Massa remains confident

[The Stig]

 Felipe Massa insists his fight for the championship is still on course and that last weekend’s Monaco Grand Prix was a minor setback.

“The Grand Prix can be summed up by saying that I am really happy with my personal performance over the weekend. However, we were not so happy with our car performance,” he said.

“If you look at how McLaren started on the first day, we knew it would not be so easy to be in front of them. But we managed to limit the damage and third place is not a disaster, when you look at how close and competitive the championship battle is at the moment.”

The Brazilian stressed McLaren’s performance was not due to them having a vastly improved car.

"Certainly we cannot be a hundred percent happy with the result, given that our rivals filled the top two places. They have some elements of their package that worked better at this circuit than ours.

“But my personal opinion and I don't know if it is right, is that it was not just McLaren being impressive in Monaco, it was also Ferrari being weak,” he revealed.

"The championship is still looking good for me after these important points for third place. We have done five races, I am five points behind Fernando and Lewis and there are still twelve races to go.

“That's not a big difference and I feel that everything is still a hundred percent open in the fight for the title.”