14/05/2017
NEWS STORY
Felipe Massa finished 13th and Lance Stroll 16th at the Spanish Grand Prix. Lance made a good start on a set of new soft tyres, avoiding the action to move up from P18 to P13 on the opening lap. After a great start, Felipe and Fernando Alonso made contact at turn two, resulting in a front-right puncture for Felipe and an early pitstop for a new front wing.
Lance made his first pitstop on lap 12 for a new set of soft tyres. On lap 33 Felipe and Stoffel Vandoorne made contact at turn one bringing out the virtual safety car as Vandoorne retired. Both drivers made their final stops under the virtual safety car for medium tyres. On the penultimate lap Felipe passed Lance for P14 and went on to finish 13th, while Lance fell back in the closing stages to finish 16th.
Felipe is now ninth in the Drivers' Championship, while the team is now sixth in the Constructors' Championship with 18 points, one point behind Toro Rosso.
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: It was tough day, particularly with the various incidents at the front, making it a bad day to not be up there in the points. Felipe had a fantastic start and gained several places, but unfortunately he came into contact with Fernando, which caused a front-right puncture. That ruined his race. His pace in clean air was very strong: He was matching Daniel lap-for-lap on his first stint. I think we had the potential to have a very good result. For Lance, he finished the race without incident and he was able to learn more about tyre management and race craft. We hope he can continue to progress in Monaco.
Felipe Massa: I'm so disappointed. I had a fantastic start, passing Perez and Alonso on the straight, and then I got to turn one and saw the incident ahead. I then got to turn two and Alonso was suddenly on the outside of the corner, we touched and I picked up a puncture, which ruined my race. We had a big opportunity to finish fourth today, which I think I could have done because we had good pace. It's really painful because we lost so many points today as a team.
Lance Stroll: It was not a great race. I have had better ones and I just found it frustrating. The start was good as were the first couple of stints on the soft tyres and I had a good pace at the beginning, but we just struggled on the mediums and started to lose grip. I didn't feel great in the car and couldn't get it feeling the way I wanted. It was just one of those races, but I am sure it will be better next time. At every race I get more and more confident, but this weekend was just a tough one.