USA GP: Massa 8th for Williams Martini after Friday practice

By Williams Martini Racing
October 21 2017

Friday practice for the 2017 United States GP would see Williams Martini drivers Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll finish in 8th and 16th. Felipe came away feeling that his car was reasonably competitive but Lance's quickest run ws hampered by a loose headrest that saw him fail to set a quicker time. The sessions would see the team split their tyre testing between the two drivers as they work towards achieving good positions in qualifying.

Williams Martini United States GP Friday Practice Review
	Felipe Massa: "It was a good Friday and it’s nice to be in the top 10. I feel the car is competitive so I’m happy. I was happy with the balance, and even in the wet conditions this morning the car felt okay. I really hope tomorrow we have a car as competitive as the one we had today so we can hopefully fight at the front and score some points."
	Lance Stroll: "It was okay and the usual Friday, getting into it and figuring everything out for tomorrow. We had a couple of issues here and there with little things like the headrest coming loose on my best lap so I couldn't complete it, but all in all it was okay. Because of the problems in Japan, and again here with the headrest, I have never been able to feel the car with the new wing and the new configuration. That is a bit frustrating so we just have to start putting things together to finish the runs to show where we are. The car feels competitive so it is just about putting it all together tomorrow."
	Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: "We had a slightly damp start but we managed to get some good runs, comparing the baseline intermediate tyre with a new intermediate test tyre that Pirelli have brought to this event. We also managed a few of our own tests in the midst of that. In the rest of FP1, we completed a dry tyre run on each car and got a good baseline. FP2 was run to a more normal plan, comparing the soft and ultrasoft on Felipe’s car and the supersoft and ultrasoft on Lance’s car. Felipe’s pace looked reasonably good, unfortunately Lance had a loose headrest on his low fuel lap with the ultrasoft so his ultimate time on the sheet was compromised. It’s a very tight midfield, as always, so we need to work hard overnight to find every little bit of margin to get ourselves good grid positions tomorrow."

Williams F1 Classification

Driver	Chassis & Engine	FP1	FP2
F MASSA	FW38-04	1:37.570 (6th)	1:36.460 (8th)
L STROLL	FW38-03	1:38.534 (12th)	1:37.788 (16th)
Quickest Times
		L. Hamilton 1:36.335	L. Hamilton 1:34.668
Practice Conditions

	FP1	FP2
Weather	Overcast	Warm and dry
Air  & Track Temp	20-21°C / 22-24°C	25-28°C / 30-35°C