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Felipe Massa reckons Ferrari could be in for a strong weekend in India after upsetting the form books by finishing quickest on Friday
The Ferrari driver, who has yet to even finish on the podium never mind achieve a victory this season, clocked a 1:25.706 in Friday's second practice at the new Buddh International circuit.
However, he was by no means in a league of his own as second-placed Sebastian Vettel was just 0.088s adrift while the top six were separated by a second.
"It's always nice to be in first place at the end of a day's work, however we know that Friday's results are all relative," admitted the Brazilian.
"Sure, it would be nice to move through the weekend in the same position, but that will be very difficult to achieve.
"The car seems competitive, but we must wait and see what McLaren and Red Bull can do tomorrow, as they are still very strong.
"The tyres? Probably the Hards are too hard for this track and it would have been possible to run the same compounds we had in Korea in two weeks ago, because the track surface is very smooth."
"Today, we concentrated on finding the best set-up on the car and on tyre behaviour on this new circuit. I like the track, it is very interesting and there are corners where driving skill can make the difference."
And Massa believes the lay-out of the track will be conducive to overtaking during Sunday's 60-lap grand prix.
"In some places the actual track surface is very wide and so it will therefore be possible to take various different lines in the race, which could make overtaking easier."
Source: Planet-F1
Felipe Massa says he is hopeful that Ferrari will be able to challenge for pole position in the European Grand Prix just as it did in Canada.
Ferrari enjoyed its best qualifying performance of the season in Montreal when Fernando Alonso was second ahead of Massa in third, just 0.2s behind pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel. Massa said that it had been another encouraging day of practice, and that he expected to have a similarly competitive car this weekend.
"I'd say it was a good day, better than many other Fridays this season," Massa said. "From what we could understand after three hours of free practice, the car is pretty competitive and I don't expect the situation to be that different to the one we saw two weeks ago in Canada. It's true it is only Friday, but at least it's a positive start!"
Massa also said that the car was working on the medium compound tyre, but that with such a difference in performance between the two types of available tyre, the balance was proving difficult to perfect.
"The tyres worked well: both the Prime and the Option delivered more grip than we had been expecting going into the weekend. Sure, there's a big difference between the two compounds, but the Medium, with higher temperatures than we saw in Canada, did not do badly. Now we must make the right decision regarding set-up on the car for the next two days. The car balance is not yet perfect - for example we are still locking the fronts too often under braking - but we are working in the right direction. Let's hope we can put up a fight in qualifying, just as we did in Canada."
Source: ESPNF1
“I am very happy to be back racing at this track, having been forced to miss it last year: I love driving here. From what we could understand on a day like this, the car seems reasonably competitive and that was particularly true on the rain tyres. However, it is only Friday, so we will have to wait to see how the Red Bulls go, given that so far they have proved to be the quickest cars, as demonstrated in qualifying.
We had so many things to test today, which explains a few slow laps this afternoon. On the intermediate tyres I immediately had good grip, but even on slicks the situation was not that bad. On the final lap, the only one on the soft tyres, I made a mistake, but the car felt good: obviously there is room for improvement and that is what we will try and achieve tomorrow.” Source: Ferrari.com
The Ferrari driver, who has yet to even finish on the podium never mind achieve a victory this season, clocked a 1:25.706 in Friday's second practice at the new Buddh International circuit.
