Massa predicts close battle in front

Massa's team enjoyed a dominant performance at the United States Grand Prix 11 days ago, with Michael Schumacher cruising to his third win of the season.

Brazilian Massa finished in second place to complete Ferrari's first one-two of the season and the first real, excluding the Indy fiasco of 2005, one since 2004.

But Massa is expecting rivals Renault and McLaren to be fighting on top this weekend and during the remainder of the season.

"For sure we expect that Renault and McLaren be a little bit stronger here compared to Indy," said Massa ahead of this weekend's French Grand Prix. "We expect that they come back to fight really hard with us, but hopefully we can manage to stay in front.

"It will be very tough the second part of the championship, but everyone in the team is very motivated, the drivers, the whole team, and it is important to be in front."

Massa says his second place at Indianapolis, his best result in Formula One so far, has given him a boost to keep on pushing.

"It is very nice, it is more motivation to keep pushing hard, to keep working. It was a good result for me, for the team, for the championship. It was a great achievement."