Felipe Massa declared himself 'proud' to score a second consecutive Turkish Grand Prix as the Brazilian closed the gap between himself and world championship leader Lewis Hamilton to just 15 points.
Massa's third win of the season also allowed the Ferrari star to re-establish himself ahead of his team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in the championship order, having played second fiddle to the Finn for much of the summer.
Massa described his fifth career victory as "amazing".
"This is second the race in a row here starting from pole and winning, it is really fantastic," he said.
"I love the track and I love the place. Here is when my career just made a switch and I started winning races and fighting with the front-runners.
"It is a very special place for me. It is difficult to find the right words."
Massa led from start-to-finish and remained in control despite coming under significant pressure from Raikkonen in the middle stint and suffering an unusual problem with his crash helmet.
"I had a crack on the cooling system on the helmet and I had a big turbulence," he said.
"On the straights my head was being pulled up and then pushed down under braking. I was losing a lot of concentration.
"So I used some strength, took it away, and made some strange behaviour on the straight! It cracked completely and then it was better."
To the surprise of many, Ferrari opted to start the race with the softer 'option' Bridgestone tyre, and the tactic paid off as Raikkonen swept by Hamilton's McLaren at the start.
Massa and Raikkonen quickly asserted themselves with the tyre advantage while McLaren proved unable to match the Ferraris through the race.
"On Friday we made a long run on both tyre types," explained Massa.
"It was pretty similar, there was maybe one or two tenths difference between the tyres on the long run and we knew Friday to Sunday the track improves a lot. So the softs would improve even more.
"We took a gamble a little bit but at least it was a safe risk.
"Especially for the start we knew that the soft tyres are always better."
1. F.Massa
2. K.Raikkonen
3. F.Alonso