Felipe Massa not worried by recent poor run and insists pace is there to return to form

Felipe Massa says he knows "what I have to do" to secure his future at Ferrari for another season and has expressed confidence that he does have the pace to end his poor run of results.

While lead Ferrari driver Fernando Alonso opted not to appear at the Silverstone test this week, Massa's participation had always been considered a given in wake of his recent difficulties, once the FIA allowed race drivers to run. The Brazilian said he had welcomed the opportunity to drive the car outside a race weekend mid-season. "It's always important to test. We know that it's always difficult to test during the season," Massa admitted. "We have also three weeks from one race to the next, so happy to be here testing and just doing some understanding as well on the tyres. So I hope that can be interesting for the next race." Having had to focus exclusively on testing Pirelli's revised tyres during his 69 laps on track on Friday, Massa said the situation was certainly much improved from the British GP race weekend three weeks ago, when the race was marred by a succession of high-speed blowouts, and that the new-look tyres also appeared to have a lower working range. "It's difficult compared to the tyres we were using two races ago, but I think it's more or less the direction of the race last," he explained. "Last race we had already the Kevlar on the construction, so the tyre's a little bit more consistent. We could see here the consistency on the long run is a lot better than the race here in Silverstone, so I think the tyres work in the lower temperature so it makes the car more consistent. Not so much for the first lap - the first lap isn't a big difference. "But for the consistency and the safety at least it's better. Nothing happened here on the tyres, [no] blowing, punctures that we were seeing in this race. That's the most important thing to be honest."