After a remarkable performance at Magny-Cours, Felipe Massa said Ferrari is back on form. The Brazilian driver pushed the Scuderia team back on pole position after three races where it was unable to equal McLaren Mercedes.
"It's a good weekend for us so far and we proved in Silverstone that we had a better car than in the past few races," Massa said. "We showed we are for sure fighting for the front here although it is close and I'm confident we'll have a good car tomorrow."
Massa intimated that managing the tyres will be critical in the upcoming race as he struggled on the limit during qualifying. "On my first lap I just managed to do a good lap and expected to improve on the second lap, but with these soft tyres you're always driving on the limit so if you push just too hard you lose a tenth and you can't recover," he added.
On Friday afternoon, Massa and teammate Kimi Raikkonen headed the times in second practice at Silverstone while Toyota's Ralf Schumacher and Jarno Trulli jumped up to challenge McLaren for runner-up standing.
Ferrari is looking very strong. "We are back where we expect to be. You could feel the improvement in the car everywhere, really. In every corner," Raikkonen said after his second win of the season.
Raikonnen was well clear of Massa, with a lap in 1m 20.639s compared to the Brazilian's 1m 21.138s. Ralf Schumacher emulated his pre-Magny-Cours vigor with the third-fastest lap of 1m 21.381s. Subsequently, McLaren's Lewis Hamilton matched that time, and right behind Trulli pushed his TF107 to 1m 21.467s to keep teammate Fernando Alonso down in sixth place on 1m 21.616s.
Copse corner proved difficult for many, including Raikkonen, Hamilton, Vitantonio Liuzzi, Nico Rosberg, Adrian Sutil, Takuma Sato, Nick Heidfeld and Giancarlo Fisichella all visiting the tarmac run-off area.
Despite Ferrari's speed at Magny-Cours and the hyped scandal that a senior McLaren engineer allegedly received stolen intellectual property from the Scuderia team, Hamilton is optimistic that he can make a fine race this weekend at Silverstone - the first time he will ever race in his homeland. With the efficiency of and other race parts, there's no denying that McLaren, the leader in Formula One's constructors standing, will grab noteworthy success this season.
"You can't win every race, and the most important thing is to be consistent, which I think we are," he said after finishing third at Magny-Cours. "Both the Ferrari drivers said they made a good step forward, but when you are behind people, as we were in Magny-Cours, it's a lot harder to show your true pace. I don't think they were as quick as, more much faster than us, as it looked today. Traffic and strategy had a lot to do with that, so I still think we can bounce back at Silverstone, without a doubt."
"I don't think Ferrari's sudden speed is worrying. It just shows they've made a great step forward and had a slightly better strategy than us. We were always on a three-stop strategy but what happened at the start affected that," the 22-year-old Briton added.
The Briton concluded: "It is a great feeling to go to Silverstone as the World Championship leader. To do so certainly seemed unimaginable at the start of the season. I'm very, very happy with the job I've done and the team has done and I go into my first British GP with the team I always wanted to drive for, and that's one of the greatest feelings a driver can have."
