More, shortly after Ferrari created him a sense of security by extending his stay at Maranello until the end of the 2012 season, Massa failed to impress (to say the least) on track, ending 3 consecutive races outside the points. Given the situation, the man who used to battle for the world title until the last race of the season could only hope to improve in the second part of the 2010 season.
“For sure I am not happy. The beginning of the season was not like I expected. The first few races were OK, we got two podiums but then we didn't have good races. Especially in the last three races, we had three races in a row where something happened during the race and you cannot score points or cannot finish,” said Massa in a preview for the German GP, on Ferrari's official site.
The Brazilian driver pointed to the hard tires provided by Bridgestone this season for his poor qualifying performances, where he is yet to score a front-row lap time in a Q3 session. He argued that the new compounds prepared by the Japanese manufacturer are harder to get to the right temperature on track, therefore affecting the car's handling.
“The main issue was to have the right temperature and to have the right grip for the first lap of qualifying. If you don't have that then for sure you are struggling and you don't do the lap time you want,” added Massa, who is the only driver from the Top 3 teams – McLaren, Red Bull and Ferrari – not to score a race win in 2010.
Nevertheless, his level of optimism for the remainder of the ongoing season is not all that affected, especially since the improved F10 seems to have closed the gap a little bit on the front-running RB6s.
“I think they were a good improvement compared to the previous races. But it's also important that you keep a big motivation to keep the car growing and for the next race you have an even better car,” concluded Massa.
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