Felipe Massa says Ferrari needs to put the disappointment of losing the World Championship out of its mind and focus on putting itself in the best position for 2011.
Fernando Alonso led the World Championship going into Abu Dhabi, but lost out to Sebastian Vettel when the German won the race and he finished just seventh. But Massa says the team cannot afford to dwell on this year, and that work for next year begins with the Pirelli tire test at the Yas Marina circuit later this week.
"We need to think about next year now, we need to concentrate," Massa said. "For sure we are going to hear and read many things, but I think that is not the most important thing.
"Most important is to concentrate to be strong in 2011, and we are going to have a test here with the Pirelli tires so I hope we can learn straight away. That is the right direction – to concentrate next year and try to do even a stronger championship than we did this year."
The Brazilian admitted that Ferrari's strategy – in pitting both cars early in the race in response to Mark Webber's stop – "ruined" the team's race.
"We had a safety car, but we thought it was a bit too early to stop," Massa said. "We saw Webber stopping pretty soon, then we took the decision to stop to try to pass him, but it was not enough and I came [out] behind him.
"We came [out] behind the guys who had stopped before so that was very difficult and very tough because it was almost impossible to overtake. This ruined everything, because we were not able to pass."
Massa also conceded that 2010 was a poor campaign for him. "It was not a great season, for sure," he said. "I had a lot of issues, especially to prepare the tires for qualifying. That was the main issue I had all season. It is something that was really a problem this year.
"I never had this problem to prepare this tire for the first lap, because the tire was always much softer than it is now. Many times in the races the pace was OK, but in qualifying it was always more difficult."