Williams Martini Racing has finally confirmed Valtteri Bottas will race with the team for a fifth consecutive season, with Lance Stroll making his Formula One debut alongside him for the 2017 FIA Formula One World Championship.
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28 OCT 2016
FP1
Weather: Cold and dry
Air & Track Temperatures: 12-14C / 20-24C
V Bottas, FW38-03, PU106C Hybrid, 1:21.447 (6th)
F Massa, FW38-02, PU106C Hybrid, 1:21.836 (9th)
Quickest time: L Hamilton, 1:20.914
FP2
Weather: Mild and dry
Air & Track Temperatures: 15-17C / 32-37C
V Bottas, FW38-03, PU106C Hybrid, 1:20.629 (8th)
F Massa, FW38-02, PU106C Hybrid, 1:21.326 (13th)
Quickest time: S Vettel, 1:19.790
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: It’s quite hard to read today because of the nature of this track, and with everybody struggling to get the tyres to work. Either the fronts weren’t working, or then suddenly they would work and you get oversteer, which we saw from FP1 to FP2 on those running the medium tyres. Overall it’s been a fairly quiet day for us. We completed all of the work we needed to, and I’m reasonably happy with where we are on both low and high fuel. There was quite a lot of graining on the soft and supersoft for everybody, but we seemed pretty good both this morning and this afternoon in having relatively low graining, especially on the front tyres. The focus for tomorrow will be on getting our low fuel set-up right and I’m confident that we have a good direction for that.
Valtteri Bottas: I think it was a good day for us. We definitely still have a lot of work to do with the balance; the track was obviously improving a lot so the feeling of the car gets better and better with every single lap. The long runs seemed to be competitive with the supersoft and the medium, so hopefully we’re looking at a good weekend ahead for us. We still need to make sure that we work hard tonight to make the changes we need to get more performance.
Felipe Massa: It was very difficult to understand the tyres today. The track is just very low grip, but it’s improving every time we go out. You can go out and have no grip, but then suddenly at the end of the run the grip improves. So, I think understanding the tyres this weekend will be very important for the result at the end of the race. I wasn’t happy with the result on the new tyres, but I was happy on the longer runs. We just need to work on understanding everything
29 OCT 2016
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Mexico City
4.304kms / 2.674 miles
Weather: Warm and dry
Temperature: Air 17-19C Track 50-54C
Q1
V. Bottas 1:20.338 (8th)
F. Massa 1:20.423 (9th)
Quickest time: L Hamilton 1:19.447
Q2
V. Bottas 1:19.958 (8th)
F. Massa 1:20.151 (9th)
Quickest time: M Verstappen 1:18.972
Q3
V. Bottas 1:19.551 (8th)
F. Massa 1:20.032 (9th)
Quickest time: L Hamilton 1:18.704
Qualifying Notes
• Valtteri Bottas qualified eighth and Felipe Massa ninth for the Mexican Grand Prix
• Both cars easily advanced from Q1 to Q2 on a set of supersoft tyres
• The team attempted to get both cars through to Q3 on a set of soft tyres, but switched strategy to complete Q2 on the supersoft tyre with both cars through in eighth and ninth respectively.
• In Q3, with the rising track temperatures reducing the grip levels, both cars were struggling to set their fastest laps of the day, and crossed the chequered flag once again in eighth and ninth on the supersoft tyre.
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: We tried to see if we could get through on an option tyre in Q2, knowing that we had a reasonable margin to get through, but it became clear that this wasn’t the case so we put on supersoft tyres which got us through reasonably comfortably. It was then a case of maximising Q3. We did a warm up lap followed by a flying lap to start, but on the second run we tried a different strategy pushing on our first timed lap. We lost a little bit of time at the start of the lap and then found a bit of time at the end. In the end, the lap times were very similar and I think that is the most we could have got out of the cars. Both drivers were happy with the balance, but there was just a general lack of grip out there this afternoon compared to this morning’s session. Importantly, we have put ourselves in a reasonable position for the race which is key for our championship hopes, so we need to push on and make the most of it.
Valtteri Bottas: It was a very good qualifying session and we finished more or less where we should have done today. It was a shame we couldn’t get through with the option tyre because now we’re starting the race on supersofts. We just really need to try and be clever with our strategy because there’s a big difference between the supersoft, soft and the medium tyre on this track in terms of tyre life. We need to make sure we get everything right tomorrow. It’s a good starting point for the race. We’ve split the Force India’s, so the main thing is we try and be ahead of both of them. We can beat them.
Felipe Massa: That was a very difficult qualifying session. I was struggling to make the tyres work. We tried on the preparation lap, and again on the first lap. We tried everything, but I just couldn’t make them work. My best lap time was actually this morning when I had more fuel and less deployment on the engine. Then, with everything set up in the perfect way for qualifying, unfortunately I couldn’t get a better lap time. Despite that, we are in the top ten. We know that the race tomorrow will be difficult, but we need to concentrate on scoring more points than Force India.
30 OCT 2016
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, Mexico City
4.304kms / 2.674 miles
Weather: Warm and dry
Temperature: Air 20-23C Track 43-50C
Race Notes:
- Valtteri Bottas finished eighth and Felipe Massa ninth in the Mexican Grand Prix
- Both cars managed to get a clean start on the supersoft tyre and tried to extend the first stint for as long as possible to make a one-stop strategy work
- Valtteri pitted on lap 19 to replace his supersofts for medium tyres, and the strategy worked perfectly with the chasing Perez remaining behind him following his stop soon afterwards. Valtteri overtook Felipe on track, and drove a solid and consistent race to finish in eighth and collect four points
- Felipe made a strong start, going from ninth to sixth in the opening laps, and pitted for the medium tyre on lap 14. He ran in ninth for the majority of the race on the medium tyre, holding off a chasing Perez who had newer medium tyres and DRS for much of the race
- Valtteri set the fastest ever recorded race speed for the hybrid power unit era, clocking a speed of 372.5kph, just short of the overall record of 372.6kph set by Montoya back in 2005
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: We went into the race with the plan of doing a one-stop, knowing that it would be close between that and a two-stop race depending on how long the medium tyre would last. We thought we were right on the limit when stopping with Felipe on lap 14, but in the end the degradation was very low, even negative. The medium tyres were getting better and better throughout the race and we even saw a couple of cars do 69-lap stints on them. Our strategy was the right one, the drivers both drove great races and the pitstops were really good. We had some new people on the pit crew this weekend and so it’s great to see us still performing some of the fastest race stops. We lost a point to Force India but it remains very open between us with two races remaining, so we will be doing our utmost to get that fourth place back in the championship.
Valtteri Bottas: As a team we did a good job today, with a strategy and tactics that worked as good as we could have hoped. We managed to make the one-stop strategy work, which was helped by perfect timing with the pitstops. Unfortunately Force India still have a bit more pace than us and that is why one of them was ahead of us today. Our battle with them is very close and we just need to make sure that we do an even better job next time in Brazil.
Felipe Massa: It was a really difficult race. I was really happy with the first lap because I made a lot of overtakes and got up to sixth. I stopped to put on the medium tyres and suffered on the first 15 laps with those, the same as in practice. Then, lap-by-lap I picked up the grip and fought for the whole race with Perez. It was really difficult to keep in front, but I pushed to the end and I’m so happy with the result. Even if we lost one point, we will keep fighting them, and that’s what we’re going to do until the last race of the season. I’m really looking forward to my next race at home, just being there and being with the Brazilian people will be amazing. I always try to fly the flag of my country as high as I can. I love my country and will never forget how special that weekend will be. I’m trying to enjoy all these amazing races recently, but I’m sure Brazil will be the best. To the Mexican fans – gracias. Thank you very much for all your support and I will never forget this weekend. It’s amazing to see how much you love Formula One and motorsport. You will always be inside my heart.
Stroll -and probably Bottas too- would have been announced much earlier, if not for Williams having to wait until he was 18. No real surprises there, although I am curious how this young gentleman will perform.
- contract: 35 mil. USD per year
- financed the construction of a new high-tech simulator (exclusive used by Lance in 2016 - The software was written for a Formula 3 car.)
- paid an extensive test program in a 2 year old Williams.
- two 2014 Mercedes engines
- 20 team members to help testing, 5 to take care of the engines
- tests already done with 2014 Williams F1 car : Silverstone, Budapest Monza, and the Red Bull Ring
- tests to follow: Barcelona, Abu Dhabi, Austin, Sochi and possibly Shanghai.
- tyres made by Pirelli for testing
turbof1 wrote:Stroll -and probably Bottas too- would have been announced much earlier, if not for Williams having to wait until he was 18. No real surprises there, although I am curious how this young gentleman will perform.
I hope he's decent at least, it will be a monumental waste if he's total crap.
And you just now that with the money he packs he's gonna have a long career.
