Webber: Massa will be stronger now

Mark Webber has given Felipe Massa a vote of confidence by suggesting that he will be a stronger driver after the Hockenheim experience and the adversity he has overcome in the past year.Massa has faced hostile media coverage in his Brazilian homeland for ceding victory to Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso in Germany, but Webber believes the episode will only strengthen his resolve.I think Felipe has had a very tough, but incredible, eight months to come back from what he did, said Webber at the Hungaroring on Thursday.I think it's clear that Ferrari but also Felipe have not had an amazing start to the year.But I think he'll be much stronger for the back half of the championship and for next year.He'll be a much better driver because he'd had to come back from a difficult situation. He's been at Ferrari a long, long time; he obviously feels very comfortable there. And he'll be there for the future as well.Webber implied that Massa might not realise that he is not yet back to 100 per cent after last year's Hungaroring accident that left him with a fractured skull a reference perhaps to his own recovery last year after his winter cycling crash.He needs to be ready for when he's back fully, said Webber.Of course he'll say he's at 100 per cent now, but he really doesn't know until...Let's see how next year goes, and maybe he can have some wins before this year is out.Webber believes that in order to be allowed to win Massa will need to have demonstrated clearly superior pace to Alonso.I still think he has a chance to win this race here a real chance to win, he said.If he's fast enough to disappear, he will win the race.And that was the opportunity he had in Hockenheim.His first stint was incredible in Hockenheim, his second stint was obviously not quite fast enough to avoid the positions being moved around, because they wanted the faster guy to win the grand prix.Webber has been at the centre of a team favouritism controversy himself this year, and reckons it's impossible to legislate against teams employing orders directly or indirectly.He believes it would be better to face that reality than force teams to use more devious ways of securing their desired result.[It's] very, very difficult to control team orders, he said.They've been happening for 40 years in the sport, and they'll happen in the future. That's the way it is.If you have a two-car team, three-car team, four-car team, there's always going to be situations where at certain tracks at certain points in the championship one car is going to need to be in a different position and the team can influence that, so they will.It's better than doing a deliberate bad pit stop or whatever.You can do so many things to make it hard, so to try and have a rule that says you cannot manipulate or have a team order in a grand prix is virtually impossible, because I can tell you to do something tonight going home to the hotel and it's between you and I and you do it and it's done.Much better to do it [openly] than to do something that's hidden from everyone.In this case [Ferrari] got the maximum result, but obviously for the fans you can understand [their reaction].But it's happened so many times since [the notorious Austrian GP in] '02.But for the victory it's a different thing.People who think it's the first time it's happened are dreaming. It's not the only time.