Felipe Massa expects Ferrari to be strong in 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix – Formula 1 news
Ferrari driver Felipe Massa believes that they will hopefully come up stronger in the 2012 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix which is going to be held at Yas Marina Circuit this weekend.
Massa set the 8th best time in the second free Friday practice session in Abu Dhabi and stood just behind his teammate, Fernando Alonso.
The Brazilian driver said that they managed to collect the essential information about their update package during the first two practice sessions which will certainly help in making the necessary advancement.
Although, he seemed very happy over his long run pace after FP2, but he insisted that they may struggle during the qualifying.
“We got through everything on our job list, which is always a good thing, both in first and second free practice sessions,” Massa said. “We tested the tyres in the usual way first on low fuel load and then with a lot more to evaluate them over a long run.”
“From what we could see, over a long run we are reasonably competitive, but less so on a single flying lap. Sure, it would be better if we were a bit quicker, but we will see what the situation is when it really matters, which means to say tomorrow afternoon
in qualifying,” he added.
The 31-year-old faced a lot of criticism over his poor form in the first few races of the ongoing season. Additionally, he had been surrounded by many rumours that the Scarlet team was looking forward to replace him with another driver in the next season.
Nevertheless, he has shown impressive performances in the last few grands prix and has secured his race seat in the Italian team for the coming year.
At present, he is standing at 9th place in the drivers’ championship with 89 points. Besides, he is ahead of Sergio Perez of Sauber and is behind his main rival, Romain Grosjean of Lotus.
It will be interesting to see how he performs in the remainder of the season and whether he will be able to come up to the expectations of his team in the next year or not.
Tags: