Friday – Williams: Hardworking Massa, Optimistic Bottas
The Williams team can be confident for the rest of the weekend. Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas were able to do everything they had planned and perhaps even more. Like the other teams, their main difficulty seems to stem from the tires on the abrasive surfaces of Sepang.
Felipe Massa (No. 19) – 9th and 6th
The Brazilian is happy to have carried out his program without any trouble, especially by doing significant work on the behavior of the Pirelli tires: « It was quite warm, so we were able to better understand how the tires functioned at high temperatures. We managed to complete long stints with the different types of compounds, which proved to be very useful. And the car responded well. »
However, he believes that the work to be done is not complete. He keeps Sunday’s result in sight: « We can still improve the car’s performance, so tonight we must do a thorough analysis of the data for the qualifiers and the race. »
Valtteri Bottas (No. 77) – 10th and 9th
The Finn was able to work on different settings. « We tried a lot of things on the car and gathered a lot of data on long runs. »
From his point of view, the biggest difficulty came from the difference between the two types of rubber: « The hard tires slid a lot and showed significant wear. This is something we will have to monitor for the rest of the weekend. In the last stint, I did not set my best time with the medium tires. »
He thinks he will unlock performance in the last practice sessions: « Like most drivers, I think I’ll find more speed tomorrow. The car needs more downforce, particularly in fast corners, but we have our strengths and our top speed is high, which is a good thing for the race. »
