Massa insists: no cakewalk for Ferrari

The Italian squad won the first race of the season thanks to Kimi Raikkonen, who controlled the event from start to finish to start his life at Ferrari in perfect style.

Ferrari's form in Australia, and in the Sepang test last week, has fueled their rivals' belief that the Maranello squad continue to be well ahead of the competition, but Massa has insisted the season will not be easy for them.

"I have seen all the recent media speculation following Melbourne, that this year's championship is going to be easy for Ferrari," said Massa. "It's not true of course, but I do have a good car.

"As usual, the important thing for this weekend, will be to put everything together, all the elements you need to win and we do have those elements.

"But the competition is very strong and so it will be very difficult, but looking at what we did in Australia and also last week in Sepang, we are looking very strong ourselves.

"In the first race we managed to win but we had a reliability problem with the other car, so the obvious next step is to be in a position to have both cars at the front.

"And that's not easy, but we have a good team and a good package and everyone is working very hard. I am confident we will be very strong again this weekend."

Unlike some of their rivals, Ferrari will not introduce any updates in their car at this weekend's Malaysian Grand Prix, and there are concerns about Raikkonen's engine following some problems at the end of the Australian race.

Despite that, Massa believes the team can be stronger thanks to their better understanding of the F2007.

"The car we will race in Malaysia is the same as the one we raced in Australia, with nothing new," Massa added. "So from this aspect with the same package, our performance level cannot improve.

"But in another sense, we have done more running with the car now, and so we have a much better understanding of the car and how it works and that is very important.

"After having to fight from the back in Melbourne, I am looking forward to having a race from the front this weekend."

Massa had to start from the back of the grid in Australian after suffering a mechanical problem in qualifying. The Brazilian went on to finish in sixth place.