16/09/2017
NEWS STORY
Felipe Massa qualified 17th with Lance Stroll 18th for the Singapore Grand Prix. Felipe hit the wall in the final corner on his first flying lap, which forced him to pit for new tyres. On his second timed-lap, Felipe suffered a big oversteer moment in the last corner, which cost him time as well as the chance to progress into Q2. Lance suffered with changing track conditions on his debut on the Marina Bay Street Circuit.
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: The circuit evolution in Singapore is normally very high but today was particularly extreme because of oil put down from one of the earlier support races. That certainly caught Lance out. He's already on a learning curve at the circuit so despite three attempts on three new sets of tyres, he didn't manage to set a good enough time to get out of Q1. In Felipe's case, unfortunately he hit the wall on the exit of Turn 21. This was probably promoted by the oil that had been put down at the entry to Turn 20, so that lost his first-timed lap. Luckily, the damage wasn't too extreme, although it was a very big hit. The car had survived with minor damage which we repaired. Felipe went out for the second run and that would have been good enough for P13 at that stage of qualifying, but he had a big oversteer moment in the final corner sequence, which lost him about half a second. With an evolving track, I'm sure Felipe would have been in a position to improve in the later sessions, as did everyone else, so it is unfortunate that we missed the cut for Q2. I think the car had better pace than we showed today. We will see what we can do tomorrow. We can still race well, it's a long race that is usually filled with incidents. Cars and drivers suffer a lot in the final half hour so if we can hang on until the end, and be in a good state, there's still potential to score points.
Felipe Massa: It's been a very frustrating day to be honest. On my first run I had big oversteer, I hit the wall and got a puncture. I was lucky enough to have the problem at the last corner, before the pit entrance, so I changed tyres and went out again. Unfortunately, I had big oversteer in the last corner on my next run and lost half a second, and the chance to go into Q2. I am very disappointed because today Q2 was possible. These mistakes are frustrating and every day of this weekend has not gone well. We will try everything tomorrow and hopefully it can be a different day.
Lance Stroll: I didn't get everything out of myself, and so I am not happy with the session and myself. Coming into it I predicted more grip, so I locked up and touched the wall. It was a scruffy session, I needed to risk a lot to try and get into Q2, but instead I just went backwards. The track was changing so much and it was very different to all the other sessions this weekend. We just really got it wrong, but for sure the car is not as good here. It is frustrating going from the front row to the back. We had some hopes to get into Q2, but the pace was really not there. We are just missing a lot and that is going to cost us until we fix it.
Check out our Saturday gallery from Singapore, here.