Weather: Rainy then dry
Temperature: Air 17-21°C, Track: 21-29°C
Race Notes:
• Felipe Massa finished 11th and Valtteri Bottas 14th in the British Grand Prix
• Valtteri started on wet tyres under safety car conditions, but switched to the intermediates when the safety car was called in. He was one of the first front-runners to switch to the intermediates on lap five, but struggled with the mixed conditions. He spun on lap 10 in the wet and fell to P13, before pitting on lap 16 for the medium compound tyre where he struggled with pace.
• Felipe also started the race on wet tyres before stopping on lap six for intermediates. He made the switch to the medium compound tyre on lap 16 but couldn’t make them last until the end of the race and was forced to pit for the soft compound on lap 38. The fresh tyres allowed him to gain a position late on as others around him struggled with degradation.
• Both drivers retain their position in the Drivers’ Championships with Valtteri in seventh and Felipe in ninth, while the team stays fourth in the Constructors’ Championship
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: We just didn’t have the pace today. On top of that, Felipe ran out of tyres towards the end, so we had to pit and put on another set on which was a shame. It was a race to forget really so I’m not going to dwell on it too much. The rain at the start made our decisions more difficult, but we made the correct calls, and didn’t do anything vastly different to anybody else, apart from our extra stop with Felipe. The car just wasn’t quick enough to make any more progress in the race.
Felipe Massa: That was a disappointing race. We were trying to fight with so many cars throughout the whole race, but in the wet it was so tricky with oversteer. We tried to keep pace and position, but our tyres were degrading a lot compared to other teams, causing us to drop position and finish outside of the points. When the tyres were working the pace was OK, even with the medium tyre. But once that dropped it was tricky.
Valtteri Bottas: Today was a disappointing day. I spun in the wet and lost position. The main problem going from the wet tyre to the dry tyre was not getting enough heat into them to make them work. In the slick stints the pace was poor. As a team, it’s important we analyse what happened today. For myself as a driver I need to learn from my mistakes too. I’ll be having a day in the simulator tomorrow running through the test programme for this week.
No comment