Felipe Massa will start a strong seventh on the grid for the Canadian Grand Prix after a great showing by the Williams Martini Racing driver during qualifying at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Saturday.
Massa was the best of the rest behind the three leading teams on Saturday, with his lap of 1:12.858s enough to beat both of the Sahara Force India F1 Team drivers and Nico Hülkenberg’s Renault Sport Formula 1 Team machine in Q3.
The veteran Brazilian is hopeful that the pace showed on Saturday can translate into a strong race day in Montreal, with a good number of points definitely the aim.
“It was a great qualifying session for me,” said Massa. “I’m very happy with everything we’ve done this weekend and I’m very happy with the lap.
“We were competitive today, but seventh was the best position we could have achieved. The race is tomorrow though, and I was quite happy with the pace in the race simulations yesterday.
“I’m looking forward to the race as I think we have good pace to be able to fight and score some good points.”
Paddy Lowe was happy that Massa was able to show good pace throughout the qualifying sessions, with Chief Technical Officer happy they were able to put a 0.160 second gap to Sergio Perez in eighth.
“We’re very happy with the result on Felipe’s side of the garage, it’s a very well deserved seventh place,” said Lowe. “He was setting very competitive times throughout the session.
“We weren’t able to match the three teams in front of us, but we certainly put some distance to those behind. We’re looking forward to the race tomorrow. Hopefully we can put on a show for all of the fans here and pick up some points.
“I also want to say a big thank you to the teams back at the factory for the number of upgrades here this weekend, both on the chassis and the power unit, which contributed to the pace we were able to show today.”
