Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

Massa: 'I hope we have the same engine!'

Felipe Massa admits he is surprised by the gap between Mercedes and Williams following qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix.

Lewis Hamilton took pole position from team-mate Nico Rosberg, with the two Mercedes cars separated by 0.6s. However, Massa was a massive 1.4s back in third place despite Williams also using a Mercedes power unit, and he says the deficit must be in the chassis as a result.

"If we have the same engine, the difference should be in the car - so I hope we have the same engine!" Massa said. "I believe we have the same engine, so it must be the car ... maybe."

When it was put to Massa that the gap to Mercedes seemed to be bigger than in 2014, the Brazilian replied: "Yes it is and for sure it is not great to see this difference but we'll keep working, keep fighting, and I hope we can get as close as we can."

Looking ahead to Sunday's race, Massa expects he and team-mate Valtteri Bottas will be closely matched with the Ferraris in the battle for the final podium position.

"It was a very tricky qualifying especially when you have four cars fighting for very similar times all the time. If you see the difference in lap times between me, Sebastian [Vettel], Kimi [Raikkonen] and also Valtteri, it's pretty small but I'm happy.

"It will be a big fight tomorrow, with Ferrari especially, and I hope we can do a good job."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.