PlanetF1

Massa: Ferrari's prospects not looking good

Friday 17-April-2009 10:37

Felipe Massa has conceded that Ferrari's prospects in China are not looking good after the Scuderia's drivers failed to break into the top ten in Friday's practice.

The weekend's first practice session took place on a relatively cold track with both Massa and Raikkonen suffering severe graining to their tyres. The duo finished 11th and 15th with Raikkonen the quicker of the two.

And it wasn't any better in the afternoon session with both drivers again outside of the top ten, this time with Massa leading the charge in 12th place.

"I don't think we can expect a lot," the Brazilian said. "We did not have a great day today so the expectation for sure is not very high. But I am a professional, so I will do my best to have a good result tomorrow and the best results possible."

But it isn't just a lack of pace that has hampered Ferrari's progress this season as the Scuderia have also made too many mistakes, most notably in Malaysia when they failed to send Massa out for a second run in Q1 and then compounded their errors by putting Raikkonen on the wrong tyres during the grand prix.

The 2008 runner-up, though, is confident that Ferrari have learnt from their mistakes and won't over-estimate the performance of the F60, which they had - at least in Malaysia - expected to have a superior pace to their rivals' cars.

"We learnt first of all, in my case, that we don't have the same car as last year," he said.

"We cannot go into Q1 and think we are going to be easily into Q2. We need to fight hard in Q1 to get into Q2, and we need to fight even harder in Q2 to be in Q3.

"To fight hard, you need to use all your possibilities - which means more sets of tyres. That was one mistake, but we will not repeat that mistake. Maybe we will not pass through to Q2, but it will be for that reason - not because we did not try another set of tyres.

"We are working hard to improve every area and not to have any problems any more."