SHANGHAI - FERRARI'S Felipe Massa on Sunday promised to push Lewis Hamilton all the way for the Formula One title after setting up a crunch season finale in front of his home fans in Brazil.

Massa admitted Hamilton's McLaren Mercedes was the better car at the Chinese Grand Prix, where he finished second behind the Briton to concede a seven-point standings deficit.

But he warned the title race was far from over, especially after his Ferrari team-mate Kimi Raikkonen's dramatic last-ditch championship win in Sao Paulo last year.

'I am going to fight as hard as I can to take the title all the way.' Massa passed a slowing Raikkonen in the closing stages to take second place behind Hamilton and boost his chances of challenging for the title.

'It was the best moment in the race for me! I caught him and then I passed him,' said the Brazilian.

'So that was a good thing for me, but anyway it was not enough because we are fighting with McLaren and not each other.

'Today one McLaren finished in front, but we could manage second and third.

So, for the drivers' championship it was not so fantastic, but for the constructors' it is very good.' The two Ferraris never looked like challenging Hamilton, who got off to a good start from pole position and built his lead to finish nearly 15 seconds clear.

'I didn't have a good start, I had a little bit of wheelspin, even though there was not high grip on our side. Then we just stayed in the same position,' Massa said.

'We saw Lewis was a bit stronger in the beginning of the race, I mean he was stronger the whole weekend.

'He started to pulling away, maybe two or three tenths (of a second) per lap, and this for sure made his race much more comfortable and for us we were completely driving on the limit trying to reduce the gap, but it was not possible.

'We tried to push, as Kimi was trying to push, to get closer to Lewis, but today unfortunately, Lewis had a better car for the whole weekend.'