Williams will have to work to improve
Felipe Massa's day was compromised by his crash in the first session. While Valtteri Bottas was able to complete the team's planned program, his performance was still a long way from the top end of the table.
No matter how well you know the streets by heart from living there all year round, the streets of Monaco are always just as treacherous. Thus, Felipe Massa, a Monaco resident, got caught out during the Friday morning session, making a mistake and hitting the protective barriers. This significantly shortened his session, causing him to lose valuable track time: “It was a difficult morning, losing so much time during the session when I could have been driving. I lost a lot of laps and we know it’s important to drive as much as possible in Monaco,” said the 2008 vice-world champion.
As the Brazilian’s damaged car could only be brought back to the pits at the end of the session, his mechanics were unable to repair it in time for the start of the second session.
But once released on track, he focused on completing as many laps as possible, reaching the commendable number of 42 by the end of the session.
If the number of laps completed was satisfactory, the performance was much less so since Felipe Massa couldn’t do better than the 16th fastest time of the session. He was thus not satisfied with the settings of his car: *”We struggled to achieve good lap times. We lack grip and traction. We need to work on the car to try to improve it and make it more competitive on this track, especially for the race.”*
Valtteri Bottas experienced a less difficult day, having been able to complete the program he had set with his engineers. Although he had to settle for 11th and 14th place throughout the day, he was not entirely satisfied with his car: “We did a lot of laps today. The car felt better than what we tried here in the past. At the same time, it was more challenging to drive, with a lot of oversteer. So, I was a bit nervous.”
He had quite a scare in the tunnel during the morning session when he had to perform a huge counter-steer mid-curve to avoid hitting the safety barriers: « I got a little scared in FP1 but that’s part of the game. It’s a tricky track. »
The Finn thus believes he can progress in the hierarchy: « The times seem very close to each other. So any gain we can make before qualifying will be very useful. »
