It was a difficult afternoon in Monaco for the Williams Martini Racing team, with neither Valtteri Bottas nor Felipe Massa progressing out of the second phase of qualifying.
Bottas qualified down in eleventh for Sunday’s race around the streets of Monaco, and admitted his unhappiness with the outcome of the qualifying session, but the Finn is still hopeful of securing his first ever points at the circuit.
“Obviously we’re not happy to be out of Q3, but we’ve made progress, which is good,” said Bottas. “We just need to try to make more – and there’s a good chance to get my first points here.
“This is one of the busiest race in terms of what happens on track with safety cars, so we need to take that opportunity to get some good points.”
Team-mate Massa was only 0.112s slower than Bottas, but this converted to a fourteenth place grid slot, but did not believe he got the best out of the car during the session.
“It wasn’t an easy qualifying for us,” revealed Massa. “We were fighting for one tenth the whole time. Unfortunately, without that one tenth we are down a few positions. It’s really a shame because it’s just so close.
“It wasn’t our day for getting the most out of the car with what happened with the red flags, however the car is behaving well. It won’t be easy to get points but we’ll try the best we can.”
