Felipe Massa had a day to forget at the Sepang International Circuit after a throttle problem restricted him to a pit lane start before an early puncture compromised his race still further.
The throttle problem was solved in the pit lane by simply turning the car off and on again, while he believed the puncture was caused by running over debris from one of the early incidents during the race.
The Williams Martini Racing driver ultimately finished the Malaysian Grand Prix down in thirteenth position and admitted it was just not his day, which was a shame when he pointed out the pace and result of team-mate Valtteri Bottas in fifth.
“Well, when it’s not your day, it’s not your day,” said Massa. “Everything happened at once. My throttle wasn’t working. The engine was on and I was trying to get it to work, but I couldn’t. Then when we went to the garage, we switched it off and on, and it was working again. Then we did the start from the pit lane.
“At the first virtual safety car I stopped to change to the hard tyres and did two or three laps after that until I got a puncture on my front-left. Maybe I picked up some debris from the track. I would say my race was completely finished from there.
“The only thing that would have changed it would have been a safety car, but it didn’t work out like that. It’s a shame, because Valtteri did a great job and it would have been great to get both cars in some good points, but unfortunately that didn’t happen.”
