Massa eyeing McLaren scalp

Felipe Massa was close on pace with both Lewis Hamilton and Mark Webber © Sutton Images

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Felipe Massa says that Ferrari is targeting a fight with McLaren after practice for the Singapore Grand Prix.

Massa was fourth quickest in the second session, just 0.005s slower than Lewis Hamilton in third, while Fernando Alonso was half a second quicker than them both. Massa said that the car was responding much better to the high-downforce circuit than recent tracks, but warned that the true competitiveness would not be evident until Saturday.

"I think we are in better shape than at the last two races and, who knows maybe we can fight with the McLarens, but we must wait and see what happens tomorrow," Massa said. "The performance difference between the Soft and Supersoft today seemed very high, especially for us, but that's not to say it will be the same on Saturday: the track will rubber in and the situation could change."

Massa also said that Ferrari needed to think about reliability as well as performance due to the long nature of the race at Marina Bay.

"Heat was the main feature today and there was plenty of it in the cockpit! From what we could see, tyre degradation is reasonably high, but we know the track condition can change given it was very dirty today. It will also be important to choose the right level of cooling for the brakes and the engine: the race will be very long and tough, both for the drivers and the cars."

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