Zoom The pressure is on Massa...

The only missing ingredient in Felipe Massa's championship campaign last year was luck, according to the Brazilian Ferrari driver.

Massa matched the performance of his highly-rated new team-mate Kimi Raikkonen early in 2007, before ultimately supporting the Finn's successful title charge.

But Massa insists that he is not going to settle for second best in 2008.

"I am going to fight for the title. That is my goal for the season," the winner of five Grand Prix told Auto Motor und Sport at Valencia this week.

Massa refuses to acknowledge that Raikkonen, although now F1's reigning World Champion, is a better driver.

"If I had a weakness last year, it was that I was less fortunate than he was," he said at the verge of the group test in Spain.

He said Brazilian drivers, particularly those in the wake of Ayrton Senna's untimely death in 1994, have always found themselves under pressure.

"Rubens had a particularly difficult task - everyone expected him to be Ayrton's successor," Massa explained. "I have also felt some of that."

"But I think my countrymen understand that I would have been the 2007 World Champion if my car had been more reliable," he said.

© CAPSIS International
Source GMM