Massa: podium guaranteed with better qualifying

Felipe Massa struggled in qualifying to get his tyres within the operating window and, as a result, could only manage 15th. He made good use of an alternative strategy, however, starting on the soft tyres and, after the collision between Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen, managed to finish 4th.

“I think it was a very good race,” he said, “unfortunately at the beginning lost time to overtake cars on the harder tyres, like Nasr, but when I had Kvyat I took maybe three or four laps to pass him. I’m sure without this problem we could have gained a lot of time.

“The pace on the supersoft was amazing so I’m really happy with the race, happy with the pace. Unfortunate the qualifying yesterday, if I had started in a better position the podium would have been in the pocket.”

Massa had failed to finish in the two previous two Grand Prix in Singapore and Japan, so this result will be especially positive for the Brazilian.

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