Massa warns Ferrari must improve car

Date published : 04 Apr 2010 - 11:53:20

Felipe Massa was relieved to salvage six points from the Malaysian Grand Prix after starting near the back of the grid but warned that the Maranello squad has plenty of work to do to improve its F10 car in the wake of Red Bull's resounding one-two finish.After spending the opening stint stuck behind Toro Rossos, Massa went on a charge following his mid-race pit stop and passed a struggling Jenson Button for seventh place 12 laps from the finish.He was pleased with the result given his inauspicious grid slot of 21st.It was a very exciting race, said Massa.To finish seventh after starting 21st is definitely positive.We scored some points, which is always important, and it was a race in which you could [easily] not have scored any points.With his team-mate Fernando Alonso suffering an engine failure on the penultimate lap, Massa claimed a two-point championship lead heading into the fourth round in China.But the Brazilian is far from complacent, saying Ferrari needs to eliminate the kind of operational mistakes that cost it dear in Saturday's qualifying when it misjudged the weather and failed to get either car through Q1 while simultaneously finding more pace from the car.We need to work not to repeat what we did yesterday in qualifying, he said, and we need to improve the car race by race, because Red Bull is very strong and McLaren is strong as well.It's always very nice to lead the championship, but we still have 16 races to go and we need to improve step by step because there are many drivers up there and many things can change.So we need to keep our feet on the ground.