Q & A with Felipe Massa

Felipe Massa: I think we cannot say that this is the real start of the championship. We are just in the middle of a very competitive championship. Every race can be important, but unfortunately the last race was not fantastic for us. The result we had in the end was not the one we expected but we understand that the track characteristics are very different compared to the others.

Maybe it is one track where our track does not work in that direction, but I am pretty sure our car is very well prepared for the tracks we are going to approach now - this race and the next race, plus the other tracks we are going to see in the middle of the season. So hopefully Monte Carlo was just a single case and hopefully now we are back in the fight with McLaren and hopefully we can score more points than them.

Q. Do you think a track like Hungary, which is also tight and twisty, could be a problem for your package?

FM: I don't think so because Hungary looks like a very tight track, but it has many medium and high-speed corners so it is a different track compared to Monte Carlo. And if you look, the history of McLaren at Monte Carlo has been very, very strong. Hopefully that is just the case.

Q. The temperatures here this weekend are lower than anticipated. How difficult will it be looking after the super softs here?

FM: Well, I think it can be the same for everybody. Everyone has the same tyres; we just need to understand how to warm up the tyres in the best way to have good grip in the first lap. I am sure the tyres we have now, even in Monaco, the super soft was still on the hard side.

So here the super soft will not be very difficult to use in my opinion in terms of long distance. We just need to find a good temperature for a first lap to find a good grip.

Q. Do you think this race is a crucial one for your teammate, and could make it easier for you in terms of the rest of the championship?

FM: Well, I think if you look at the championship like it is now, with four drivers fighting at every race, then if you have a bad race it can affect you a lot in the championship. You don't have any margin, and this can happen with whatever driver. I am sure that if you have two bad results, even McLaren, if they have two bad results they could be a little bit behind in the championship - and it could be the same case with Kimi.

Kimi was not lucky in the last two races and for sure in a championship like that it can be very difficult. In my case, if I had a good qualifying in Australia then maybe I could be in front in the championship.

Q. Do you think it will be an advantage if you were the only Ferrari driver going for the championship?

FM: I think it should be better to have both Ferraris in the front because McLaren is always scoring both cars in the front. It is important for us to score more points than McLaren, so that is why we need to push hard. We need to have a good work together to score as many points as we can with both cars.

Q. Do you think McLaren will be affected by the problems they had last week with the team orders controversy?

FM: Well, I don't know. I really have no idea what is going on inside McLaren. We are just working hard inside our team. The relationship, the teamwork is going very well so we just need to think about ourselves and try to do the best we can. We know McLaren is a very strong team. We just need to pay attention to everything they are doing and try to do better.

Q. Did you expect this championship to be so close between the four main drivers, and for you to be so far ahead of the other teams?

FM: I think looking at how it is going until now the championship looks much more intense and much more competitive between Ferrari and McLaren. Maybe it can be that in one race we are going to see another driver together but I think it is much more (limited) to Ferrari and McLaren.

Q. Does it surprise you that it is limited to those two teams?

FM: No, I saw in the winter, especially at the end of the winter, that McLaren and BMW were the quicker teams. But then when we had our final package we were very strong and I think McLaren and Ferrari are used to making big developments, race-by-race, to have many new things on the car, and I think BMW are still learning. Maybe Renault too, but they don't seem to be very, very strong like last year. In my opinion the championship will be very tight between McLaren and Ferrari.

Q. After the Paul Ricard test on the Montreal set-up, what are you feelings for this weekend?

FM: It was a good test, so if you look at the times and the consistency it was a good test. But we need to see here where it counts, as the test does not give you a clear idea.

Q. Is it is a disadvantage to only have one car in testing at the team?

FM: At the end of the day it is the same for everybody, so if it is a disadvantage then it is a disadvantage for every team.

Q. Jacques Villeneuve said this week that Lewis Hamilton has been chopping some of his rivals. Does he have a point?

FM: I have nothing to say about that. We saw in every race this year a good fight. The stewards are there to see if anybody does anything wrong, and I don't think people did anything wrong. But I don't like to comment on these politics because it doesn't help anyone.

Q. So you don't think Lewis has done anything?

FM: For me it was normal, like I didn't do anything wrong in Barcelona.

Q. Last year you won races but were not really fighting for the championship. How is your feelings and confidence levels?

FM: I think it is a little bit different from last year. Last year it was impossible to fight for the championship because I lost so many points in the first part of the year. In the second part I was very strong and in my mind I was fighting for the championship because I was fighting for third place, which was for me the best that could happen. It felt like a victory to finish third in the championship, and I finished.

The approach is the same. I am quite confident for sure, but I am also pushing hard every day to try to beat my competitors. For sure I am really working hard and motivated to try and achieve that. At the end of the day we need to put everything together - the car, the team, the driver and also the luck. Hopefully we can put everything together.

Q. Looking back at Monaco, some people have said that Ferrari's problems could be related to the longer wheelbase. Would you agree?

FM: I hope it is the case, because we were not strong enough in Monte Carlo. So I hope here we are going to be back to where we were in the previous races apart from Monaco. For sure our car is built in a little bit different way to the other competitors, but we know our car is competitive and that it should work well on most tracks on the championship.