• Hungarian Grand Prix - Qualifying

Massa unhappy with car in Q3

Felipe Massa's Q2 time would have been good enough for fourth on the grid © Sutton Images

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• Report:
• Dominant Hamilton takes pole from Grosjean
  

• Race:
• Hungarian Grand Prix

• Drivers:
• Felipe Massa

• Teams:
• Ferrari

Felipe Massa was left perplexed by the performance of his car in the final part of qualifying as he struggled to match his lap time from Q2.

Having set the fourth quickest time in the second part of qualifying with a 1:21.534, Massa was unable to repeat the lap and could only post a 1:21.900 which left him seventh on the grid. With team-mate Fernando Alonso also losing around a quarter of a second to his best time to Q2, Massa said Ferrari would have to work out why the car was handling worse towards the end of the session.

"Not an easy qualifying for the team," Massa said. "Both Fernando and myself struggled to put together a perfect lap, which can be seen from the fact we were quicker in Q2 than Q3. A shame, because in Q2, I had done a good time and I was expecting to improve still further, but unfortunately, I was slower: I suddenly had less grip and a lot of oversteer, so now we must find out why."

Although starting in seventh, Massa still believes that he could be able to fight for a top three finish on Sunday.

"It will be very hot tomorrow and it could also rain, so we will need to be on top of whatever situation arises. We will need to study carefully the little data we have relating to tyre behaviour: from the little we could see, there is a definite degradation with the softs, which could make itself felt even more with a full fuel load. We will have to wait and see how things turn out in what will be a long race tomorrow, but I think we are still in with a chance of fighting for a podium finish, even if we are up against very strong opposition."

Massa added that he was determined to get a good result due to the significance of the track in his career.

"The Hungaroring has been the scene of several important moments in my career, starting with the cruel blow of heading for certain victory in 2008 only to be robbed of it by an engine failure, followed a year later by my accident. So many people here have remained close to me and continue to support me, so I am doubly disappointed, as I wanted to reward them with a great result this afternoon. We'll try and do it tomorrow!"

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