Valtteri Bottas says Williams’ subpar showing in free practice for the Singapore Grand Prix boiled down to struggling on Pirelli’s red-walled supersofts.
The British squad has become accustomed to making slow starts to their race weekends, but ended up further back than usual at Marina Bay Circuit. Although Bottas managed to finish sixth in FP1, the Finn was a lowly 17th in FP2, as the entire field switched to the softer tyre compound.
“With the primes, it didn’t seem too bad, more or less what could be expected, so we could be just about in the top ten on a Friday,” said Bottas. “But then we went to the option and we couldn't get the same lap time gain as the others… We just couldn’t get the tyres to work.”
“I could see the surface of the tyres was new half way around the timed lap, so I knew it wasn’t really working. We need to analyse it. It is not the first time this has happened and we need to find the reason.
“I had a little bit of traffic on the out-lap, which compromised me a bit, but I think it shows we are really sensitive with the tyre temperatures.”
Team-mate Felipe Massa had a equally low-key Friday, finishing 17th and 11th across both sessions.
Having described Marina Bay Circuit as “the hardest” remaining track for Williams this year, the Brazilian entered the Singapore weekend with modest ambitions.
But the 11-time grand prix winner still looks to seize any opportunity that might come his way.
“I think it was a day to understand about the tyres and degradation,” said Massa. “The first feeling was OK. Maybe I improved from FP1 to FP2, understand the tyres better, but now we need to analyse long runs to see where we are from the others.”
“It’s true that this track is really good for others teams like Red Bull and Ferrari, they can even be closer to Mercedes here. It is a race where we need to try to do everything we can to score points. Maybe we cannot be as competitive as others, but you never know, many things can happen in this race.”
AS IT HAPPENED: Singapore Grand Prix FP2
2016 F1 driver line-ups so far
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