Fernando Alonso has said that his aim was to get his teammate Felipe Massa onto the podium in his final race for Ferrari at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

The 32-year-old, who first joined the Italian team in 2006, was in a fight for fourth when he was penalised for crossing the white line on the pit entry and ended up in ninth.

Alonso came home in third place at Interlagos, and hinted that he would have stepped aside to let Massa stand on the podium in front of his home crowd.

"It was the last race for Felipe at Ferrari and we wanted to help in whatever way to try to celebrate a podium finish with Felipe, but he got a drive-through, unfortunately," AutoSport quotes Alonso as saying.

"I'm sad for him for this race but happy for the last four years. He has been an amazing teammate."

Sebastian Vettel won the race, which was his ninth victory in a row.