Thursday, March 10, 2011

Massa: Barcelona upgrade a step forward

Although Felipe Massa finished ahead of Red Bull at Barcelona on Thursday, the Brazilian reckons the latter is still the team to beat

For Ferrari's second day of testing at the Circuit de Catalunya, Massa put his upgraded 150° Italia through 132 laps as he tested the team's new upgraded package.

The package includes aerodynamic modifications as well as a new exhaust design, with the 29-year-old revealing that this is the car Ferrari will take to the Australian GP.

"It's better, just more downforce on the car, and the more downforce you have, the better, especially with these tyres that degrade quite a lot," was Massa's verdict.

"It was a big package. It works well. I think it will be more or less the package for the race.

"So now we're working hard for the next improvement, as we know how important that is during the Championship.

"But what we brought here was an improvement and the car is just better - better grip, better downforce."

And although he edged Red Bull's Mark Webber on Thursday, Massa says the reigning World Champions are the favourites to take this year's titles.

"First of all it's the team who won last year. And second, they are very quick here. Yesterday Sebastian did a very quick time. So I point to Red Bull."

Last season, Red Bull dominated qualifying and while Massa reckons the Scuderia have improved their pace over short-distance runs, he feels it race-pace where Ferrari can really match the Bulls.

"That was the case last year, but last year they had a very quick car so even if we improved more in qualifying compared to the race it was not easy to beat them.

"This year it's a little bit more difficult to know, because I saw some long runs from them - degrading as well, but it was quick even at the end.

"So I think it's very difficult to say now. We need to wait until we have everybody together at the same time with the same fuel, the same tyres."

Source: Planet-F1

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