Massa: Great to be back with a P2

Felipe Massa made his return to Formula One racing with a solid second place in qualifying for the Bahrain GP.

Saturday's outing was Massa's first qualifying experience since his horrific Hungarian qualifying accident in June last year. However, the Brazilian showed no signs of being troubled by the memories.

He put his F60 up into second place on the grid, 0.141s behind pole-sitter Sebastian Vettel. But perhaps more importantly, he was a comfortable 0.3 ahead of his new Ferrari team-mate and double World Champ Fernando Alonso.

"First of all, congratulations to Sebastian who did a great job for first race of the season," said Massa. "It is nice to be back racing and competitive in the right direction. I feel happy to be back after such a difficult time.

"I was watching races on TV but it's more exciting to be in the car. I am in a good direction, testing, driving go-karts, so it's great to be back for racing.

"If you look what happened to us, it is a good start for us. I feel very positive to start in second and third, it feels great. For sure Red Bull and some teams are strong, so the race will be difficult but I am happy here to be fighting for top."

Looking ahead to Sunday's grand prix, the Ferrari driver is confident that the Scuderia have a car that will be competitive under heavy-fuelled conditions.

"I think we did a good job yesterday to prepare for a long distance," he added. "We used both tyres and swapped tyres on the long runs. I think we are in the right direction so let's see how we are going to be in the race tomorrow.

"There are many things that will happen in the race, let's wait and see but I am really optimistic."

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