Ferrari 'more consistent'

Felipe Massa says that Ferrari is much more consistent in its performance as the season draws to a close.

Massa and team-mate Fernando Alonso were constantly well off the pace in qualifying during the early part of the season, and sometimes even more so in the races such as at Barcelona, where Alonso was lapped. Massa said that the team had put in a lot of effort to be more competitive throughout the year, and that he was encouraged by the consistency even if he wasn't gaining the results to match.

"We have worked a lot on qualifying, after the first part of the championship where we were not where we should have been in terms of grid position," Massa said. "Thanks to a lot of effort, we are now much more consistent in this and so we have managed to put in some very strong qualifying performances from August onwards.

"We improved the pace, but then in the race, for a variety of reasons, I have not been able to exploit that to get the results I should have done but clearly the races did not go as they should have done. However, the positive factor is that we are much more consistent now and that is the important thing."

Massa is yet to finish higher than fifth place this season, but he says that he has been hampered by other incidents a lot of the time, and would be looking to finish on the podium before the end of the year.

"We have not had the championship we wanted and if I have not made it to the podium so far, it's because for 30 to 40% of the races something happened that lost me time during the race. If you look at all the races as a whole, you would have to say that our chances of getting to the podium were not so great, therefore, if on top of that I had problems in those races where I might have got to the podium, then this explains why I have not made it to the top three.

"Now we must still concentrate hard on these two remaining races to try for a last time to get a podium, while also working intensively towards next year to ensure that this sort of situation does not repeat itself. We have to think we did some things that were not right, things I did not do the way I would have liked and so there is pressure, the pressure you put on yourself."