Q & A with Felipe Massa

Felipe Massa: It was important to run in these conditions and it was good to be able to prepare before the race. It is always nice to drive more, but personally I am happy that all the things have gone well. The car is just right. It has been very good, and we will see how good the preparation has been in the race.

Q. What have you tested here?

FM: I tested the tyres, the two types that will be used in the race. I also worked on the set up for the weekend, which is normal. There was nothing really special, just the usual preparation.

Q. Do you think Ferrari have made further improvements on top of their Melbourne performance?

FM: I really don't know what the others are doing, but 100 percent it seems we will be good like in Melbourne.

Q. Is there any particular preparation for this hot race?

FM: No. My engine has finished (its mileage), and it worked really well.

Q. Do you have to work more on the set-up for qualifying than for the race?

FM: It is important for the tyres to behave well in the race, but we have to make some adjustments.

Q. Is the difference between the two tyres big? Is it bigger than it was in Melbourne?

FM: Yes, for sure we can see some difference in the tyres. The hard is a bit more difficult to use, but is the difference bigger? It depends. In Australia sometimes the softer was much faster in the race, but the difference was quite big. Here it is quite big also. These two tracks are very different, and we have to approach each one differently.

Q. Did you stay in Malaysia after Australia, or did you go home?

FM: I went to Brazil. I went to the centre of the country, in a very hot place, to make some fitness training for here.

Q. How is the car in these conditions?

FM: At the moment the car is okay on the reliability, and I am okay. I have done many laps in the morning, in hot conditions like 40C, so that is a good sign. It will be okay for the race.

Q. Looking back on Melbourne, when you found out you had to go to the back of the grid did you kind of rejoice because of the idea of a major fight back?

FM: Well, for sure when you have a good car it is important to start in the front as well! But also with a good car you can gain positions and you can finish in good positions. It happened like that, and I finished in sixth.

Unfortunately I was not able to pass Giancarlo (Fisichella) in the end, but it is important to bring points home when something like that happens. So I was not lucky, but in the race I could manage to bring points home, which can be very important for the end of the championship.

Q. Did you enjoy the initial part of the race?

FM: I do prefer to start at the front! Really...

Q. Do you feel Ferrari are on another planet?

FM: We are all on the same planet! You too, and me as well! I can say that we are strong and we are fast, but we need to approach the race just the same as other competitor. McLaren are also difficult to beat, and BMW are strong as well. We just need to approach it in the same way as them.

Q. Do you think the gap between the teams will be the same as it was in Australia?

FM: It is difficult to say now, looking at the test. It is not the right way to say things like that. Let's see next weekend.

Q. You were saving the engine quite a bit in the race in Australia. Why was that?

FM: Usually, at the back of the grid, you have traffic and it is sometimes not possible to pass cars even with higher revs. You have a lot of fuel in the car and you need to save as much engine as possible because the next race is hot.

I had a very difficult time in the first stint. I did the whole stint at very low revs; otherwise I could not do one stop. So I needed to save a lot of fuel. That also saved me my engine and my strategy. In the end I did very well.

Q. Would it have been wiser to choose the hard tyre and then the soft in the race?

FM: The thing in Melbourne was that usually the hard was better. But our thinking was that if we start with the soft, when you have traffic you don't use the tyres so hard so the tyres can survive a bit better than pushing all the time. Plus, if you have a safety car at the beginning of the race, which is quite normal in Australia although we did not have one this time, then you can take off the soft which you have already used and then use the other one with the best strategy.

Q. Do you think you could have done better than sixth?

FM: If I was not in traffic, yes.