Massa convinced of Ferrari's strong pace

After fighting for victory in the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix, Schumacher and Massa were left struggling to repeat that form in Malaysia and Australia.

With aerodynamic, engine and suspension upgrades for this weekend's San Marino Grand Prix set to boost the team's form, however, Massa believes that the Maranello outfit's mixed fortunes so far this season can be explained simply by the wrong tyre choice rather than anything inherently wrong with their car.

"I would say we are on a good level," said the Brazilian. "After the first two races we were quite competitive, on a similar basis to Renault and McLaren, and I have to say we were just unlucky.

"We made some mistakes and I think we were a bit unlucky in these races. I think the pace was there and I think that was the important thing for us - to have good pace."

Massa believes that the team's conservative choice of tyres in Australia was the main factor in their struggles there.

"We were a little bit surprised in the last race because our tyre was the wrong choice and it was very difficult to make it work, especially with the temperature," he explained. "It was very, very cold.

"We didn't expect to have temperature like that and it was very, very difficult to choose the tyres. It was impossible to make the tyres go back to a good temperature."

When asked whether Ferrari would have been better off choosing the softer tyres that Toyota put to such good use in Australia, Massa said: "In the end, they risked in running a very soft compound and it worked. Together with the temperature it was very cold and it worked very well."

Massa is upbeat about Ferrari's chances for Imola - both because of the improvements made to the car and the fact that the track has always been a happy hunting ground for Bridgestone.

"We have a different car with many new aerodynamic parts, we fixed our engine as well and also we find some good components for this race and hopefully we can turn the page and make some good results."