Massa: We must be prepared to fight for the victory

Felipe Massa was clearly happy that the racing season is about to start when he met the press this afternoon, in the Scuderia Ferrari hospitality area. “It’s nice that the time for ‘blah blah blah’ is over,” began the Brazilian, referring to all the speculation in the media over the past few weeks. “Now, after Saturday’s qualifying, we will have a clearer picture of where we are and on Sunday after the race, we will have a further indication of what our car is like compared to the others, as this was impossible to see in testing. In the winter, we saw that a lot of teams, a lot of cars were competitive, not just over a single lap, but also over a race distance which indicates it will be very close.”

Backing up his view that there is no need to be pessimistic this weekend, Felipe reminded his audience that winter testing had often provided a false picture of what lay ahead. “To be honest, we were not so happy with the way the winter testing went, but it’s also true that before the start of the 2011 season, we were very happy and then we got here and we were not so good, nor indeed were we for the rest of the year. Winter testing does not always give a clear picture. I hope we find our car is capable of competing right from the first race. We are not far off the pace and we did a reasonable race simulation: but in Barcelona tests for example, even the time of day you do a race simulation can have a significant effect on your performance, so let’s wait until everyone has the same tyres and the same fuel to really see where we are. After the final test, we have driven the simulator, trying things we first ran in the test and this involved a lot of work between the last Barcelona test to getting here in Australia: I think we understood a lot more things, not big steps, but things that can be useful and help the car improve.”

Much as he is relishing going racing again, the Brazilian was reminded the Albert Park circuit has not always been kind to him. “Melbourne has not been the luckiest track for me, although I have had a podium finish here in 2010 and in other races, when it looked as though I was heading for a good result, something happened to put an end to it. Let’s hope we have a good start to the year on Sunday. I am mentally prepared for a difficult start to the season, but really I’m ready for whatever happens. We must be prepared to fight for the victory, to fight for the podium, to fight for the best we can do with this car. We will see on Sunday. It is important to find the right direction to develop the car quickly week by week. That is our job now for everyone in the team and back in the factory.”