Massa sure he can build upon Monaco showing and improve further at Canada

The Brazilian, who endured a dismal start to his campaign, was able to match the pace of his Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso in Monte Carlo.

Massa achieved his best result of the year with a sixth-place finish, and the Ferrari driver is sure he is much stronger than a few races ago.

"I think it was a better race, a clean race, nothing wrong happened," said Massa in Montreal on Thursday. "I had good pace from the first session, so hopefully we can use that to do things even better here and all these races until the end of the year.

"I think it was a positive weekend - even if I was not so happy to finish P6, I think it was a good start."

He added: "I feel much better in the car. Improving the car helps a lot. I hope we carry on that way, improving, stronger race by race and fighting for many good points and even looking forward to victories and podiums. This is the target and the direction and I feel much stronger in the car now compared to the beginning of the season."

Massa said that although the nature of Monaco means not all he learned will be useful at other tracks, he feels optimistic a lot of what he changed can help him be stronger at all types of circuits.

"I discovered things that for sure can be the direction for the other tracks," he said. "Monaco is different to many other tracks, but it helps a lot to understand things that we did not understand before. So I'm looking forward to following that direction and being stronger and stronger all the time."

The Brazilian said he is not thinking about his future with Ferrari just yet, and is instead focusing on doing the best possible job in every race.

"The most important thing is to think about the present, think about race by race," he said. "By August we will start to see what will happen in the future."

And he denied reports that he will quit Formula 1 if he doesn't get a new Ferrari contract.

"I didn't say if that if I am not in Ferrari I will stop. I said if I need to go to a small team then maybe I will think about doing something else. I always want to fight for the victory."