Massa calls for quick Ferrari reaction

Felipe Massa says his Ferrari team must find solutions to its problems quickly in order to get its championship challenge back on track

The Italian squad has now failed to score in two consecutive grands prix after another poor race at the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday.

Last year's runner-up finished ninth in today's race, while team-mate Kimi Raikkonen was down in 14th.

Massa, who retired from the Australian Grand Prix last weekend, says Ferrari must react quickly if the team is not to lose all chances in the championship.

"We need to start from zero," said Massa after the Sepang race. "We need to get together to understand point by point what is going wrong. And, try to improve everything. That is the idea.

"I think we need to get together and we need to improve. We were not great before and stupid now. For sure the car is not strong enough. We need to work on that, and we did some mistakes on the strategy and this kind of thing.

"We need to get together and understand the problem, but as I said, we were not great in the past and stupid now. That is my point of view."

He added: "It is always a problem when you don't score points. So, for sure in this kind of race our aim is to score points, but it was not possible. Anyway, it is a bad result."

The Brazilian, who endured a similar start to the season last year, admitted the task will not be easy, as he feels the 2009 car is not as strong as last year's.

"For sure, last year we had a better car," he added. "It will be better to improve the situation and get in the fight again. This time we had a difficult car, so it will be a little bit more difficult. If something changes between this race and next race, then maybe we will have a chance."

Massa also said the FIA's ruling on the diffuser used by Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams will be crucial in deciding the outcome of the championship.

"You can see - no? I think everybody can see," Massa said. "The guys who have the diffuser have a lot more downforce. So it is completely difficult to fight with them.

"If we get a championship that is the same for everybody at the next race, then for sure it will be more competitive. But if we don't, then it will take quite a bit of time to have the diffuser on our car, so it will be very difficult."