> Massa: Remaining tracks suit Ferrari

Felipe Massa believes the remaining six circuits on the Formula 1 calendar will, on balance, favour Ferrari and enable the Maranello team to challenge strongly for the drivers’ and constructors’ titles.

After a dismal race in Hungary Massa lies 21 points behind championship leader Lewis Hamilton, while team-mate Kimi Raikkonen is 20 points adrift.

In the constructors’ standings, Ferrari trails McLaren by 19 points – but that deficit could become 34 if McLaren’s appeal against its Hungarian Grand Prix penalty is successful.

Massa, however, is confident Ferrari will be able to score several victories in the remaining races, which are mainly on faster circuits that should play to the strengths of the F2007.

“I trust the team and I am sure we can repeat some of the very good results we had earlier this year,” the Brazilian said on his official blog.

“Fortunately, many of the upcoming circuits will be much better suited to our package and I am sure we can win some races.

“It is true that some circuits did not suit us so well this year and that our main rivals have been more consistent than us in terms of performance and in fact in terms of reliability, as they had no real mechanical problems during the races.

"We have had some problems, which is why they are ahead of us in both championships at the moment.

“But we still have six races to fight back.”

Despite his generally upbeat perspective, Massa does not expect Ferrari to have a performance advantage at all six events.

“We just need to keep working hard, but it won’t be easy to be ahead of them in every race,” he said.

“There is no testing now for a while, but at least that is the same for everyone and of course, the guys are working hard back in the factory.”

Looking back on his Hungarian GP weekend, Massa described it as “actually the worst race in my whole career”.

“Everything started from the problem on Saturday afternoon, because if I had started from the front row, which was a definite possibility, I had a very good chance of fighting for a podium finish,” he said.

“But anyway, Saturday’s events were not nice to live through.

“It was a combination of mistakes from the team and driver which lost me the chance of having a fight on Sunday.

“The race itself, starting towards the back and basically staying there, without any real opportunities to pass anybody, was very frustrating.

“Of course, we had chosen to start with a very heavy car in terms of fuel load and that meant it was not so easy to fight.”

Source: itv-f1