Williams Martini Racing once more struggled for pace in wet conditions as Felipe Massa and Valtteri Bottas will line-up seventh and eighth for tomorrow’s Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang.
Massa revealed that it was not an easy day for him or the team, and believes they should be inside the top five when the track is dry. The Brazilian is hoping for a better race on Sunday, where he hopes for a dry race to show off the potential of the FW37.
“It wasn’t the easiest day today, I think in the dry we can both be in the top five,” said Massa. “We still have some of the issues in the wet that we had last season, hopefully we can now look to solve a few of those.
“Tomorrow looks like it will be dry though, so we hope for a better race.”
Team-mate Bottas was even more disappointed to end up down in ninth, which will become eighth after a penalty to Romain Grosjean, and was surprised to be so low on the grid when he felt the lap was a good one. He agrees with Massa about the team still having work to be done when it comes to performing in the wet, and as thus is also hoping for a dry race on Sunday.
“I am a little disappointed with how the day turned out,” reflected Bottas. “I felt like I did a good lap so was a little surprised to be in P9.
“I wanted to be the last car across the line and so was pleased to be, we just have some work to do on the wet weather performance.
“Hopefully it will be dry tomorrow, but it will also be hot and so nothing will be easy, especially from ninth.”
