Felipe Massa says it was vital for Williams to lock out the second row ahead of Ferrari and labelled the lap which put him ahead of team-mate Valtteri Bottas "fantastic".
Williams often steps up the pace on Saturdays after focusing on high-fuel runs on Friday and the team became a threat to Ferrari in qualifying. It ended up with both cars ahead of Ferrari for the first time this season with a gap of two tenths between Massa and former team-mate Kimi Raikkonen in fifth, while Mercedes comfortably locked out the front row.
Williams' long run pace looked comparable to Ferrari and Massa thinks Williams is in a perfect position to battle the Italian outfit on Sunday.
"We are really looking forward to tomorrow and we can have a very strong race - especially in this fight with Ferrari. So I think today is a very important day for us to see that we can be in front of Ferrari - with both cars - and I hope we can be also tomorrow. It's really nice and I'm very happy what we did today. So just need to concentrate for tomorrow now."
The Brazilian says he enjoyed the inter-team battle with Bottas as much as the one with the Ferraris behind.
"We were fighting each other through the qualifying, especially in Q3," he said. "So just managed to get a fantastic lap at the end and improve a little bit his lap time so I'm so happy."