Felipe Massa and Williams have been disappointed after their fourth day of the first pre-season test was disrupted by a problem with the FW38 in the afternoon.
The Brazilian completed only 54 laps on his way to ninth fastest with a best lap time of 1:26.483.
Due to this, Massa was obviously frustrated with his day: “I am not so happy with today – it was not really a useful day. The most important thing was that we carried out our aerodynamic tests this morning, to understand the numbers and everything around the car. Unfortunately, we couldn’t run much this afternoon. I had hoped to do more laps than I did.”
Rod Nelson, the team’s Chief Test and Support Engineer, echoed these views: “Today was one of those days I’m afraid. We spent most of the morning doing aerodynamic correlation work which was pretty successful. We are getting through our programme day by day.
“Sadly, we had an issue with one of the car systems over lunchtime and that curtailed a lot of our running this afternoon which we had planned. We know what the issue is, we’ve got a solution, and now we look forward to next week.”
Williams will now look forward to the second test next week, where Valtteri Bottas will take to the cockpit for the first day.
