Valencia, Spain (My Sportsbook) - After a disappointing finish in the Hungarian Grand Prix three weeks ago, Ferrari's Felipe Massa revived his Formula One World Championship hopes by winning Sunday's European Grand Prix in dominating fashion at the Streets of Valencia in Spain. Massa led from the pole to the checkered flag, only relinquishing the top spot twice when he pitted. The Brazilian crossed the finish line 5.6 seconds ahead of McLaren's Lewis Hamilton.

The victory was Massa's fourth of the season and ninth of his F1 career.

"After such a bad result (in Hungary), we come here at a new track, which was new for everybody, and we just did a fantastic job," Massa said.

Massa also put on a dominating performance August 3rd at the Hungaroring in Budapest, Hungary, but with three laps remaining, his engine blew up as the car came to a halt on the pit straight. Massa exited his car with an utter look of devastation.

This time Massa prevailed.

He quickly jumped ahead of the field on the first lap, while home favorite Fernando Alonso made contact with Kazuki Nakajima. Alonso, the Spanish World Champion, was forced to retire from the race when his Renault crew was unable to fix the damage to his rear wing.

Massa held an almost three-second lead over Lewis Hamilton on the sixth lap and then increased it to 4.5 seconds before coming in for his first pit stop on Lap 15. Hamilton held a 19-second lead before he came in for his stop two laps later.

Hamilton rejoined the field behind the Ferraris of Massa and Kimi Raikkonen, who had yet to pit. After the first round of stops were completed on Lap 20, Massa was 3.5 seconds ahead of Hamilton, while Robert Kubica moved back into the third spot.

At the halfway point on Lap 29, Massa's lead was well over seven seconds on Hamilton.

While making his second stop on Lap 37, Massa almost collided with Adrian Sutil on his way out of the pits. F1 stewards investigated Massa's stop after the race to determine if his team safely released him from the pits.

"Even if (Sutil) went out in front of me, he needs to let me by," Massa said. "It was a little bit of a shame to fight with him on the pit lane. I was very close and needed to back off and for sure lost time."

Massa was later fined 10,000 euros ($14,764) and reprimanded for the pit lane infraction. Stewards said Massa had been released unsafely into the path of Sutil.

His teammate, Raikkonen, also had a mishap on his second pit stop on Lap 45 when he drove off with the fuel hose still attached. One of his mechanics was struck by the car and injured during the process. Raikkonen, meanwhile, blew an engine on the pit straight the following lap. The defending world champion finished 18th.

Massa built an eight-second lead over Hamilton, while Hamilton was 30 seconds ahead of third-place Kubica with nine laps to go. Heikki Kovalainen challenged Kubica for the third and final spot on the podium in the final laps, but Kovalainen could not catch the Kubica at the end.

Kubica finished third, while Kovalainen and Jarno Trulli rounded out the top- five.

With the victory, Massa moves up to second in the championship standings, and trails leader Hamilton by six points. Raikkonen is 13 points behind after falling to third place.

The next F1 race is set for September 7th in Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium.