Felipe Massa says Williams had no chance of matching Ferrari's race pace in China and conceded the team has dropped to third in the pecking order ... for the time being.
Massa and team-mate Valtteri Bottas split Sebastian Vettel and Raikkonen in qualifying but the 2007 world champion got past both men on the opening lap. From that point on it was an uneventful race for Massa and Bottas as they finished behind the Ferrari drivers.
When asked if he had thought Williams could challenge Ferrari before the race, Massa said: "Yeah, we always thought but if you see the pace it was impossible. We'll see in Bahrain how they're going to be but if they use the tyres well here and they used the tyres well in Malaysia, for sure they're going to be fine in Bahrain anyway."
The Brazilian thinks Williams has to be happy with the points it did manage to secure.
"To be honest we finished where we are, for the moment ... We are the third team for the moment. We finished fifth and sixth. Definitely it would be nicer to finish in front of Ferrari but maybe also close to Mercedes, we're always looking forward, but it's not the case. We need to push to improve but we can say it's not so completely negative because we are third in the championship and are building good points compared to the guys behind. But we need to work and make the car better to catch these guys in front, which is not easy."
Massa lost two positions, to Bottas and Raikkonen, through the first corner but was pleased with how he recovered.
Assessing his own race, Massa said: "I think it was fantastic; very good weekend, perfect lap in qualifying, very good race. Unfortunately the start was not great, at corner one I had to brake because I was so close to Sebastian [Vettel]. Then I lost two positions. Fortunately Kimi tried to pass Valtteri through Turn 6 [when Massa got by his team-mate] and then after that it was a very, very good race. I was able to manage good pace, using the tyres in the right way, having the right balance, building a gap to my team-mate - I think it was a very good weekend in terms of everything I did."