Felipe Massa says Fernando Alonso needs his support to win the championship

The Spaniard extended his championship lead to 34 points with his third win of the season at Hockenheim on Sunday.

But over the weekend Alonso highlighted the fact that he expects both Red Bull drivers and Lewis Hamilton to pose a big threat in the championship fight.

And Massa, who feels he has turned his form around in the last few races despite a weekend to forget in Germany, is certain that he will have to play a role in the second half of the season.

"Sure, Fernando needs me," said Massa. "In a championship like this, it is very important to have both cars scoring points.

"This year it is so competitive between many drivers, many teams, so you know how important every result is. It is a championship that maybe one point can be enough to win or lose."

Massa believes that the title fight will go down to the last race of the season, and he has urged Ferrari to keep pushing in the development race to make sure that Alonso is a part of that battle.

"Every race will be important [in the championship], from now until the last one," he said. "We need to keep working like we were doing in the last few races and improving the car, and then Fernando has even more chance to fight until the last race."

The Brazilian's future was a hot topic again over the German Grand Prix weekend following Mark Webber's admission that he spoke to Ferrari before deciding to stay at Red Bull.

But Massa reiterated his belief that he is capable of good results, after he came home only 12th on Sunday.

"I feel very good now," he said. "I would say after Monaco I feel very automatic driving the car, very competitive, and that is the most important thing.

"I was not feeling very good in the beginning of the season, but after the first races many things changed.

"It is easy [to deal with a bad race] when you have the pace. It is much harder if you are nowhere. But here we had a crash at the start and that was it. There was nothing wrong with the pace."