Q&A with Felipe Massa

The Turkish Grand Prix provided a thrilling race at the front of the field, but you spent most of the afternoon in a traffic jam. That was a fairly subdued seventh place? There was no possibility to pass unless the guy in front made a mistake, because all the cars were running at a similar pace. We had about the same straight-line speed, too - it's not as though the Ferrari was 10kph quicker than the rest - and we all pitted at about the same time. It was a very boring race from our perspective.

You ran wheel to wheel with Robert Kubica's Renault on the opening lap. Did that cause any damage? No. I immediately asked the team to check the tyre pressures and to see if there was anything strange on the telemetry, but it was all OK. How do you see things evolving for Ferrari? I hope it will be much better than this. I never give up and I'm pushing the team hard so that we can get back into a position to fight for victories.

Given the developments you have coming up, how quickly do you believe you can close the gap to Red Bull and the rest? It's an impossible question to answer, because I know what we're doing but have no idea what McLaren, Red Bull and the others are working on. What impact do you think the collision between Red Bull's two drivers is likely to have on the title race? We saw a big fight between the top four in Turkey, but I think it's good that we have had so many different winners this year. It means the battle for the championship is likely to remain close. @Email:sports@thenational.ae