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Massa hopes for Ferrari recovery

Felipe Massa: " I hope we can have a better car here" © Getty Images

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Felipe Massa says he hopes Ferrari has learnt from its problems at Silverstone in time for this weekend's German Grand Prix.

Having expected to be competitive on the high-speed track, Ferrari failed to get both cars in to Q3 with Fernando Alonso originally qualifying 10th and Massa 12th. In the race Alonso recovered to third place while Massa finished sixth despite a puncture, but the qualifying problems remain a concern for Massa at the Nurburgring.

"We were a lot less competitive than Red Bull and Mercedes, especially in qualifying, and in qualifying even other cars were quicker than us," Massa said. "In the race, the car was a lot more competitive, although even then, Red Bull and Mercedes were better than us, but not by the same margin as in qualifying.

"We have been working on this for a while now, but it's true that in Silverstone, the gap was a lot bigger than at other tracks. We worked very hard in the past couple of days, looking at the aerodynamics, the set-up, everywhere to try and see why that happened. Now, I hope we can have a better car here to prove that we have again found the right direction to move in."

Although concerned by Ferrari's struggles last weekend, Massa said he has been pleased with his own pace this season.

"I am happy with my performance, as I had races such as Monaco, where I had a crash, Bahrain where it was the tyres and Canada a crash in qualifying before a very good race, but if you look at the races where I did not have these difficulties, then my performance was very good, being able to fight. We need to keep that target from now to the last race, trying not to have problems and unlucky situations. If that happens, then I think I can do even better than I have done so far."

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