Massa celebrates 'fantastic' result

The Ferrari driver scored his third consecutive win in Istanbul despite tough opposition from McLaren rival Lewis Hamilton, who finished second after opting for a three-stop strategy.

Massa's victory, the second of the season, was Ferrari's fourth straight triumph and also the fourth in five races.

Massa is now in second place in the standings, tied with Hamilton and seven points behind teammate Kimi Raikkonen.

"It is just fantastic," said Massa. "Today was a very difficult race. Lewis was pushing me hard a lot for the whole race and I thought he was very light at the beginning because he was pushing me so heavily.

"And when I did my pitstop I thought he was straight away there so I thought maybe had less fuel, and the team told me he was on three stops and for sure that was a help.

"He was strong and I could not hold him on track so he passed me. I knew I still had a big chance to win the race as three stops was quite optimistic. But anyway I create a reasonable gap to be at the front after the pitstops.

"It was difficult but we made it and third time in Turkey was fantastic. I think I can get a passport here already."

The Brazilian admitted the tyre choice for today's race had been very difficult, especially after the harder tyres seemed to work better than the softer option.

"Today was a very difficult day to choose the tyres because the difference was not so big from soft to hard," he added.

"Even on the first lap and during the run, the hard was much better on Friday so we were really keen to use the soft today, but then I saw Lewis going very quickly with the hard and we thought maybe that was a little bit of a mistake and on the last run the car was easy on hards so maybe the right choice was to run those."

Massa is now hopeful Ferrari can continue their strong run in Monaco in two weeks' time, despite the race having proved hard for the Italian squad in recent years.

"McLaren were very strong there (last year). We have been working there a lot even last year, working a lot on the set-up for Monte Carlo, so hopefully we will have a good car and can win there."