Massa echoes consistency call.

Having been denied a fourth win of the 2008 Formula One season last time out in Hungary, Felipe Massa has echoed title rival Lewis Hamilton's belief that consistency, rather than outright performance, will be the key to settling the destiny of the title.

The Brazilian, having overturned Hamilton's apparent superiority at the opening corner in Budapest, led comfortably until three laps from the end, when his Ferrari's engine let go, stranding him on the start-finish straight and gifting Heikki Kovalainen a maiden F1 win.

Despite the setback, however, Massa - who currently lies third in the standings, eight points adrift of Hamilton - refuses to dwell on disappointment and is looking forward to this weekend's inaugural European Grand Prix on the streets of Valencia as an opportunity to put things right.

"For sure, we need to look forward and we need to look to the next seven races," the Brazilian insisted, "We know we still have 70 points in front of us and we need to do our best to recover.

"For sure, if you look back, it would have been a great moment to win the last race but, sometimes, this sport is like that and we need to look forward. The most important thing is that we are very competitive.

"As I mentioned before, even with the qualifying, I would have been able to fight for the pole because the car was great. I didn't do a good lap, which is why I was not able to fight for the pole but, in the race, we showed our performance. We showed great performance, good speed, good pace. We showed that we are there which is the most important thing. It can be very important for the next races."

With Ferrari having traced the cause of his Hungaroring demise, Massa heads to Valencia confident that there should be no repeat this weekend - but admits that he cannot afford to many further slip-ups if he is to take his title challenge to the wire on home soil in Brazil.

"We had a completely different problem [to team-mate Kimi Raikkonen's French failure], which maybe you can have once every ten years," he revealed, "It was a manufacturing problem of the piece and you cannot do anything. We have never had this problem except at that particular moment, so there's nothing that can be done about that.

"Whether or not you are losing points, which was already the key since the first race. It seems to be that all of us have lost important points this year. I think the key now will be to be consistent, which was already the key since the beginning of the first race. [Hungary] doesn't change anything."