Felipe Massa is thinking positively as he heads for this weekend's Japanese Grand Prix at Fuji, aware that
Formula One fortunes can be as fickle as the weather at the famous circuit.
Having been handed a world championship lifeline when
McLaren and
Lewis Hamilton's appeal against the revised Belgian Grand Prix result was thrown out by the
FIA, Massa saw the gap to the Briton go from one point to seven when he suffered a setback in the pits in Singapore, leading to a 13th place finish after he left early from his first refuelling stop.
With three races remaining, however, the Brazilian is refusing to give up, knowing that
Ferrari team-mate
Kimi Raikkonen overcame a bigger deficit in 2007 as the pressure got to McLaren and Hamilton in the closing stages of the season.
"After the Singapore Grand Prix, the motto for the rest of the season has to be look ahead and don't give up," Massa insisted, "As our team principal Stefano Domenicali said after the race, we really need to try and finish first and second in all the remaining rounds. It's a tough call, but everyone in the Scuderia will be trying their best.
"As for the championship, it depends how you look at it - a seven point gap can be a lot or it can be a little. If you look at what happened to me in Singapore, where my gap went from one point to seven so suddenly, you have to consider it could easily go the other way as well.
"The most important element to consider is that we have a very good car. Without that, my chances would be much smaller. We have two good cars and we can try and get both of us to finish ahead of our rivals. It can be done and we need to think positive and we need to keep fighting to the last race."
