Massa aiming for better luck in Melbourne

The Brazilian had to start from the back after a gearbox problem in qualifying last season, and was eliminated at the first corner in 2006 when he was sandwiched between Nico Rosberg and Christian Klien.

"Hopefully this weekend will go better than the last two in Australia," he said. "I have not been so lucky at this circuit in the past.

"It is important to make a good start to the season, but it's so competitive that you also need to have a good middle and a good end! When there are two teams so close, which I think is the situation again this year, every single point counts."

Massa is looking forward to seeing each team's true pace and believes Ferrari are in a good position after their winter testing programme.

"The start of the season is always exciting. Even though it's slightly less than when I first started racing because I have a better idea what to expect, the first race brings excitement. You finally get to see who was really doing what in testing and if your predictions were correct.

"We put in a very high mileage and although it's difficult to say what might happen with reliability, we are definitely in better shape than we were at the start of 2007. Now we'll see where we stand and in which areas we need to improve."