Massa: A second part of the season completely different

Felipe Massa must have found the cool weather in the Spa-Francorchamps paddock took some getting used to, given he spent the enforced break at home in Sao Paolo, Brazil.

“I spent the time with family and friends and I did not go anywhere, because we do enough travelling in the season!” revealed the Ferrari man, when he tackled his traditional Thursday press meeting. “Actually, it’s winter in Brazil right now, but even so the weather was lovely and I was able to recharge my batteries for the last part of the year, which will be very important. My objective? To have a second part of the season that is completely different to the first part. That’s the target and I am convinced it can be done, because we have a more competitive car and in the most recent races, I have felt more comfortable with it. But we still need to improve the car, because if we stall on development, then we will no longer be on the pace. As things stand now, I see a much better chance of always being competitive. We continue to bring updates and the important thing is to ensure they work well on the car, because sometimes we have had new elements that have not performed as expected.”

Inevitably, the Brazilian was asked about his future after the end of 2012. “I have no news to give you regarding my future, but it is the remaining races of this year that are important,” he maintained. “I will be concentrating solely on having strong races, getting good results, because it is the results that will be the most important thing when it comes to talking about my future when my contract expires. Definitely it’s important that something is decided before the very end of the season.”

As for this weekend’s race, Felipe was clearly relishing the challenge of the famous Spa-Francorchamps circuit. “At the moment, as we saw in Silverstone, our car is good on tracks with fast corners, although this circuit is different to the English one because it has longer straights, where you need good top speed, which has not always been the case with this year’s car. But here there are corners that could suit our car and I expect we should be much more competitive than at the last race in Hungary. Personally, it’s a circuit I love, the one I enjoy most to drive and I have usually done well here. So let’s hope we can have a good weekend.”