15/07/2017
NEWS STORY
Felipe Massa qualified 15th and Lance Stroll 16th for the British Grand Prix. Both drivers went out in Q1 on the supersoft tyre, but quickly swapped the dry tyres for a set of intermediates as the rain continued to fall.
Laptimes continued to fall as the track dried throughout the session, which allowed Fernando Alonso to set a time on the supersoft tyre at the end of the session. Alonso's time pushed Lance down to P16 and out of qualifying. Felipe was able to make it through to Q2 in P13 with a 1:41.874. In Q2 the track had dried enough for Felipe to go straight out on a set of supersoft tyres. He used three sets of supersofts during Q2, however, he was unable to make it through to the final part of qualifying with a quickest time of 1:31.482.
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: It was a very tricky session for all the teams with the uncertain weather. We started Q1 on the supersofts, but it was immediately clear that there wasn't enough grip and we went to the intermediates. After the session was briefly red flagged we went out on the intermediates again and Felipe set a reasonably safe time. Lance was just in, but was dramatically knocked out by Alonso's lap on the supersofts. It was Lance's first wet qualifying in a Formula One car, so it was a tricky learning curve for him. We ran three sets of supersofts with Felipe in Q2, as conditions became virtually dry. For some reason we weren't able to show the pace we've seen throughout the weekend so far, so unfortunately, he was knocked out. We are all hugely disappointed as the strong pace of the car isn't reflected in this grid today, but the car should be good tomorrow, and we'll see what we can do from 15th and 16th.
Felipe Massa: I'm very disappointed with qualifying today. When you're fighting for the top 10 in every session and then you get to qualifying and you finish 15th, it's disappointing. I don't know if it would have been enough to get me through to Q3, but I had a lot of traffic on my last set of tyres. We were quite tight with the time and I had to do an entire lap in the tow of a Toro Rosso. Without that traffic I could have done a clean lap at the best possible time in qualifying. I am disappointed but we'll fight again tomorrow.
Lance Stroll: That was my first time in a Formula One car in the wet, and it was a really funny session with rain, drying conditions and intermediates. It was drying at the end and we had some graining on the tyres, so we couldn't really go quicker. We got bumped by guys who put on slicks in the end and went quicker. I don't really count that as a normal qualifying where our pace is where we should be. It's just disappointing. We only just missed out on Q2. We will see tomorrow what it will be like as the car is good in the dry.
Check out our Saturday gallery from Silverstone, here.