The battle on the track is intense - Massa

Felipe Massa arrived at the Hungaroring to find that the media basically had several variations of two main questions for him; namely the apparent row he had with European GP winner, Fernando Alonso before going onto the podium and secondly, the current legal row between Scuderia Ferrari Marlboro and another team.

Looking at the last question first, the Brazilian said: "my view is of course in favour of my team but my priority is that I am concentrating on my racing. We need to work on winning the races, which is the real reality even if this legal business is also a reality at the moment. It is a reality in F1 now that we are having a big fight. It's not nice because we don't need this in sport, but at the same time, when you see bad things happen, you need to fight to beat them. I agree with my team and I am part of that team. But I have many other things to think about, concentrating on the car and on trying to win races. We are working hard not only to win on the track, but also to make sure we are not penalised off the track through political moves."

As for the incident with Alonso a fortnight ago, the Brazilian had this to say: "The battle on the track is intense. At the Nurburgring I was in front but had some problems on the car, so I still tried to maintain my position in the correct way. That is what sport should be. We had words afterwards, but for me that was sport, that is what people like to see and I was fighting for my position in a normal way. It does not mean that if you touch someone that you are going to push them off the track. That was never my intention. We touched in what was a racing incident which happens very often in F1, which is why I don't understand why is reaction was so severe. I am going to keep fighting and I am a racing driver which is why I will never give up position easily, especially if it is for the lead in the race. Competition is great when it is a sport, but now politics is part of all sports and I hope the sport won't become less interesting because of that."

Eventually the conversation with the journalists turned to this weekend's grand prix. Several media have put the Scuderia in the position of underdog because they compare this tight track to Monaco, where the F2007 did not perform so well. On that occasion, the media blamed the fact the car has, according to them, a long wheelbase that did not work well on soft tyres. "I hope that the work done on the car since then will see us capable of winning," commented Felipe. "That is what we are working for. I think we can win. I will do everything I can to succeed against what I know is strong opposition and if I do win it will put an end to the endless comments about the long wheelbase car on soft tyres! The track is not as slow as people think it is and there are some medium speed corners which should suit us. I think we can be competitive."

And the championship race? "Eleven points is the gap we need to work on reducing and then hopefully move ahead. This is my hope for the weekend and the team are working hard to achieve that. The key point to winning this year's titles will be consistency from this point to the end of the championship and of course the performance level of the car. Nothing strange about that, but we have seen that the final element is also vital and that is reliability. We have worked very hard on trying to be 100% reliable for the rest of the championship."