Felipe Massa has joked that he should maybe try to get himself a Turkish passport, after confirming the Turkish Grand Prix as 'his' race with his third win there in as many years.

The Brazilian converted pole position into victory for the third consecutive season, meaning he has now triumphed in three of the four races to be held at Istanbul Park. Massa seems to have developed a real affinity with the demanding circuit, and his ten points registered this weekend have drawn him level with Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in terms of race wins so far in 2008 – two apiece – and, more significantly still, vaulted him right into title contention.

“It's fantastic to have got the hat-trick here in Istanbul,” the 27-year-old enthused after withstanding the challenge of McLaren-Mercedes' Lewis Hamilton. “It might really almost be worth asking for a Turkish passport! It was a very tough race but the team worked magnificently, giving me a great car.

“When Hamilton came underneath me at an incredible pace, I preferred not to take too many risks – the pit wall informed me that he was clearly running a lighter fuel load, even if we were not certain he was on a three-stop strategy. When that became clear, we were calmer, knowing we had everything in place to go for the win.

“My engineer, Rob, guided my pace and I drove in such a way as to keep ahead of Lewis. Maybe the hard tyres worked better today, but from what we saw over the weekend, the softs were more competitive and in any case, the difference was not that great. I want to dedicate this win to two people – to my mother on Mothers' Day and to Stefano Domenicali whose birthday it is today.”

Indeed, the Scuderia's team principal was overjoyed with the result – one that has further extended Maranello's advantage in the constructors' standings to 19 points over nearest pursuers BMW-Sauber. With Monaco and Montreal coming up next on the agenda, though – two circuits at which the scarlet machines struggled in 2007 – Domenicali insisted the team would be taking absolutely nothing for granted.

“We are very happy with this result,” the Italian underlined, “but we know it was a tough one to get. Felipe drove a great race and made the most of yesterday's pole position. We wanted to continue down this winning path which started as a reaction to the heavy hit we took in Melbourne and we have managed it.

“Now we have to prepare maybe even more carefully for the next rounds. At Monaco and Canada last year, we suffered a lot and we will have to do our best in preparing for these races, both in the test session at Paul Ricard from next Wednesday to Friday, and in analysing the data back in Maranello.”

“All-in-all, a really good result,” concurred Ferrari technical director Luca Baldisserri. “The team worked well and the cars ran trouble-free. Now we can expect two tricky races, where last year we were not competitive enough to win. We have worked a lot to remedy the problems which we had there, and now we will find out if we have worked in the right direction.”