Ferrari weak at Monaco, says Massa

The British squad took a dominant one-two at the principality, with double world champion Fernando Alonso finishing ahead of teammate Lewis Hamilton.

The McLaren duo lapped all drivers except third-place Massa, who finished over a minute behind the Spaniard.

But the Ferrari driver believes McLaren's dominance was not so much a consequence of their strength, but rather a result of a weak performance from the Italian squad.

Massa admitted, however, that he was pleased with his personal performance.

"I am really happy with my personal performance over the weekend," Massa wrote on his official blog.

"However, we were not so happy with our car performance at this track. If you look at how McLaren started on the first day, we knew it would not be so easy to be in front of them.

"But we managed to limit the damage and third place is not a disaster, when you look at how close and competitive the championship battle is at the moment. But certainly, we cannot be a hundred percent happy with the result, given that our rivals filled the top two places. They have some elements of their package that worked better at this circuit than ours.

"But my personal opinion and I don't know if it is right, is that it was not just McLaren being impressive in Monaco, it was also Ferrari being weak. If you look at the difference between McLaren and Renault in Monaco and compare it to the gap between them in Barcelona at the Spanish Grand Prix, there was not much difference.

"In Monte Carlo Renault's pace was similar to ours which shows that something in our package, something related to our team, did not work at this track.

"What we can be sure of is that this situation will not continue, because our car is better than that, which in itself is further motivation to do well at the next race, where our car should have a good package."

Despite McLaren's strong showing, Massa is still optimistic for the championship, the Brazilian being five points behind Alonso and Hamilton.

"The championship is still looking good for me after these important points for third place," he added. "We have done five races, I am five points behind Fernando and Lewis and there are still twelve races to go. That's not a big difference and I feel that everything is still a hundred percent open in the fight for the title. But we need to be ahead of them.

"I have won two races and Fernando has done the same and the difference as I said is five points. So consistency is what matters over the rest of the season and that is why it is always important to be on the podium.

"My worst result this year is a sixth place, which is actually not that bad, but you have to make sure you are always in the top three."