MONTREAL, Canada, June 6, 2008 (AFP) - Felipe Massa believes he is on course to qualify strongly for the Canadian Grand Prix despite suffering a mystery technical problem in Friday practice.
Massa topped the times in a wet morning session but lost out on almost 20 minutes of the afternoon practice after his Ferrari cut out, forcing him to head back to the garage.
Even so, the Brazilian, currently third in the world championship, was upbeat heading into the weekend.
"My car seemed to suffer some sort of blackout: gradually all the systems shut down and I had to stop at the side of
the track," he said.
"Of course, that is not good, but it is better to have a problem in free practice than in qualifying or, worse still, in the race!"
"Even if we did not get through everything we wanted to do, this problem won't cost us anything."
Championship leader Lewis Hamilton led the way in Massa's absence, the McLaren man setting the fastest lap of the day in the final seconds of the afternoon session.
BMW's Robert Kubica was second fastest just ahead of Kimi Raikkonen in the other Ferrari.
Massa ended up fifth fastest in the afternoon and is now expecting a very close fight between his team, McLaren and BMW in qualifying and in Sunday's race.
"From what we could understand today, it is very close between us and our main rivals," he continued. "As usual on a Friday in Montreal, the track was very dirty and will therefore improve bit by bit as the surface gets rubbered
in."
"I hope I can have a great qualifying and claim a good position on the grid."
Raikkonen was also in a positive mood after practice.
Last year Ferrari struggled to find pace around the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve but the Finnish world champion is satisfied that the Italian team is in a position to fight for victory this time around.
"The car turned out to be well balanced right from the morning and I think we can aim for the top spots over the rest of the weekend," he said. "I am quite satisfied with this first day of testing, we were always quick."
