Tyre warm-up problems frustrate Massa
Date published : 27 Mar 2010 - 08:47:41
Felipe Massa says a struggle to generate enough heat into his tyres was the reason for his disappointing qualifying session in Melbourne, the Brazilian lagging a massive 0.7s behind team-mate Fernando Alonso.
The Brazilian impressively outqualified his new stable-mate at the first race in Bahrain but was unable to get near the Spaniard throughout qualifying this time, Massa initially struggling to get in the top eight during Q1 and Q2.
And while he eventually qualified just two places behind the sister Ferrari in fifth, Massa says his difficulties in getting enough heat into the tyres had caused him big problems.
I was really struggling a lot, he told reporters.
So I was not happy with the qualifying, but I'm sure it is something that is not making the tyres in the right working [temperature] range so I was suffering a lot.
Asked if Alonso was faring better because he had a more aggressive driving style, Massa acknowledged the Spaniard wasn't facing the same issues but insisted he had been trying everything to get his tyres up to operating temperature without success.
It is not just the driving style, but I'm weaving around and braking very hard everywhere but it's not helping, he said. Also the set-up and everything.
But definitely he managed to get on the right range on the tyres and I didn't since yesterday.
So I was struggling because of this.
Although further overcast, and potentially rainy, conditions are forecast for Sunday's race, Massa insisted that fifth on the grid was still not that bad and gave him the opportunity to score another strong haul of points.
I hope it will be a little bit hotter, which it can be, he admitted.
Anyway, you can not say that starting fifth is a complete disaster so we need to think about doing a good race and scoring a good number of points.
So that's my target for tomorrow.
