Massa: Pressure's on usposted in F102 | 09 | 2010

WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP nearly man, Felipe Massa, knows his Ferrari team will be under immense pressure from the tifosi when he and team-mate Fernando Alonso line up in front of a partisan crowd for the Italian Grand Prix.

After another disappointing weekend in Belgium Massa, so cruelly robbed of the championship my Lewis Hamilton in Brazil two years ago, admits his ailing team has to recover the lost ground quickly if it is going to keep its title hopes alive.

"It will be a great event, racing in front of our tifosi, but the reality is it will be a very important race because after the less than satisfactory performance in Belgium, the championship is not looking so easy for us," he admitted.

"We need to keep pushing for the last six races, trying to be back in the fight for wins or at least as many podiums as possible. For sure it won't be easy."

And Massa, who finished fourth at Spa but languishes 73 points adrift of championship leader Hamilton, admitted he and the team had expected more from the Belgian race.

"Looking back Belgiim, I started sixth and finished fourth, so at a certain level, I could say that I had a good race," he continued. "However, in terms of the result and in terms of the championship and the points total for Ferrari, it was not enough.

"Given the difficult conditions, with the weather changing several times during the race, this was a positive performance in difficult conditions. However it was not what I expected, or what the team had hoped for, given the fact that in Spa, the car was not as competitive as it had been in the two previous races in Hungary and Germany.

"This was probably another example of how, this year, the situation in terms of which teams are competitive, has been governed by the nature of the track."