Massa starts Austrian GP from pit lane

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Felipe Massa has been forced to start the Austrian Grand Prix from the pit lane as a result of a damaged front wing.

The Williams driver was due to start from 10th on the grid alongside Sebastian Vettel, but the team found a crack in his front wing which it was not willing to risk in the race. As Massa was running a new spec of front wing, Williams could only revert to an older type of wing rather than replace for one of the same specification.

As a result, the change requires Massa to start from the pit lane, leaving tenth on the grid vacant.

Williams confirmed the news via Twitter:

Massa joins Daniil Kvyat in starting from the pit lane after the Toro Rosso driver needed a new chassis following his heavy crash in Q1 on Saturday.

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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.