Massa: no regrets over Hamilton move

Massa, starting from pole position, dropped to third place at the start, behind the McLaren's of Fernando Alonso and Hamilton.

With Alonso quickly opening a gap to Hamilton, Massa tried hard to pass the Briton, but he ended up making a mistake and going off the track.

The error dropped Massa to fifth behind Ferrari teammate Kimi Raikkonen and BMW's Nick Heidfeld. The Brazilian would go on to finish in that position, but he says he does not regret having tried to pass Hamilton.

"The McLarens started very well and managed to reach Turn 1 better than us," Massa told RAI. "I tried to resist but at the second turn, in order not to touch Alonso I had to brake, and Hamilton had a bit of a better line so he managed to overtake me there.

"I could see Alonso running away. I had a car with which I could maybe go with him, so I was only thinking of overtaking Hamilton. It wasn't easy, we saw many times cars staying behind others because it's very hard to overtake, but I tried anyway.

"In the end I'm not sorry I did because sometimes you have to. This time it didn't work out, but I hope next time it will."

Despite McLaren dominating the race, Massa felt Ferrari had the pace to win, and the Brazilian denied the new floor tests imposed by the FIA has hindered the Italian squad.

"No, we had a good speed here," he said. "We tried the new rule here in testing and the car behaved the same so that wasn't the problem. The problem is that they've improved and we need to improve more ourselves.

"It will be a very hard-fought season. The next races we have a chance to get back ahead but we need to work and show we can."