Ferrari Similar to Red Bull - Massa

During the past weekend, Lewis Hamilton was quite downbeat on his team's chances of catching up with Red Bull Racing in terms of car's downforce. As he told the media in an interview, he believes the RB6 currently employs double the level of downforce as compared to his McLaren MP4-25, suggesting that the two cars practically run in different leagues during this early stage of the season.

Ferrari, on the other hand, don't seem to look at the problem that way, as Brazilian driver Felipe Massa believes his team is not that far behind Red Bull in terms of race pace, despite the fact that it took an engine problem for the two Ferraris to pass Sebastian Vettel in the Bahrain Grand Prix.

“In testing, the Red Bull might not have been the quickest car in terms of lap times, but I had noticed their pace over the longer runs had been very strong, so its speed in Bahrain qualifying was not a surprise. Overall, we were very similar and that reinforces the need to try and improve our car at every race through the season,” said Massa.

During the aforementioned grand prix weekend, Massa scored a lap time just over one tenth of a second slower than Vettel in qualifying, while Fernando Alonso eventually scored the fastest lap time of the race on Sunday, 4 laps before the finish line.

Additionally, the behavior of the Ferrari F10 on harder tires was obviously a positive sign for the Scuderia, as both Alonso and Massa scored consistently better lap times as compared to Vettel's RB6 (until his engine problem, of course).

In recent news, the FIA seems to have told 4 teams – including McLaren and Mercedes GP – to alter the design of their rear diffusers, which will likely create a bigger gap between the championship front-runners Red Bull Racing and Ferrari (on the one hand) and the two Mercedes-powered teams (on the other hand).