Preview Quotes from Felipe Massa on behalf of Ferrari ahead of this weekend’s Hungarian Grand Prix at the Hungaroring where he suffered his nasty crash back in 2009.

Felipe Massa, Ferrari

“The Hungarian Grand Prix is a very special event for me, that brings back a lot of memories. Naturally, there are some negative memories from my [2009 Hungaroring] accident, but also positive ones in that I am here today, getting ready for Budapest, healthy and still racing. I love the fans in Hungary, as I actually have a lot more of them since my accident, so it’s somewhere I am always pleased to go back to and of course I hope I can have a good race there this weekend.

“It’s a short track, with a lot of corners one after the other with no long straights. Overtaking is difficult, with changes of direction all the time, which make it a fun track. So it’s an old style race track and Sunday afternoon can be tough, but I like going back to these old fashioned venues.

“For sure people say the characteristics of our car are not best suited to this circuit and that it will be tough for us to fight for the win here, but I am not sure this is an accurate assessment, because there have been other circuits where we expected our car to be very strong and it was not and vice versa. The important thing will be to get a good understanding of exactly how the car is reacting as quickly as possible. The circuit requires as much downforce as possible, because the speed down the straight is not so important here. You need a car that is very stable and that is kind to the tyres to avoid degradation. I think we can be competitive, so I’m hoping our weekend goes in the opposite way to what people are expecting.

“I expect the tyres will be critical again, especially in relation to temperature. They will perform very differently in qualifying and the race and I hope we can make the most of the high temperatures.”