Categories: F1 News, Reports and Race ResultsWilliams

Massa revels in 'lucky' fourth place

Felipe Massa admits he was "lucky" as he climbed from 15th on the grid to fourth place in the Russian Grand Prix.

Problems in qualifying saw Massa drop out in Q1 and left him with a difficult race on Sunday, but a strong performance and two safety car periods helped him climb through the field. Running sixth at the start of the final lap, Massa was then promoted to fourth due to contact between Valtteri Bottas and Kimi Raikkonen which saw his Williams team-mate retire.

"It was a very positive result," Massa said. "It was better than I was expecting. I was a little bit lucky but luck is part of this game. It was just a shame I lost a bit of time behind slower cars like Nasr and Kvyat. When you start the race so far back and you can’t overtake, then the time lost adds up. A little bit of luck is always welcome.

"Overtaking here is not easy, so that is why I lost so much time but in the end I managed to do it and it was crucial for the end result."

However, Massa is still frustrated he missed out on the chance to finish in the top three due to his problems on Saturday.

"We saw my team-mate do a strong qualifying yesterday so it was a shame I had problems because this was definitely a race I could be on the podium."

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AS IT HAPPENED: Russian Grand Prix

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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.