Baku circuit 'could be good for Williams', says Massa

After a disappointing early exit from last week's Canadian Grand Prix, Felipe Massa is optimistic that this week's inaugural race on the Baku Street Circuit may play more to Williams' strengths.

"I think it is really interesting. There is a big mix between Russia, Monaco and Monza I would say," he said.

"I am looking forward to it. I think it is important to learn the track, but also prepare the car to be efficient. I think it can be good for our car.

"You have this 2km straight and then another one which looks short [on the map] but would be long for other tracks. Maybe it is the same size as the Hungaroring main straight," he explained. "Maybe from turn 5 and turn 12 we won’t be the fastest, but in the other parts maybe we can be competitive in a good way. I think it can be a good track for us.

"There are so many different type of corners, like 90 degrees, many in Russia as well, then you have this slow sector from turn 7 to turn 12 which I think will be tricky to understand how you pass on these corners and understand the way of doing the corners.

"Then you go back to the high speed part turns 13 and 14, which is maybe flat out, then slow corner 15 and maybe another Russia-type corner at turn 16 and then a long straight which is important to have a good top speed."

As for turn 19, Massa said that it remains to be seen whether that will be possible to take flat-out: "I don’t know, find out tomorrow. The only problem is it gets very narrow but I think it will be flat. We need to drive to understand it in the best way. I think it can be flat, but it will be quite narrow so we need to understand how to do it."

With several 'pinch' areas around the circuit, Massa predicted that traffic will be a major issue this weekend. "I think you need to be really careful because you have no space to let people by corner 8 or 12, so you need to decide before.

"You need to check your metres and have a good message from the garage because it is almost better to stop the car after T7 and you let the people by and get back to your lines. If you get a slow guy between corner 8 to 12 you lose lap time.

"Some of the escape roads are really narrow. Some of the corners, if you lock the brake you will maybe crash," he added. "[At turn 15,] you need to turn right so if you lock too late you cannot go right. I think it was maybe corner eight that you just have the wall there.

"If anything happens under braking for T18 you can’t stop the car and you will hit the guardrail," he cautioned.

Chris Medland’s 2016 Grand Prix of Europe preview

Technical analysis - Canada

Breakfast with ... David Hobbs

Keep up to date with all the F1 news via Facebook and Twitter