Massa started his season strongly with the new F138 at the . He qualified fourth, one place ahead of teammate Alonso. He was able to stay very competitive, especially during the early laps of the race but finished the race in fourth place, two places behind Alonso. At the following race in Malaysia, Massa started on the front row of the grid, out-qualifying Alonso for the fourth time in a row. Massa had a poor start and bad first stint on the intermediate tyres resulting him falling down the order, but as the track dried out, he recovered places on the slick tyres and finished fifth. Three weeks later at the Chinese Grand Prix Massa qualified fifth, beaten by his teammate, who qualified third, for the first time in 5 races. In the race Massa got up to second place before the first round of pitstops, but he pitted a lap later than the other leaders, so he fell back down the order, so despite the early pace that he showed, only managed to finish sixth. At the next race in Bahrain, Massa qualified 6th but moved up to 4th alongside his teammate due to penalties for Webber and Hamilton. Massa was the only car in Q3 to qualify on the hard tyres indicating he was on a different strategy. In the race, the strategy gamble did not pay off as he did not run as far as he wanted and needed before the first stop. Along with two punctures in the race, this resulted in Massa finishing 15th. In Spain, Massa received a three-place grid penalty for blocking Mark Webber in qualifying, and started 9th. He made an excellent start, coming up to 6th, and then leapfrogged more cars during the pitstops, eventually finishing 3rd. His first podium of the year situated him 5th in the Drivers' Championship.