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Ferrari has found the right direction - Massa

Felipe Massa is confident Ferrari have a good baseline to build on © Press Association

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• Felipe Massa

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Felipe Massa believes Ferrari has finally found the right direction to develop the new F2012 and said he felt more comfortable in the car on Friday afternoon than he has at any point in pre-season testing.

The F2012 had a troubled start to testing with limited mileage and a series of comparison tests to find which components worked and which ones did not. But Massa is now confident the team has struck the right balance with the car and that it will be able to make progress at the final test next week.

"Until this morning it was quite difficult," he said when asked how the car was to drive. "It was very difficult to find the right limit and it was so easy to pass the limit as well. I think the afternoon was a completely different direction.

"In the morning I was not sure if I was able to do more than eight or nine timed laps consistently and then we changed so many things for the afternoon and I was doing much more than this in a very consistent and good way. I think this is very positive.

"For sure, we still need to work a lot on the car, but at least we have found the direction to have a much better car to drive. Not just for lap time, but also for consistency."

Asked to rank the car out of ten, assuming the performance in Jerez was zero, Massa said: "I think more than five, but it is still a lot of work to be close to 10 which is what we want. At least we made a good step to find a direction.

"So many years we have arrived at the first test and the car was always working perfectly or at least there were not so many directions to follow. This year we have so many directions and possibilities the most important thing was to find the right one. Now I think we've found it. Now is the time to work very hard at the factory and try to bring all the right pieces to make this car competitive for the first race."

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.