Felipe Massa has admitted that his performances are still being hampered by the struggles he has dealing with the 2010 tires.
The Brazilian briefly led the World Championship earlier this year, but he has now slipped almost 80 points adrift of title leader Lewis Hamilton. He is also 31 points behind his teammate Fernando Alonso. Although he is aware that the safety car issue in Valencia and a first lap collision with Alonso at Silverstone cost him valuable points, he still reckons there are bigger factors at play to explain his current form.
"The results of the season so far are not what I expected, definitely," said the Ferrari driver. "We had some bad races, especially the last two were the worst, and especially in the last two races they were events where we should have scored good points and we could not because every race something happened.
"I think also looking at the last two races, we saw an improvement in the car in terms of performance. I think that can also be quite positive for the second part of the championship, so let's try and do a better second part of the championships."
Speaking about the tire issues, he said: "I think in the races where we had the very hard tires I was performing much worse than I can because I was never able to make the tires work. But when we had the soft tires I was OK.
"I've tried to change my driving style, to make the tires hotter and better. I am a driver who needs a lot from the front grip of the car. I prefer better front grip and even when you have a bit of oversteer, you can work to improve the rear. That is how I drove up until now. But this year with hard tires it is very difficult. Lots of people talk only about me, but many, many drivers have the same problem."