Rio de Janeiro - Surprised over the poor pre-season performance of the McLaren-Mercedes team, but worried about the excellence of Brawn GP and the evolution of Toyota, Ferrari's Brazilian Formula 1 driver Felipe Massa travelled to Australia Monday.

"So far it is difficult to have a clear idea, because it is the first race that counts, but I think we have never seen a McLaren so far behind, a McLaren with so many difficulties as this year," Massa said in comments that were made public by his press team Monday.

Rio de Janeiro  - Brazilian Formula One driver Felipe Massa is out to show in 2009 that he has the stuff of champions and to prove wrong those who say he is not good enough to get beyond the position of perennial second driver at Ferrari.

When he joined the Italian scuderia in 2006, Ferrari boss Jean Todt said a low profile could be his new driver's main problem.

"Felipe is a great guy. He has a good spirit, he's a team player, he's humble, he's shy - probably too humble and too shy in this business, because he's not rated as he should be," Todt said.

London, Dec 26 : Ferrari's ace driver Felipe Massa has rejected calls for Formula One teams to slash the wages of their drivers to try to reduce costs.

The Ferrari driver is believed to earn around 8million pounds a year, while his Scuderia teammate Kimi Raikkonen is reputedly paid at least three times that sum, The Independent reported.

Ferrari's sporting director, Stefano Domenicali, recently floated the idea of teams reducing driver earnings to cut expenditure in a sport acutely affected by the global economic downturn and has already lost one of its prime movers with the withdrawal of Honda earlier this month.

Sao Paulo - Ferrari's Felipe Massa took pole position for for Sunday's Brazilian Grand Prix at the Interlagos circuit in qualifying Saturday while championship leader Lewis Hamilton starts from fourth on the grid.

Massa registered a time of 1 minute 12.368 seconds for the 4.309- kilometre circuit to claim a third pole in succession at his home GP while Toyota's Jarno Trulli caused a major surprise by taking the second spot on the front row in 1:12.737 minutes.