Massa: A few new components but nothing major

Felipe Massa met the media outside the Scuderia Ferrari office, overlooking the pond that forms a feature of this giant paddock, in reasonably optimistic mood for the weekend ahead.

“We have seen improvements from the first race to the second race, even if this did not see us start further forward on the grid,” said the Brazilian. “We again suffered in qualifying in Malaysia, but in the race itself last Sunday there was an improvement to how we performed compared to Australia. We were more competitive and were fighting with cars that had been quicker than us in qualifying. This is a step forward and I hope that we see a further improvement from the second to the third race even if the improvements so far have not been enough for us to win a race. However, we were able to fight a lot more than in Australia. We have a few new components here but nothing major, although I hope that even small updates will bring us a little improvement compared to the last race, but it doesn’t mean we will have a different car, definitely not. We have just some small updates and we must consider that maybe the other teams will have done the same.”

Many drivers complained after the last race about the marbles – balls of rubber that come off the tyres and lie on the track – and Felipe explained why. “From the mid point of the race to the finish, it’s not easy because if you try and move off line or another car forces you wide onto the marbles, it is very easy to end your race there. The situation with marbles is much worse than last year, as a consequence of the higher level of tyre degradation. It does not make life easy and it’s like driving on sand.”