Williams Martini Racing Driver Felipe Massa is optimistic ahead of the new season, after completing a successful afternoon session at the Circuit de Catalunya-Barcelona on Thursday.
The Brazilian shared the day’s duties with team-mate Lance Stroll on day three of the second test, and the pair completed a strong haul of laps, amounting two full race simulations during that time, which was a big plus for the Grove based squad.
“The car did 165 laps in total today. Because of the red flags, we couldn’t do the full race simulation, with pit stops but we more than managed to cover the distance we were targeting without issue.
“With the car doing two full race distances today it shows the FW40 is reliable, and that’s positive. Now I’m just ready to start the season!”
That was Massa’s final day behind the wheel of the FW40 before the first race weekend of the 2017 season gets underway on March 24.
It has been a positive pre-season testing for Williams, with the Brazilian topping the times on day one of the second test, which was one of the fastest times of winter testing overall.
In terms of reliability, the Grove based squad had no real issues, but got on the back foot after two crashes from rookie Stroll saw them run low on parts during the first week of testing.
Other than that, the British team can be happy with their progress, and Massa is now looking forward to a strong start in Australia, in just over two weeks’ time.
“I’m not driving tomorrow but I hope the team has another great day with Lance.
“I just hope that we can start the season well in Australia and we can use everything we’ve learned here in the test to prepare the car for the first race.”
