Massa frustrated to miss out on Q3

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Williams driver Felipe Massa was not happy to miss out on making it through to the final round of qualifying for the Italian Grand Prix on Saturday.

Massa hinted that it was the team's fault at not getting him out in the right time to get a clear run in Q2 which cost him vital tenths during his flying laps.

"We were going to the track very late," Massa explained. "It didn’t help, I cannot say that it was a pretty mistake to do anyway. I was looking to have a clean track and unfortunately we couldn’t do what we were supposed to.

"I mean I was pretty relaxed, with the car I was happy with the balance and everything," he continued. "I had the yellow flag in Q1 which I didn’t have a free lap because I had to do a second lap on the tyres.

"In Q2 I had traffic on the first lap, which was OK the grip until I got the cars in front, they were pretty slow on their opening lap, then the second set I had to go really slow on the out lap because there was a lot of cars open in the lap and the lap was clear and I didn’t have any grip from the first to the last corner.

"I think maybe because of the formation lap I had to go really slow, I lost completely the grip on the tyres, so unfortunately I couldn’t pass to Q3

"Yhe car was competitive and I was pretty sure that Q3 would have been easy and we were even quite competitive. It’s a shame, the only positive thing is that we can choose the tyres but we’ll see how much I’ll gain or lose for the position I’m starting.

"Mercedes I think they will disappear in the race," he added. "I think maybe it’s a better track for Ferrari than for Red Bull here, then I think we are in good shape. Maybe closer to Red Bull and competitive and maybe better to Force India. So I really hope tomorrow we can see that, but as I said the consistency is the most important thing that we need."

Williams' head of performance engineering Rob Smedley had a different take on Massa's qualifying flop.

"It was tight there in that pack from seventh really down to 11th and 12th," said Smedley. "[Massa] just didn't get his act together in Q2. He complained that there was a little bit less grip. It was that tight for him that once he made a couple of mistakes around the lap he just didn't get through.

"However I think he's in a good position for tomorrow. He's got a free choice of tyres and he's starting right on the back of the top ten."

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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.