Massa impressed as Williams updates work as expected
Williams brought a number of updates to Spain for the first European Grand Prix of the season, and have once again found all its updates working as expected, confirming research and simulation work done at the factory.
Rob Smedley, the team's Head of Performance Engineering was clearly optimistic after Friday's running, confirming that all the scheduled work was completed without any hiccups.
"It was a constructive day as we had a lot of work to do in terms of car set-up and tyre management as well as testing all the new pieces", Smedley noted. "We completed the tests we had planned and as a result all the parts we brought are working as expected or even better, which is key at a track like Barcelona where everyone is trying to find more downforce. We still have a lot of work to do in order to optimise our car set-up and the long run pace, and so that is the focus for this evening."
Both Bottas and Massa were happy to see the car working, even though Bottas did not have all the updates on Friday yet as the team wanted to perform comparison tests. Felipe Massa however went on record that while the car has improved compared to the start of the season, it's still not to his liking.
"It has been a good day today with all upgrades working and improving performance as we had expected", Massa said. "It's hard to see who we will be fighting with come the race as all the teams have made a step forward. There are still some rear grip issues, it has improved since the start of the season, but we are not there yet. The medium is the best tyre for the weekend as we were struggling for grip on the hard tyre, as is everyone else. It's always good to see upgrades working as they have all done which is once again impressive."
