Massa not feeling extra pressure

"I think the pressure you have all the time," Massa told reporters ahead of the Chinese Grand Prix.

"When you become a Ferrari driver you have pressure at the beginning of the season, the middle of the season and the end of the season. It doesn't matter the position you are.

"You have a pressure but it is a different pressure, but you have always the pressure on your side. I think you learn so much how to cope with the pressure and how to think doing your job. It doesn't matter what you have around you.

"I feel quite good, I feel in the position to do my job in the best way we can and hopefully we do it in the right way. Hopefully we can achieve what we want, and that is the way I think in this moment. It was the way I was thinking in the last race, all the races before and I think in the same way for the next race as well."

He added: "For sure you feel that you are in a different position - that maybe the pressure you have now is a bit different from the pressure if you are doing a bad job or if you don't score points for two races like I did in the first two races! But I think it is always the same thing.

"The pressure is always the same for results. And that doesn't matter if you are first or last in the championship."

The Brazilian is second in the standings, five points behind McLaren's Lewis Hamilton, who could clinch the title this weekend if he outscores Massa by six points.

Massa reckons the British driver is the favourite because of the points situation.

"We are five points behind, so you cannot put us in exactly the same position as your opponent," added Massa. "For sure, it can be almost nothing - but almost is not enough in F1. You need to be precise. For sure it is not a big difference.

"We saw in Singapore that I had a problem and could not score points and Lewis finished third, and the difference of one point went very quickly to seven points. So it can be the other way around as well. That is why it is a small difference, but we need to try and be in front of him."

The Ferrari driver said Hamilton has been over confident and over aggressive at times, but he doesn't believe those qualities will necessarily play against the British driver.

"Well, that is Lewis. That is his personality. To be aggressive and to always (be) over confident. That is true. That is his personality.

"It doesn't mean that he cannot be good, cannot be competitive or cannot be strong because of that. Everybody knows that he is very strong and these things, many races, made him a lot of points. That is why it doesn't change anything."