'Perfect lap' leaves Massa flying high in Suzuka

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Felipe Massa was delighted with his performance in qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix, which will see him start from eighth on the grid.

"I’m so happy with my qualifying," said the Williams driver. "Q1 was a good lap, Q2 was a great lap, and Q3 was just a perfect lap.

"I’m really happy with my result," he beamed. "My lap time today was similar to when I was on pole in 2006. Just the perfect lap, which gives you a lot of pleasure. I’m happy with that!"

"We’re starting in a great position," Massa added. "You never know what can happen tomorrow in the race. We’ll try to get the best we can in terms of points."

"It was a great job by Felipe," said Williams' chief technical officer Paddy Lowe. "He drove some terrific laps throughout the three sessions to put the car in P9.

"We weren’t as quick as any of the cars ahead, so we couldn’t have expected anything better than that. Well done to him!"

But while Massa was thrilled with his day at the office, it was a less happy outcome for his rookie team mate Lance Stroll.

Hamilton storms to pole for the Japanese Grand Prix

The Canadian teen was trying to get himself out of the elimination zone at the end of Q1 when the session was red flagged due to an accident for Roman Grosjean. Unable to improve his time, Stroll finished the session in 18th place.

"On Lance’s side, the real damage was done by the red flag which prevented him from doing a second run," Lowe confirmed.

"I’m sure he could have showed much stronger pace than he did on his first set of tyres," Lowe added. "[But] even from Lance’s starting position, points are possible. We will see what we can do with both drivers."

Stroll was clearly disappointed to have been caught out by events in qualifying.

"That was not a good session," he grumbled. "I didn't get a lap time as I was blocked on both my push laps, by Perez and Gasly in the last chicane.

"Then we got the red flag, so I never got a time and there was no chance to make Q2," he sighed. "But that is how it goes and there is nothing I can do about it now. We were just unlucky with the traffic.

"Tomorrow is another day and with the penalties we will make up a couple of places," he added, looking on the brighter side.

Sure enough, with Jolyon Palmer, Carlos Sainz and Fernando Alonso all taking hefty grid drops, Stroll will actually start from 15th place on the grid.

"But that is not how we want to gain places," Stroll insisted. "We want to show the potential of the car, which we didn't do in that session."

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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.