Massa hopes podium a boost for Ferrari

The Brazilian, starting from eighth position, made a fantastic start and was able to fight near the top positions during the whole event.

Massa admitted he was missing being on the podium after a difficult first half of the season, but the Ferrari driver is hoping that today's result will help the team work harder to move closer to the front.

"To be honest I miss to be here, to be in top three, but it was a fantastic race," said Massa. "I did a fantastic start, passed many cars.

"I was struggling a lot with the soft tyres, but fortunately I could manage to stay in front of Sebastian and manage to put out the pace after a while. When we put on a second set of tyres it was important to have good pace at that stage.

"I am happy, everyone in the team did a great job with the pitstops, so I think I am having a good result like this, a podium will definitely motivate the team to keep pushing hard, preparing a good car for the end of the championship and a great car for next year."

Massa admitted he benefited from having KERS to hold off Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel for a significant part of the race.

"It is all racing, we have the KERS which is a help to keep the positions, try to overtake, but you want to exchange the KERS for a bit of downforce I change very quickly," he joked.