Friday: The new features work for Massa at Williams

Felipe Massa (No.19) – 10th and 8th

The Brazilian had the first taste of the new features brought by the Williams team in Spain and he is satisfied: « It was a good day today with all the new features working well and improving performance as we expected. It is difficult to know who we will be fighting against in the race since all teams have made a step forward. »

Not everything is perfect, but some of the problems encountered also affect Williams’ rivals: « There are still some rear grip issues; it has improved since the start of the season, but we’re not there yet. The mediums are the best tires for this weekend because we lack grip with the hards, like everyone else. »

Valtteri Bottas (No. 77) – 14th [FP2]

The Finnish driver only ran during FP2 and is delighted to see that the updates worked well on Felipe Massa’s side: « We had a positive day because the updates brought here worked as expected, but it’s difficult to know where we stand compared to other teams. We’ll see tomorrow. »

In fact, Bottas didn’t have exactly the same car as his teammate, but he is eager to see how it goes during the qualifying sessions tomorrow: « I didn’t have all the new updates because Felipe was testing them for comparisons, so I’m positive about the idea that my car will be faster tomorrow. »

Felipe Nasr (#40) – 14th [FP1]

As in his previous outings at the wheel of the FW36, Felipe Nasr spent most of FP1 testing the new features brought by the team from Grove: « During the first session, we limited our running because the track was still dirty. We had a few new parts on the car, so my goal was to analyze how they worked. The car was good, and we found a lot of positives, even though there is still work to be done on the rear as Barcelona requires a lot of rear downforce. »