Felipe Massa misses the podium for Williams
As the sole representative of Williams due to Valtteri Bottas's injury, Felipe Massa had to settle for fourth place at the end of the Melbourne Grand Prix.
Starting third on the grid, Felipe Massa could legitimately hope to start the season as he had finished the previous one: on the podium. This was not the case as Sebastian Vettel’s Ferrari managed to overtake him during his only pit stop.
The Brazilian therefore had to settle for fourth place in the end: « The only disappointment of the race was that Vettel got ahead of me during my first pit stop, after I lost a second and a half behind Ricciardo on my out lap. It was enough to lose me the podium. »
Nevertheless, we feel that the team is focused on maximizing its position in the world championship. The Brazilian thus prefers to focus on the points collected at the end of the race: « The objective today was to start the season with many points and to demonstrate that we have a competitive car. We achieved most of what we wanted. So it’s a positive start. »
Rob Smedley, the performance director, agrees with his protégé: « It is always difficult to fight with only 50% of our weapons, since Valtteri had to miss the race. Today, we therefore had to limit the damage in the constructors’ championship. We managed to leave with only a few points behind Ferrari, which is a decent result. »
Regarding the Finnish driver, unavailable due to a back injury sustained during the qualifiers, he hopes that his treatment will allow him to return even stronger for the next race in Malaysia.
