Today's official FIA press conference was his first since Felipe Massa was confirmed by Ferrari for 2013. Whilst rivals, Vitaly Petrov, Charles Pic and Kamui Kobayashi were asked about their chances of securing a drive, the Brazilian admitted that he was delighted to have already sorted out his future.

"It's nice to be still driving for Ferrari," he said. "It's been a long time, coming to my eighth championship with Ferrari, not counting the fact I signed a contract with the Scuderia when I was very young and not yet driving in Formula 1. It is a very nice feeling and for now I am looking forwarding to finishing this season well in the last races of the championship. But apart from that I am also concentrating 100% on having a very competitive 2013."

Asked why it is that it is in the second half of the season that he has regained his old form, the Brazilian said: "The car development did suit me a bit better and also, you need to consider that I did have some good races in the early part of the year, running at a good pace, but the result was not there at the end, for various reasons.

"But after August everything started working in the right direction," he continued, "with less problems in the race and I qualified a bit higher up the grid. Also, I had a slightly different mental approach from then on, deciding that if things went ok that was fine, but if they did not, then I should not be concerned about it and after that, I started to enjoy the racing much more, like I always did in the past, getting in the car, hoping to have fun. When you do that the results come."

Finally, asked which of the two main combatants deserves the title more, Felipe didn't show any outright bias towards his Spanish teammate.

"I think both of them have done a fantastic job so far, in Sebastian's case, particularly in the second part of the championship," he said. "We are not talking about one guy in the championship with many victories and the other not. So, in the end, whoever wins, we will say he deserves it. Hopefully Fernando will win!"