22/10/2017
NEWS STORY
Felipe Massa qualified 11th and Lance Stroll 17th for the United States Grand Prix. Lance was hampered by an energy deployment issue and was unable to get out of Q1, meanwhile Felipe finished the first session in sixth. In Q2, Felipe's time put him inside the top 10 before late improvements from others knocked him down to 11th. Both drivers qualified on the ultrasoft Pirelli tyre. Felipe and Lance will both benefit from other drivers serving grid penalties however Lance has also been given a three-place grid penalty for impeding Grosjean during Q1.
Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: It's disappointing not to get either car into Q3 as we felt we had the potential to do so. Lance had a problem in Q1 on his second run with the lap trigger which caused some problems with energy deployment. He lost eight tenths down the back straight, which clearly would have been more than enough to put him into Q2, but, unfortunately, he was knocked out in P17. In Felipe's case, it was a very close fought battle at the end of Q2 for the final spots in the top 10. He missed out by about half a tenth, so he finished in 11th place. We will benefit from a number of grid penalties which puts us within touch of the points tomorrow, so we look forward to seeing what we can do in the race.
Felipe Massa: My lap was clean. There was little difference between three teams today but, unfortunately, we were the car behind. We need to analyse everything. My lap was clear, no mistakes, but, unfortunately, we couldn't get to Q3. I was happy and confident with the car the whole weekend, the only thing I expected was to improve more.
Lance Stroll: It was a bad day. It was a problem with the power unit not deploying its energy correctly. It cost me eight tenths of a second on the back straight and it cost me my last lap. It is just one of those things, not a human error, just an unlucky situation. With these very complicated power units this sort of thing can happen, as the energy went into a saving mode and not a qualifying mode. I am obviously very disappointed, but now we can see what we can do tomorrow as there was more pace in the car. It's another race, we are starting near the back and we will go forward.
Check out our Saturday gallery from Austin, here.