Wheel rims to blame for Williams tyre failures

© XPB 

Williams has attributed its tyre failures during FP1 at the Chinese Grand Prix to a problem with its wheel rims.

Felipe Massa suffered two left rear punctures when running on the soft tyre in the first practice session in Shanghai, with the second coming as a result of uncertainty over the cause. During the break between sessions Williams managed to modify its car and Massa completed FP2 without problems, but was left disappointed to miss out on running.

"You're always concerned when you see these things happen," Massa said. "We had a problem on the wheel rims, we made a modification from one session to the other session and the problem was solved.

"For sure it was not a very positive day because I lost one session. The second session I managed to do some laps, but for sure it would have been better to do a proper day of running in both sessions."

Asked why only he had the problem out of the two Williams drivers, Massa replied: I don't know.

"I think maybe Valtteri [Bottas] was lucky with the red flag. Maybe it would have also happened on his car. At least we found the problem. We made a modification on the wheel rims and we didn't have this problem anymore. We did many laps in the second one and that was what counts."

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