Massa enjoys change in fortune

Felipe Massa admitted his luck was in as he finished seventh in the Monaco Grand Prix.

An incident with Marcus Ericsson in qualifying on Saturday limited Massa to 16th on the grid and left him bemoaning his recent misfortune. However, with eight cars retiring from the race in Monte Carlo, Massa said the situation worked in his favour as he was able to score solid points while team-mate Valtteri Bottas was one of those not to finish.

"Starting 16th, finishing 7th, I would have signed yesterday!" Massa said. "I had some luck today. So many things happened and I gained positions and it helped me, definitely. I think it was a good race anyway.

"Staying out [under the safety car] didn't change anything to my result in the end but the car behaved well on the supersoft tyres, so I was thinking that maybe I was going to have bad pace after the safety car and I was pulling away, which was good. Then I got some opportunities and cars crashing in front gave me some positions so in the end it was OK."

And Massa believes Williams will be even more competitive come Montreal in a fortnight after the team struggled on the whole in Monaco.

"Our car was not competitive here anyway, it was not the right track for us. So I don't think the pace that we saw here compared to the other cars is the reality for the next races. I think we can be more competitive than that."