. “He has everything, in terms of speed and mentality. He is a huge fighter. For him, everything revolves around racing, everything else doesn’t interest him.

“Max drives aggressively, on the limit and sometimes a bit over it. Lando has less of that. For me, Max is clearly number one. I personally like his mentality.

“I think I would have come further in my own career if I had had more of Max’s mentality. I was sometimes too nice, too kind. I was maybe more like Lando.”

Verstappen is on the cusp of a fourth World title as he’s taken a 62-point lead over Norris in the Drivers’ standings with three races remaining.

Although Norris dug into his advantage in five of the six races building up to Brazil, it fell apart at the Interlagos when Verstappen won the Grand Prix while two mistakes from Norris dropped him from fourth to sixth in the classification.

It all but sealed the World title in Verstappen’s favour.

Massa though, believes Norris has still learned valuable lessons for the future.

“Don’t forget, this season was the first time he fought for a championship and against someone like Max. That’s not easy,” he said. “But you can see that he is changing. He is getting tougher. In other words, he is learning. So next year or the year after that it might be different.”

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Felipe Massa hits out at ‘ridiculous’ FIA

As for the FIA stewards’ role in their recent tussles, Massa says that’s just been “ridiculous”.

Norris was penalised five seconds at the United States Grand Prix when he tried to pass Verstappen around the outside but was pushed off the track by the Dutchman only to be penalised for passing him off the track, while Verstappen was penalised twice in quick succession in Mexico.

The first was for pushing Norris off the track at Turn 4 while a few corners later he was penalised for passing the McLaren driver off the track in a move in which he dived up the inside and sent them both off the track.

He was particularly irritated by the FIA imposing a day of community service on Verstappen for swearing in a press conference.

“What the FIA ​​is doing is ridiculous,” he said. “I mean, the drivers are fighting with everything they have for the World Championship.

“When you can’t even say anything when you’re angry, come on. Put your microphone under a football player’s nose during a match and you’ll hear much worse things.

Max didn’t insult anyone, he just said that his own car was bad. So I completely disagreed with the FIA’s punishment.

“Drivers themselves understand what they can and can’t say, the FIA ​​doesn’t need to interfere with that.”

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