Felipe Massa is confident he will form a great partnership with "nice guy" Fernando Alonso at Ferrari.
Massa will team up with double World Champion Alonso at Ferrari this year following the Spaniard's move from Renault. There has been a few suggestions that they can't work together, but Massa believes there won't be any problems.
"I have a new team-mate this year and although the one car test rule meant we never drove on the same day, we have got to know one another well over the winter," he wrote on the official Ferrari website. "We worked together on the debriefs and in most cases, Fernando and I seem to have similar opinions about the way to move forward. I think things are going well between us; he is a nice guy and a great driver and I am sure we will work together very well.
"Once again, my team-mate is a World Champion, a double World Champion actually! I am fine with that and I regard it as a positive element for the team. As a driver, you don't think about beating your team-mate, you are looking to beat all the drivers on the grid and in the Championship.
"I think it is much better to have two good drivers in the same team as it means the team can improve more quickly, with a better direction in terms of its development. For the past few years of my career, I have always had very strong team-mates and so nothing has changed for this year."
Ferrari were one of the pacesetters during pre-season testing and many have tipped them to walk away with this year's titles. Massa, though, says it's important that they don't get too carried away.
"I agree with Stefano (Domenicali, team principal) when he says that after testing, we can claim to be front runners, but we must keep our feet on the ground, because we are facing a very long and tough Championship.
"The competitors are also very strong, including those who were fighting for the title last year, like Mercedes, who won under a different name, then Red Bull and McLaren, but there are other teams such as Williams and Sauber, which has risen from what used to be BMW. There are even teams like Force India who grew in performance last year and we can expect these to be competitive as well. I think it will be a very tight and competitive and our job will be to steadily improve the car race by race."
As for the performance of the car, Massa feels fuel consumption will play a very important role this year following the ban on in-race refuelling.
"The car felt strong, it was quick and consistent and the tyres worked well whatever the fuel load; heavy at the start and getting progressively lighter. It was hard to make an accurate comparison to other teams' race simulations, as we had a choice of three different Bridgestone tyres at the test, rather than the two we will have at the races.
"But in general, the signs were encouraging. The most important factor was that the car ran reliably, which is particularly important in the early stages of the season. The car was also quick with low fuel, in qualifying trim. Running on full tanks is an interesting challenge: as a racing driver, you always want your car to be as quick as possible, which means a car with a low fuel load, which gives you more grip and the difference between full tanks and the minimum fuel can be as much as six second per lap, depending on the circuit.
"The difference is huge, like having two different cars, but an efficient car should be good in both configurations. Fuel consumption will therefore be another key factor this year. If your car is less fuel efficient and needs to carry fifteen kilos more fuel than another car, that equates to three or four tenths of a second per lap."
