Williams
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: “We weren’t where we expected to be today following the pace we had on Friday. It was an eventful race all round. Valtteri was unfortunately hit from behind through no fault of his own picking up a puncture, and without that could have been on the podium. Felipe’s tyres only worked in the final stint, and we need to investigate why that was as it made for a tough race for him. Results like this make us stronger as a group and we can go away and analyse what went wrong. Williams has been on a constant learning curve over the last 18 months and you have to take days like this with that. We now head into the next few races which will play to our strengths and we’ll aim to recuperate the points we lost today.”
Felipe Massa: “That was a really challenging day for us. I got a penalty early on and then the medium tyre in traffic didn’t work well for me at all, it was uphill from there on. As a team we walked away with no points, which is a blow for the Championship, but something we now have to make up for.”
Valtteri Bottas: “It was a disappointing day to score no points. At the start of the race we were running in line with the pace of the car. There were plenty of opportunities to score well, but I suffered a puncture at the wrong time and from then on it was a struggle. It is important we move forward from this, have a good rest and arrive fresh and ready for Spa.”
