Massa counting on F60 heavy upgrades

At the conclusion of the Bahrain Grand Prix, Ferrari scored its first points of the season thanks to Kimi Raikkonen's sixth place – a result the Finn said was nothing to get excited about.

Meanwhile, Felipe Massa's start to the season continues to show a zero points return after four races. The Brazilian had good chances of adding his name to the championship standings at the Sakhir circuit last week-end, but a hard nudge on the first lap unfortunately put those expectations to rest.

"The fact the collision was with my team-mate Kimi is just one of those things that can happen in racing, especially at the start when everyone is so close," Massa considered. "I was in the middle of a sandwich and lost my front wing and the long pit stop meant my race was pretty much over. So it's no big deal that it happened with him, but it did ruin my whole afternoon after that, although other problems like the telemetry not working didn't help either."

In view of the negative results obtained at the first four races of the season, Ferrari quickly understood that it needed to work hard on the F60's performance levels and reliability in order to get their red-clad drivers back onto the podium.

Although the people at Maranello have been putting in the hours, the return to Europe for the Spanish Grand Prix also marks a turning point for most teams as it will be the first real opportunity to integrate greatly revised packages on the cars – and that can change the pecking order once again.

Ferrari needs to take a good step forward if they are to continue a serious title campaign, especially since the team has a large gap to cover at present.

"What you can be sure of is that all the teams will be working hard and most should improve by the time we get to Barcelona, so that whatever Ferrari can do will have to be measured against that," Massa pointed out.

"We have a big package coming for Spain and it's not just a case of working on producing a new double diffuser, even though this is the element that has caught everyone's imagination. The numbers show this should have a big effect on lap time and I am pretty confident this should allow the Scuderia to make a big step forward."

The Catalunya circuit is well-known to the teams since it is a venue of choice during winter testing, and therefore its characteristics have already been studied repeatedly in the real world with this year's cars.

"The fact the next race is in Barcelona has several advantages, even if they apply to all the teams equally: it is a track that has been used so much for testing that everyone knows what to expect and how to analyse the data we will get there on Friday, taking into account outside factors like ambient temperature and the wind speed and direction," Massa elaborated.


"In addition, the character of the track calls for a very efficient car and therefore it can provide us with an accurate picture of just how the F60 is performing with the new parts we will have on it for the race weekend. Hopefully, we will use this to our advantage to improve our qualifying performance to give us a better chance in the race."

Notwithstanding the new package for the Ferrari F60, the Brazilian knows that a gain in performance capable of winning races will not happen overnight. And once the car has reached that level, then begins the next step.

"My aim now is firstly to score my first points of the year and then to look to go for my first win of the season," Massa declared. "Until we start winning races again, it's difficult to start thinking in terms of the championship. We need to work day and night to return to having a very competitive car. Only then we can start thinking about the championship titles."

"Maybe it will be too late, maybe not, but we're not giving up," he insisted.

With the sweeping regulations coming into effect this year, all the teams had to work at integrating - and then dealing with - many unknowns. The different approaches taken by the engineers in every team have so far resulted in a mix-up of the usual order of things in Formula One, and Ferrari finds itself among the teams suffering from teething pains in this new environment.

"We have all these new elements, the slick tyres, the KERS, the adjustable front wing and making the most of them on track has been very interesting," Massa said. "A bit more downforce would make it even more fun!"

"But I've got my job to do and even if I only had three wheels on my car I would still be doing my best and (trying to) improve the situation. But for now, more downforce is what I want."

With in-season testing banned, teams need to make the most of the practice sessions during race week-ends to evaluate the newly-added components. Massa revealed the options Ferrari are looking at for this coming Friday in Spain.

"Although it is too early to establish our programme for the first day of practice in Barcelona, we might try the new package on one car only in the first session in the morning, in order to run a comparison test with the old one, before both running it in the second session," he explained. "But nearer the time, we will have a better idea if there's a need to do a back-to-back."

"With all the new aero packages and other interesting developments throughout the field, it should be a very interesting Friday for everyone," Massa predicted.