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  • David Phillips
    Editor and Chief
    David Phillips is a long-time contributor to print and electronic publications in the U.S. and abroad, including Racer, Autosport, AutoWeek, Motor Sport and SPEEDtv.com, oversees the daily updating of news stories and assigns, edits and contributes feature material for inRacingNews.com.
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    iRacing.com Series Writer
    Chris Hall has been writing since the nineties and moved into motorsports reporting in 2005, covering series such as ALMS, British GT, FIA GT, Le Mans and 2CV racing for Full Throttle magazine, Motorsport.com, The-Paddock.net, GTGateway.com, L' Endurance and, of course, inRacingNews. During 2008 and 2009, he worked with the RSS Performance Porsche Carrera Cup Team (and former British GT(C) champions) as a data engineer for a variety of drivers and models of 997s.
  • Jameson Spies
    Contributing Writer
    19 years old, Jameson Spies lives in Quartz Hill, California. He grew-up surrounded by racing. His mother raced late models throughout Southern California while his father built and setup the car. Not surprisingly, Jameson began racing go-karts at the age of 13, and is now racing Spec Trucks at Toyota Speedway at Irwindale. He has a passion about all forms of racing and hopes to make a career out of it.
  • Jason Lofing
    iRacing.com Series Writer
    Jason is 21 years old and was born and raised in Elk Grove. California. A big time NASCAR fan, he hasn’t missed a race on Sunday in years. Lofing is also a huge San Fransisco Giants fan and tries to take in at least a couple games a year. Other than sim racing, his biggest (and far more expensive!) hobby is photography. Although he is rather new to sim racing, Lofing has already accomplished some pretty impressive results, qualifying for the 2011 iRacing Oval Pro Series in Season 1, 2011, winning the inaugural Landon Cassill Qualifying Challenge and finishing runner-up in the second one.
  • Tim Terry
    Contributing Writer
    Tim Terry, aka the voice of Maritime stock car racing, fell in love with sim racing in 2004 after he joined the Sim Racing Network crew as a pit reporter. From October 2004 to SRNtv’s closure in June 2007, he’s covered prestigious races and leagues such as the Online 500, FLM Fall 400, Real Racing Online and the DMP Racing League – each as the lead broadcaster for the company. At the same time the wheels started to turn in another direction as he began announcing stock car racing locally. Terry became the assistant announcer at Scotia Speedworld in May 2007 and took over full duties in May 2009 when long-time voice Mike Kaplan retired from the track. Terry also became the series voice of the Parts For Trucks Pro Stock Tour in ’09 and continues to hold down both posts in 2011. He has also announced races for the Pro All Stars Series, Atlantic Open Wheel and Maritime League of Legends tours and has called races at six different Atlantic Canadian tracks. Terry can be heard online at WebRacingNetwork.com, RLMtv.com and OLRtv.com covering sim races. He also makes occasional appearances on PSRtv.com. In addition to inRacingNews, his articles and columns can be read on ScotiaSpeedworld.ca, MaritimeProStockTour.com and his own website at timterryonline.com.
  • David Allen
    Contributing Writer
    North Carolina born and raised with over 15 years of computer/IT experience, I combine two of my biggest hobbies -- racing and technology -- here at inRacingNews. In my spare time I run a Nascar fan site and cure my own need for speed riding atvs. If it involves technology or racing I'll be there, but combine the two and I'll be looking a front row seat. Stop by and say hello anytime!
  • Allen Krier
    Contributing Writer
    Allen was born in West Palm Beach, Florida but grew up in Atlanta and attended Georgia College and State University where he received a BS in Information Systems. Currently a resident of Albany, GA, he started sim racing in 2008 while in college when iRacing was first released to the public. Since then, Krier has been a two time iRacing Pro Series driver (2009 and 2010), picking up one Pro Series win at Daytona in ‘09. Besides sim racing, Allen’s other hobbies include RC Car racing as well as “attending and watching any sporting event that I can including going to the local dirt track.

Massa to bounce back, says Ferrari

December 22nd, 2011

Massa, caption

Felipe Massa will be back on the kind of form that took him to the brink of 2008 Formula 1 world title next year, according to Ferrari president Luca di Montezemolo.

The Brazilian failed to finish higher than fifth during the 2011 season and ended the year with less than half the points of his team-mate Fernando Alonso.

But di Montezemolo has tipped him to bounce back next year, which will be a crucial campaign for Massa’s future as he has only one more season left on his Ferrari contract.

“I am sure that we will have a competitive Felipe as he was before,” said di Montezemolo. “Don’t forget that he was sometimes quicker than Michael Schumacher when he was his team-mate.

“I expect a strong reaction from Felipe because he is coming out of an unsuccessful season. There are reasons that explain this [disappointing year]. Felipe can have a very good season next year and I know that he is preparing himself very well.”

Di Montezemolo dismissed suggestions that Massa’s crash during qualifying for the 2009 Hungarian Grand Prix, which left him with serious head injuries and forced him to miss the rest of that season, has anything to do with his struggles during the past two years.

He pointed to the handling of the car and tyre characteristics as being responsible for the Brazilian’s struggles.

The characteristics of our car were not in line with his driving characteristics,” he said. “This was clear since the first test. And the tyres were too hard.

“A driver doesn’t change so much in one year. He was very quick against Kimi Raikkonen [his team-mate in 2007 and '08]. It’s nothing to do with the crash. Felipe will be competitive if our car is competitive.”

If Massa does not raise his game significantly after managing only five podium finishes in the past two seasons, it is very unlikely that he will be given a new contract.

Di Montezemolo confirmed that the team is constantly evaluating the drivers on the market and hinted that any driver decision would not be taken until towards the end of the 2012 campaign.

“At the end of next season, we will have lots of possibilities,” he said. “There is a big choice. Today, the only problem that we don’t have is a driver problem.

“We will see what happens with [Robert] Kubica as I hope that he can come back. This year I also very much liked Nico Rosberg. He had a very good performance.

“And there are drivers with good potential who are not in competitive cars. This is a reason why I am in favour of a third car.”

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