Felipe Massa concedes Ferrari are struggling in Shanghai this weekend after he failed to match Lewis Hamilton's pace in qualifying.
Title contender hopes Ferrari can show better speed on Sunday
Felipe Massa has conceded that Ferrari are struggling in Shanghai this weekend after he failed to match Lewis Hamilton's pace in qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix.
The Brazilian has also fallen short of his title rival throughout the weekend's practice sessions, finishing 0.7 seconds slower than Hamilton on Friday and managing to set only the 12th quickest time on Saturday morning.
Massa had hoped for a better showing in qualifying, where the aim was to get ahead of Hamilton's McLaren.
However, with Hamilton taking pole position, Massa had to settle for third place, right behind his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen.
"We were struggling a little bit in the weekend and just struggling to make the right lap, and it looks like the McLaren guys had a more easier car to put the lap together," Massa said.
Pace
However, Massa hoped that Ferrari can up their pace in Sunday's race as they did last weekend in Japan.
Despite qualifying only fifth and finishing seventh following an incident-strewn race at Fuji, Massa nevertheless managed to set the fastest lap.
"Anyway we don't know how it is going to be in the race," he continued.
"We had a similar result in the last race, and had a very strong pace to win the race.
"I hope to have a strong pace to win the race and try and see if we can improve our car a bit, especially on the long stints.
"We are still behind so we haven't improved (since Friday). I don't think I am different, it is a same mentality, when you start behind you have to try hard to recover the race.
"We had a bad qualifying in Fuji and another one here, so we will try to recover here and try and get some opportunities."
