Sixth in Bahrain 'feels like a victory' to Massa

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Felipe Massa was upbeat after a strong race for Williams under the floodlights in Bahrain on Sunday.

Starting from eighth place he managed to make up several positions at the start. Massa particularly enjoyed fighting wheel-to-wheel with the bigger teams on the grid.

"I started eighth, so actually sixth was great result in the end," he said after the race. "To be honest my position today is like a victory. I finished in the best position I could."

Massa added that he hoped his performance in Bahrain had made a good birthday present for the team's founder, Sir Frank Williams

"It's Frank's birthday. I'm sure he deserves a victory, but today is a like victory so I'm sure he's happy and proud of his team."

Massa's best laps of the evening came at the start of the race.

"I managed to pass [Nico] Hulkenberg at the start and Kimi [Raikkonen] on the first lap at turn 4, which was pretty difficult. Then I passed Daniel [Ricciardo] after the safety car.

"We were fighting with the big teams today!

Vettel victorious as Hamilton toils to second in Bahrain

"Unfortunately after some laps they managed to keep their tyres in a much better way than we do. And they have a better car, so it's difficult to keep them behind."

Massa added that tyre pressures continued to be a weak point for Williams. However he was happier with how he'd managed the issue this weekend.

"I managed to keep the tyres in the right way. But the problem is that you have all the cars that have a lot more downforce. They manage to keep their tyres in the right way because of the car they have.

"You can see how much Ferrari finish in front of us shows the difference in terms of cars. But I think we managed to do a better job on pressure than all the teams behind."

GALLERY: All the pictures from Saturday in Bahrain

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.