Ferrari curse bad luck in Montreal

Fernando Alonso declared himself back in the Formula One title race on Sunday after finishing third in a Canadian Grand Prix that left Ferrari team mate Felipe Massa cursing his misfortune.

The Spaniard has struggled to keep pace with Red Bull and McLaren since winning the opening race of the season in Bahrain but believes he is back in business after finishing behind McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button in Montreal.

"It was a great recovery for the championship," Alonso said.

"We were 50 seconds behind McLaren in Turkey and fighting for the win here.

"We are moving in right direction here and I think we are back in the fight."

Alonso's result left him fourth in the drivers' standings, 15 points behind new series leader Hamilton.

But the Spaniard, already a double world champion from his days at Renault, said he was unlucky not to win the race and move further up the standings after being held up by backmarkers.

"I think it was a good day for us, the car was very competitive here in Canada," Alonso said.

"I had a good opportunity to win today, fighting with Lewis, we overtook him with a fantastic job in the pitlane.

"We lost position with traffic and then lost another position, we lost 10 points with those from 25 to 15.

"When (Sebastien) Buemi stopped I lost 2.5 seconds passing another car and I exited the pits 0.5 seconds behind Lewis, it was a race decided by small details."

While Alonso was at least able to overcome his problems to finish third, Brazilian Massa had a day he would rather forget.

He had to return to the pits for some running repairs after being sandwiched between Jenson Button and Vitantonio Liuzzi on the first corner then collided with Michael Schumacher near the end of the race.

Both drivers were investigated by stewards over the incident but no action was taken. However, Massa was given a 20-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

"This was a horrible race in which everything happened to me," said Massa, who signed an extended deal Ferrari earlier in the week to stay with the Italian team until 2012.

It was a busy day for the stewards, who issued reprimands to Jaime Alguersuari for an incident with Rubens Barrichello and Robert Kubica for a dangerous entry to the pit lane.