Felipe Massa and Kimi Raikkonen are expecting their Ferrari to be more competitive at the weekend’s French grand prix.
The red-clad pair fell significantly behind the pace of their dominant McLaren challengers over the past three races, but at the Silverstone test last Thursday Massa set easily the quickest time as he assessed a new aerodynamic package for Magny Cours and beyond.
“I am very happy after this test,” the Brazilian revealed at Fiorano on the weekend for a celebration marking Ferrari’s 60th anniversary.
He added: “On the track I noticed some positive effects immediately, so I am optimistic for France.”
Massa told La Gazzetta dello Sport that the new package should help Ferrari to improve its pace especially in qualifying trim.
“Silverstone is a track that already suits our car but we also learned a lot of useful things about aspects that did not work so well in the past races,” he said.
Massa’s Finnish teammate Raikkonen agreed that the Silverstone-spec F2007 seemed “much better”, but warned: “We don’t know yet whether it will be enough to go past McLaren.
“We will have to wait and see, but for sure the car seems much better.”
