Highlights

Massa hopes to find missing ingredient in Bahrain

(Reuters)
Updated: 2007-04-13 08:35

Ferrari's Felipe Massa hoped for a change of fortune in Sunday's Bahrain Grand Prix after a frustrating start to the season for one of the leading championship contenders. "I feel that something is missing at the moment," the Brazilian told a news conference at the Sakhir circuit on Thursday. "A bit of luck here...now hopefully we can put everything together."

Massa started on pole position last weekend in Malaysia but finished only fifth after being overtaken by both McLarens at the start and then skidding wide when trying to regain second place from British rookie Lewis Hamilton.

In the Australian season-opener, he started from the back of the grid after a gearbox failure in qualifying and ended up sixth.

New team mate Kimi Raikkonen, stepping into the shoes of retired seven times champion Michael Schumacher, won in Melbourne and was third in Malaysia.

Bahrain offers Massa, who ended last season on a high by winning his home race in Sao Paulo, a chance to make up for lost time and prevent Raikkonen from becoming Ferrari's de-facto number one.

DESERT CIRCUIT

The Brazilian dominated Formula One's pre-season tests at the desert circuit.

"I feel positive. We had very good testing here before the start of the season, we had a good pace and the car was behaving quite well," he said. "I think we have a good car, a good package and a good team.

"Even if something was missing in the first two races, it is just the first two races. We still have a lot of races to go."

Massa was unrepentant about the botched attempt to overtake Hamilton, a costly failure that the Italian media have been quick to castigate him over.

"I had a chance to try, and I tried. So I am not disappointed that I tried to overtake Lewis," Massa said.

"I'm sure, looking at my start and the pace of Lewis at the beginning of the race, it was my only chance to get the race back. I didn't want to stay sitting behind him and just finishing on the podium."