Felipe Massa. Photo: Williams
“it Has been a qualifying session disappointing”. So overwhelming has been Rob Smedley, head of performance Williams, to qualify the result obtained by its pilots. At the Red Bull Ring, where not so long ago circled around the victory, Valtteri Bottas and Felipe Massa have had to conform with the positions eighth and tenth of the grill, although the finn will start seventh to the benefit of the sanction received by Sebastian Vettel as a result of the replacement of the gearbox in his Ferrari.
The session began badly. With a dry track, Bottas was fifth in Q1 and sixth in Q2, with Massa eighth in both rounds. But the rain that began to fall in the final moments of the second was going to disrupt their plans. A matter of time, she recognized Smedley.
Simply, the conditions didn’t work for us. They could have done if we had managed to take another lap, but it was not the case. Philip was the second pilot to get out with the dry tyre and had the small disadvantage of not being able to for a little bit to give a third round, what it did do Hülkenberg. Meanwhile, Valtteri was fourth in the queue to cross the line and he was not bad at all, but we expected a little more from him today.
however, Smedley is confident that the race would be more fruitful for their cars, especially if you do not appear again in the rain.
If tomorrow is not raining, we can be competitive. The car is fast with a heavy load of fuel and free 3 it was also, we were half a second off the Mercedes and we mentioned to the front, right in the fight with Ferrari and Red Bull.
The best-placed of its drivers, Valtteri Bottas, also regretted the change of condition of the asphalt in Q3, but like Smedley, believe that your luck can change in the race.
Everything was going well in Q1 and in Q2, but in the joint conditions was difficult to bring the tyres up to temperature. In Q3, what went wrong with the intermediate, and the change to slicks the main problem was heating the tires. But the race is tomorrow, here you can fast-forward and I am sure that we can do better; you should try to put the two cars in the top five.
clean slate is the lesson that also extracted Felipe Massa of the classification. The brazilian lamented the not being able to take advantage of lamejoría in the conditions of the track and, as your companion, trust in back positions in the Grand Prix.
The conditions were very tricky in Q3. When the track is improving so much, it is difficult to understand the situation well. I Was the first car to start the last lap, so the last were able to enjoy a track much more dry. The way things are, we must now concentrate on trying to have a good race, a good strategy and end up with a good amount of points.
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