- Indian Grand Prix - Qualifying
Massa thinks he could have qualified ahead of Alonso
Felipe Massa believes he could have qualified higher than sixth for the Indian Grand Prix had it not been for a mistake at turn six.
Massa will start behind Ferrari team-mate Fernando Alonso on the third row of the grid, with the McLarens and Red Bulls on the rows ahead. He has only qualified ahead of Alonso once this year but was just 0.084s off his time in India and believes it would have been possible to beat his team-mate with a clean lap.
"I am reasonably pleased with sixth place, even if maybe, but for a mistake at Turn 6 on my run in Q3, I could have started from further forward," he said. "In qualifying Red Bull is faster, while McLaren was only just ahead and then it's us: in the races, things are a bit different and we hope we can fight with these four cars for the top places.
"There are many key points for tomorrow: the start, strategy, tyre wear and not making mistakes. We will need to be very focused because it will be a very long race. Today, it wasn't easy to put together the perfect lap, partly because the track surface was still quite slippery. We have brought updates here which seem to work, but maybe it's not enough to be ahead of our closest rivals."
Asked whether Ferrari had solved the "settings" problem that was blamed for several spins on Friday, Massa said: "I was making little mistakes and just trying to find the right set up. I think the car was much more competitive in qualifying but hopefully we won't see any more spins and a more consistent car in the race."