FELIPE Massa admitted tyre issues were to blame for a “terrible” race at the European Grand Prix.

The Brazilian’s Williams finished tenth in Formula 1’s first visit to Azerbaijan after being forced to run a two-stop strategy.

It saw Massa collect a single point for the Grove-based team, after running in the top six early on at the new Baku street circuit, well adrift of winner Nico Rosberg.

He said: “It was a really terrible race for me, one to forget. I struggled massively with the tyres.

“I couldn’t make them work, I was having a lot more degradation on the rears than I thought I would.”

Although teammate Valtteri Bottas fared better, stopping just once to finish sixth, Williams will investigate the tyre wear.

Rob Smedley, the team’s head of performance engineering, said: “That was nowhere near what we expected from this race.

“We’ve got to go away and understand why we weren’t quick enough, so that’s what we’ll concentrate on.”

At Enstone’s Renault team, different tyre strategies yielded similar results.

Kevin Magnussen started from the pit lane and stopped once to finish 14th, one place ahead of the two-stopping Jolyon Palmer.

Magnussen said: “We learnt about the car in some extreme areas of the set-up, which is good.

“The main thing to take away from this weekend is how the team kept their cool and stayed positive.”

Fred Vasseur, Racing Director felt that overall it had been a good weekend.

He said: “Given where we started it was a good result today.

“Both drivers stayed focused and kept their heads down to achieve the best they could.

“Today’s result shows the never-give-up spirit of the team; no matter what the odds we will keep pushing all the way.”