Felipe Massa admits Ferrari's Silverstone form hard to predict

But the Brazilian is hopeful the high-speed nature of the Silverstone circuit will suit the characteristics of his Ferrari.

"It's difficult to have a clear picture of how competitive we should be," said Massa on Ferrari's website on Wednesday.

"Especially this year, we have seen results in the races that we could never have expected. Silverstone is a very different track to the last few, so we need to be ready for everything and arrive as well prepared as possible.

"Who knows, maybe Silverstone can be even better than expected for us. But if you look at Valencia where we had 13 cars in three tenths in Q2, it shows you really cannot make predictions this season.

"However, we believe our car is not too bad in the high speed corners and so I feel we should discover a good F2012 when we start practice there on Friday."

The Brazilian, who struggled in the early part of the 2012 season, insisted he is now feeling much stronger thanks to the changes he and his engineer Rob Smedley have implemented.

"I've worked with Rob since 2006, starting with him as my race engineer at the Nurburgring," he said. "After all this time, he knows exactly what I want and need from a car and he understands everything about my driving style.

"However, every year the car changes, the tyres are different and many other elements change from one year to the next so we always have to learn together.

"This year, for example, the first few races were a bit difficult, but from then on we changed direction in some areas and now, the work in terms of finding the right set-up at every track seems much more automatic. At this point of the season I feel much stronger thanks to this."