• Canadian GP - Qualifying

Massa disappointed with seventh

ESPNF1 Staff
June 12, 2010 « Schumacher baffled by poor performance | »
Felipe Massa: "At least our car is more competitive than it was in Turkey" © Getty Images
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Felipe Massa said he "could not be happy" with qualifying seventh place at the Canadian Grand Prix, after his Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso clocked the fourth fastest time.

Alonso had been faster all weekend and then outclassed his team-mate again in qualifying, getting within a few hundredths of a second of the Red Bulls. Massa believed his team had made a step forward after finishing seventh in Turkey and said he aimed to finish higher in Sunday's race.

"It was a very tough and closely contested qualifying," he said. "In Q3, I was getting quicker with every lap to such an extent that my best time came on lap four. I definitely cannot be happy with seventh place, but at least our car is more competitive than it was in Turkey. It was a shame I didn't manage to produce a perfect lap, otherwise I could have been higher up the order: at the end, as the track continued to improve, a few drivers went just a tiny bit quicker than me. Tomorrow, we must try and get a good start and on the back of that, build a good race. It will be important to get to the finish on a track which usually puts a high premium on reliability and one's driving, given that there is little margin for error."

Chief engineer Chris Dyer said he felt both drivers had achieved their potential in qualifying.

"We are happy to have gone back to getting both cars through to Q3," said Dyer. "Both Felipe and Fernando got the most out of the performance of the F10: a couple of tiny errors cost practically nothing in terms of lap times. It's a shame that, right at the end, for just a few thousandths, Fernando found himself pushed back to fourth place and will therefore start from the dirtier side of the grid."

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