Williams struggling for pace on Friday in Spielberg

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Williams drivers Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll have admitted that they had a poor time Friday practice at the Red Bull Ring.

The team has brought some big new upgrades to Spielberg, but ended up struggling for pace and handling in both 90-minute sessions.

"Not good, to be honest," was Massa's verdict when asked by Sky Sports F1 how his car had been. He was 11th fastest in the morning but dropped to 14th in the afternoon.

"We didn't have a good Friday," he admitted. "Struggling with the balance in the high speeds. There's a lot to try and understand making the car more competitive for tomorrow.

"We need to first of all preparing the balance to be better in the high speeds for tomorrow," he added.

Among the new upgrades on the FW40 this weekend are new bargeboards. However, Massa pointed out that these had not been on his car in the afternoon.

"We just took it off in the afternoon just to not damage [them]," he explained. "Which we had damage in the morning, actually. We'll put it back tomorrow and run with the new pieces."

The damage had been caused when Massa ran wide over the kerbs. He agreed with suggestions that the kerbs were too aggressive.

"I damaged my car today, and the kerb definitely is not there to damage the car," he complained. "It's there for different reasons.

"Definitely I didn't damage my car because I was trying to use too much," he insisted. "I damaged because I just went off. Coming back, I just took these white kerbs and they damaged the car."

Hamilton stays in charge in second practice

Massa's team mate Lance Stroll - fresh from a career-first F1 podium in Baku - was feeling more positive about the teams' prospects this weekend.

"To be sure we don't look as competitive as Baku," he conceded. "But I can change, I think. It's interesting to work on bits and pieces. Around here it's such a short lap and a couple of tenths gets you quite a few places.

"High speed is not our strength. We know our car is quick in a straight line and not as quick around the corners. We've confirmed that over the last two events.

"But I still think we can improve it. We have the car we have and when we get it right it's a good car. I'm pretty positive we know which direction to take for tomorrow.

"We'll see tomorrow," he concluded. "We still have some things to work on from my side from the car and I don't see why we can't have a strong day."

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Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.