Q & A with Felipe Massa

Felipe Massa: Yes. After a great season like that, you show a lot of respect. That's always important as a driver.

Q. After Melbourne, are you more concerned about the lack of speed or the lack of reliability?

FM: A bit of both. It's always a concern that we were not the quickest car on the track, and that we didn't finish the race is another very important concern.

Q. With the resources that Ferrari has, when do you think you will be able to catch the Brawn?

FM: It won't be easy. But I hope we can improve the car and make a bit more competition between Brawn and the others.

Q. There's a strong chance of rain here - could that help Ferrari?

FM: I don't know. It can be very good, it can be very bad. It can be a lottery and it can completely change the result of the race, so we will have to wait and see.

Q. What conclusions can you draw from what happened in Melbourne?

FM: We didn't finish the race for reliability reasons ,so that was the biggest problem. Most of the race, I was third, then we made a mistake with the strategy after there was a safety car. That was a mistake because it put me behind. But even with the mistake on strategy I would have been able to finish the race together with Lewis Hamilton. He finished third - I would have been behind him or maybe in front. If you don't have the quickest car on the track and you have the possibility to score points, it's a great results. But we couldn't achieve that.

Q. Getting the soft tyres out of the way would have worked in your favour at the end of the race?

FM: Yes. I was in front of Robert Kubica. He had the same strategy as me but I went for three stops, they went for two and I was the unlucky guy. Kubica was able to fight at the end with Sebastian Vettel and maybe Jenson Button, so maybe I could have been in the same position. I don't know.

Q. What are your thoughts on the championship?

FM: We need to recover, we need to start scoring points and start the championship in a good way here. And we need to develop the car. It's not so different a start to what I had last year, so we need a similar mentality.

Q. Are you concerned about the possibility of bad weather and the low sun in the race?

FM: That is always an extra concern. We need to be clever and we need to be ready for everything during the race. The visibility is another concern.

Q. Are you using KERS?

FM: We are not the quickest car on the track, and if we lose our KERS we lose more performance. So KERS is an important thing.

Q. In the winter tests, apart from Brawn, Ferrari was always among the fastest. In Melbourne it was not like that. Does that worry you?

FM: Melbourne was not the right track to be sure about that. We've been to tracks like Bahrain, Jerez, Barcelona which are more like here, so I hope our car will behave in a similar way to how it was in these tracks

Q. After that first lap, Jenson Button had almost a four-second lead. Do you think he didn't show everything in that race?

FM: He showed everything because he was four seconds in front! They were seven or eight tenths ahead in qualifying with more fuel, so if he didn't show it I would be very scared. In the race, everybody forgets that we had two safety cars, and in the last safety car he was on the softs. Everyone thinks about how far Jenson finished in front, but everyone forgets qualifying, the beginning of the race, the pace. Brawn are on another planet.

Q. How is the motivation with the performance of the car?

FM: The motivation is always high. I had a huge motivation even when I was at Sauber starting 12th on the grid. The driver always thinks about victory, so I will do the best I can to win the race. If it's not possible, then to finish in the best position possible.