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Massa: "Button Cracked Under Pressure!"

Talking to the media prior to his skull surgery yesterday, Brazilian driver Felipe Massa shared some thoughts on the title fight this season to British newspaper The Guardian. Although he has been out of action for more than one and a half months, the 28-year old revealed he kept a close eye on the things that happened in the sport and believes championship leader Jenson Button should get his act together if he wants to become world champion.

Massa argued that Button won easily in the first part of the season thanks to an over-performing package and he now has to race for points in order to secure the world title. The Brit has scored only 11 points in the last 5 races – culminating with his DNF at Spa – and is only 16 points ahead of teammate Rubens Barrichello with 5 rounds to go.

At the start of the season everything was nice, everything was easy (for Button). But now we have races where things are more difficult. So for me the pressure has had a big impact on his mind – and he needs to deal with it better. If he does not cope with the pressure he will not win the championship,” said Massa in the aforementioned interview.

If Jenson carries on in this bad way it will help Rubens a lot. In my opinion, Jenson has gone down because of the pressure. It's the only reason. In the earlier races he was almost half a second quicker than some teams. You win the race easy and there is not so much pressure. That's different to fighting hard for the championship. Now he has a different kind of pressure.

Look at me – I came to Brazil six points behind (Hamilton) and I almost won the championship. Rubens (Barrichello) has five races to close 16 points. It's a big possibility,” added the Brazilian driver.

In the last 5 races, Button's best result was a 5th place in Germany, as he lost no less than 10 points to Barrichello in the standings. Although he lost some consistent points to Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber also, the inconsistency of the two Red Bull drivers during the past few races kept Button's point advantage in the vicinity of 20 points.
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