Massa: Strategy call cost me chance of F1 points

Williams pilot Felipe Massa says he is "surprised" he was unable to score points in the inaugural Russian Grand Prix and believes the team made the wrong call by getting him to pit on the opening lap.

Massa lined-up in 18th place on the grid, having been eliminated in Q1 on Saturday due to a reliability issue that left him down on power.

However, despite a storming start, he pitted following that first tour and while he then came back through the pack, he later got stuck behind Sergio Perez and eventually had to settle for eleventh.

"To be honest, yes," Massa replied when asked if he was surprised he wasn't able to get any points.

"I was surprised because the pace of the car was very good. I passed seven cars on the opening lap and I don't know if it was the right thing to stop [at the end of the first lap] because we were already eleventh. It wasn't inside the strategy to stop straight away. I even asked the team and said we had passed many cars, but they said it was better to stop.

"After the pace was very good and I was able to catch lots of guys and overtake so many cars - it was so easy until I got to Perez.

"It was not possible to pass him. I was behind him and the speed he had on the straight I couldn't catch him enough to risk a move. That destroyed my race. It was so many laps behind him and then he stopped and I stayed out two more laps. But my tyres were not in good shape because I had been too long behind him.

"Then I stopped and changed the tyres, but got back on track behind him again and he had good tyres and a better phase with good speed and so it was not possible to pass him.

"It was so easy to pass everybody - even the Toro Rossos and so many of the other cars, but not him... because of his car. He was very good and I didn't have any opportunity. He had good traction and good speed. For my car it was not possible - that is all I can say.

"It was not nice, because I think we had the pace and a car to finish in the good points and we finish just one position behind the points."

Asked if he could have scored, if he had done a different strategy, he replied: "If I go again on the track and do the race again, I would stay out.

"But it is easy to say after."

Meanwhile, Massa confirmed that while he had to change the engine for the race, the one used for qualifying should be okay to use again.

"It should be usable because the problem [in qualifying] was not on the engine. It was on the fuel pump, but it was better to change the engine as it is a little bit complicated to change [the fuel pump] here - it is better to do that in the factory," he explained.