Felipe Massa believes Ferrari’s woes may be worse than they had initially feared, after neither driver made it through to the final qualifying session.
“Clearly we are behind, maybe more than we had expected and there are other teams that have improved a lot compared to last year,” he said.
The Brazilian will start 16th whilst his teammate Fernando Alonso starts 12th, giving the team once of its worst ever qualifying results.
“I am very disappointed: this is not the start to the season I was expecting or hoping for,” said Massa.
“It was difficult right from the start of FP3: the balance of the car was never what I wanted and I never managed to get a clean lap. I was always lacking grip, both on the mediums and the softs and I suffered with oversteer on entry and understeer on exit.
“I don’t know why, but the car seemed to be worse than in winter testing, maybe down to the characteristics of this circuit.
“Now we will try and do what we can in the race tomorrow. It will not be easy, because I will start from a long way back, but I will give it my all. I don’t think we’ll be able to do just a single stop, but will have to try and make up the ground lost today in qualifying.”
