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Felipe Massa suspects the Mercedes works team has an engine advantage over his Williams and claims it is only serving to help Ferrari.

Massa finished off the podium at the Australian Grand Prix after Mercedes dominated and Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel snuck past him at the pit stops to finish third. Williams' deficit to Mercedes was over a second in qualifying and 38 seconds over the course of the race, leading Massa to suspect the works team has more than just a chassis advantage.

"We're pushing hard with the engine which I'm sure has some improvements that we can have and are pushing to have, because for sure the difference is too big," he said. "So I really hope that we really have the same engine, which I really don't see why we don't have.

"Why would Mercedes help Ferrari? So we need to have the best they can give, and we will work on that. On the car we know that every race and whatever points you're not getting, it counts."

"If we don't have the same engine - which I cannot say 100% because it's very difficult to say - but if we don't have it then we want to have it because it's not nice that we don't have it."

Massa is in little doubt that Ferrari has also found a big gain in performance from its power unit too.

"Who finished fifth? Sauber. From where they were last year and not having any money to put in the car. It's a team that doesn't invest so much in the team and they just improved a lot which I think is coming from a different part.

"If you see how we finished the season and how they are now, it's a big step, for sure.

"Apart from the lap time you just look at the speed. At the end of the year we were 10, 12 or 15kph quicker than Ferrari, now they are similar and maybe even a little bit better than us."

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