23/07/2016
NEWS STORY
Valtteri Bottas qualified 10th and Felipe Massa 18th for the Hungarian Grand Prix. Q1 was delayed by 20 minutes due to torrential rain. When the session started several drivers struggled with the conditions causing multiple red flags. As the track began to dry Felipe and Valtteri switched to the intermediates, but Felipe aquaplaned at Turn 4 and made heavy contact with the barrier, which brought his session to an end. The track continued to improve in Q2. Valtteri made the change to the supersofts with just over five minutes left in the session and was able to make it through to Q3 in P8. In Q3 all drivers opted for the supersoft tyres. Valtteri was P10 following his opening run and was improving on his final run before he was forced to slow at Turn 8 due to double yellow flags and therefore couldn't improve.
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering: We had very changeable conditions today. The main aim of Q1 was to get through the really heavy rain and the water-logged track which unfortunately we failed to do with Felipe. With Valtteri we expected a bit more in Q3, but he lost quite a lot in the double yellow flags at Turns 8 and 9. We have to look at the data and figure out what prevented us from getting better laptimes today. Our starting positions are far from ideal, but we're buoyed by the long run pace of the car yesterday. We had two good practice sessions on Friday, so there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to carry that pace through into tomorrow. We have an open strategy with Felipe which we'll try to capitalise on. With Valtteri, we have to start on the qualifying tyre but we will need to be clever with his strategy as well. Our target tomorrow is to bring both cars home in the points and score more than our closest rivals.
Valtteri Bottas: It was a really tricky qualifying session today because of the weather conditions. I think as a team we made the right strategy calls. It's a shame that we are out of position because of the yellow flags on my final run. I was improving my laptime a lot, but obviously I had to slow down which cost us, so that's slightly unlucky. I think tomorrow we will have a good fight with Force India and my mission is to beat them.
Felipe Massa: I'm very disappointed about what happened. We risked going to the intermediates tyres in that moment and unfortunately it didn't work for me, so it's a real shame. I'm sorry to the guys in the garage because I was just trying to do the best I could but in conditions like that these things can happen. We now just need to concentrate on the race tomorrow. We know it's not the perfect position for qualifying at this track but we need to be ready for anything tomorrow, because everything could change in the race.
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