Felipe Massa in the Top 10 on his final Saturday in Abu Dhabi
The Williams team is certainly aiming to compete with its direct rivals Force India on the Yas Marina circuit. But the day's qualifying sessions were not as promising as the two drivers would have liked, with Felipe Massa taking 10th place and Valtteri Bottas 11th.
The drivers of the Grove team were not happy with the performance of their tires during this qualifying session, particularly the ultra-softs, which also kept Valtteri Bottas’s car out of the Top 10. As for the soon-to-retire Felipe Massa, he managed to reach the third part of qualifying and even held the 9th position before being displaced in the final moments by Fernando Alonso.
Felipe Massa → FP3: 14th (1:42.683 – 19 laps) / Qualifications: 10th (1:41.213 – 15 laps)
The Brazilian considered himself satisfied to have secured this 10th position on the starting grid for his last weekend, despite a difficult qualifying session where he could have hoped to be a notch higher on the grid. And for good reason, the time achieved by the former Ferrari driver during Q3 was slower than the one achieved in Q2: « It wasn’t an easy qualifying session today. But I’m happy with the result. To be honest, I wasn’t satisfied with the tires. I just tried to do a good lap. I had a very good time in Q2, which was important. So I expected to improve a bit for my lap in Q3, but probably I didn’t have enough grip compared to Q2. We’re not where we wanted to be. But we’ll see what we can do compared to the other cars tomorrow. »
Valtteri Bottas → FP3: 9th (1:42.076 – 19 laps) / Qualifying: 11th (1:41.084 – 9 laps)
The Finn, on his side, experienced a shortened session at the end of Q2, relegated to the doorstep of the final part of qualifying. The reason was ultra-soft tires that did not perform as well as the super-soft tires on his car. Rather disappointed, thinking there was more potential to be had from his car, the Williams driver described his day: « Obviously, I would have liked to be in Q3, but for different reasons, I didn’t manage to get more grip with the ultra-softs compared to the super-softs. The car behaved well with the super-soft tires, but I don’t think we managed to get the most out of the tires. »
Despite this, Valtteri Bottas is looking forward to the next day, where everything can be decided in the race on all levels: However, tomorrow is another day. The 11th place gives me the choice for tire strategy at the start, which can open up opportunities. Lately, Force India has always finished ahead of us, so it would be nice to end the season with a good result for the whole team and for Felipe. There’s obviously the battle for the title ahead, so it should create an interesting race at the front of the field.
The Williams team seems to be racing for the 5th position in the Constructors’ Championship, even though they have the intention to finish ahead of their direct rival, Force India, tomorrow. However, now trailing by 27 points from the 4th place since the Brazil stage, it will be difficult to close this gap, although anything remains possible as long as the checkered flag hasn’t been waved.
