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F138 'has much more potential' - Massa

Felipe Massa doesn't believe Ferrari has shown its true pace yet © Getty Images

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Felipe Massa says Ferrari's 2013 car "has much more potential" than the team has been able to show so far this season.

The season-opening Australian Grand Prix saw Fernando Alonso finish a competitive second to Kimi Raikkonen, while Massa himself finished fifth in Malaysia as Alonso crashed out on the opening lap. Both cars had qualified in the top three at Sepang, however, and Massa believes there is more to come from the car than the results might suggest.

"I know we have only done two races, but I have a good feeling so far this season," Massa said. "The work we did with the F138 over the winter has taken us in the right direction and the car has much more potential. Of course, I always want to be fighting for the win, although that did not work out in the first two races, but the signs were good with an excellent race pace and now we have to keep moving forward race by race.

"All I can say is that there are definitely more than two teams that are capable of fighting for the wins and the championship. Our team is one of them, with the car moving forward in the right way and it is delivering results on track that we expected when looking at data in the wind tunnel and the factory. In Melbourne we had a car that was capable of winning and in Malaysia the car was again competitive, even if conditions made the race something of a lottery."

Massa was even willing to target victory at this weekend's Chinese Grand Prix, with a number of upgrades set to be introduced to the car.

"We are well prepared for China and we will have all the updates we hoped to bring with us in Shanghai, after work in the factory and the simulator last week. I hope this translates into a further performance improvement on track. Shanghai is a very nice track with a variety of corner types and fast straights, so you definitely need a car that works well in the fast sections, but you also need it to have plenty of downforce to deal with the tighter turns. We can expect to see quite high tyre degradation, especially on the fronts. The aim is to fight for a lot more points, for a podium, for a win even, because you have to set yourself high targets."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.