Ferrari took a gamble and lost, says Massa

Ferrari took a gamble on the weather and lost the bet in Sunday's Monaco Grand Prix, Brazilian Felipe Massa said.

Massa had started on pole position, with world champion team-mate Kimi Raikkonen alongside, but had to settle for third place while the Finn failed to score and lost his overall lead to McLaren's race winner Lewis Hamilton.

After four wins in a row this season, the Italian team were out-fought and out-thought at a street circuit that has not favoured them since seven times world champion Michael Schumacher won in 2001.

After showers early in the race, they expected another downpour later on. It never came.

"We made a kind of mistake on the strategy and we were waiting for the rain which didn't come. It was a little bit of a gamble," said Massa. "Sometimes a gamble on this track works perfectly, sometimes it doesn't work. The weather forecast had been perfect most of the time, and it didn't work when we really expected that it would rain again."

Massa had won two of the previous three races and had hoped to become the first Brazilian to win at Monaco since the late champion Ayrton Senna in 1993.

Instead he became yet another victim of a jinx stretching back to 1979, the last time a Ferrari driver won from pole position. To complicate matters, Massa lost radio contact with the team for 20 laps.

"We cannot deny that we are disappointed with this definitely negative outcome," said team boss Stefano Domenicali.

"We got off on the wrong foot, with an infringement of the rules in preparing Kimi's car on the grid minutes before the start, which resulted in a drive-through penalty. Then we decided to switch our strategy, going for a one-stop race, on the basis that we expected the rain to return and this did not happen.

"With hindsight, it is easy to say we should have made different choices but the reality is that, at every level, we did not meet our usual high standards," added the Italian.

Despite the setback, Ferrari retained their lead in the constructors' championship, 16 points clear of McLaren and 17 ahead of BMW Sauber.