Felipe Massa believes his current form is proof he did not suffer any long-term repercussions from his serious accident at the Hungaroring in 2009.
Massa has not won a race since his title challenge in 2008, but his performances since leaving Ferrari for Williams last year have dramatically improved. His dip in form when he returned from his accident in 2010 led some to suggest he was not the same driver he had been before his freak accident at the Hungaroring in which a loose spring from another car hit him at 160 mph and fractured his skull.
Asked recently of he felt he was driving as well as he had been in 2008, he took the opportunity to put journalists straight on his accident too.
"I think so, the only thing you cannot say is that I am fighting for the championship [this year]," Massa said. "For sure, we had maybe the top car in 2008 and now we are the third team in the championship. But I feel really good and I am driving really well and using the car in the best way I believe I can. It's nice to have that feeling and it gives you extra confidence. Maybe also when many of you wrote my accident changed completely my driving, maybe that's not correct."
Asked if it had been too easy to write him off during his slump in form at Ferrari, he added: "I think it's much easier to write than drive.
"I had some reasons but I don't want to put the reasons on the table, I have some reasons for not being so strong at the last years for Ferrari. The past is the past, we work for the present."