Damage hinders Williams Friday evaluations

Friday practice for the 2017 British Grand Prix would see the Williams Martini team return with a variety of upgrades running on their cars. These upgrades had first been seen at the recent Austrian Grand Prix but the Williams team wished to further evaluate them especially after the issues that they had in Austria.

This would see the team plan to run different configurations on the two team cars during practice for the British Grand Prix. But with both drivers, Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll, having issues in the first session the team was forced to change their programme in the second.

In the first session Lance was running the old nose support, the new bargeboards and the new vertical conditioners, while Felipe ran the new nose, the new bargeboards and the old vertical conditioners with the three splitters on top of the side pods.

But after Friday practice it was revealed by Felipe that the team was forced to remove the new parts for the second session. Both drivers had picked up damage to the new parts when they ran wide at Copse.

Felipe said: "We started with the new package, both cars. But then I damaged my parts, and Lance damaged his parts.

"We are quite on the limit with the parts, so we just put back the old ones for the second session.

"We should go back to the new ones tomorrow, hopefully."

Felipe was to pick up his damage when he went over the kerbs at Copse. In respect of the corner Felipe added: "It's quite easy to damage the car".

ASS for whether the new parts had made a difference at Silverstone Felipe was of the opinion that it had improved the situation, in particular with the tyres.

"It was good," said Massa. "It was not really like in Austria. Everything was quite normal to warm up the tyres, I did my best lap on the first lap on the tyres without any problem.

"That's definitely positive.

"The long run feels OK, so everything really went in a good direction, like we had before Austria."