British Grand Prix 2017 – Race


Race Notes:
Felipe Massa finished 10th and Lance Stroll 16th in the British Grand Prix

Both drivers had a strong start to the race on the soft tyre, gaining several places to end lap one in P10 and P12, from 14th and 15th on the grid

Lance pitted for a new set of supersoft tyres on lap 22 and rejoined in P18. He was able to quickly pass Kvyat to move up to P17

Felipe pitted on lap 25 from P8. He rejoined the race in P14

Both drivers were able to move up the order as others pitted. Felipe was in P11, before the late-stopping Magnussen decided to come in, which moved Felipe into the points in P10

Lance wasn’t able to make his supersoft tyres last due to bodywork damage and was forced to pit on lap 42 from P14 and went on to cross the line 16th

Felipe kept the pressure on Perez for several laps, but he wasn’t able to make a pass in the closing stages and finished in 10th

Felipe is now 11th in the Drivers’ Championship, ahead of Lance in 12th. The team remains fifth in the Constructors’ Championship with 41 points

Paddy Lowe, Chief Technical Officer: We had planned to do a one-stop, starting on the soft tyre. From 14th and 15th that looked like the best way to try and gain some places. The race went reasonably to plan, the only issue was that the supersoft didn’t degrade in the way we had hoped for those around us in the first stint, as then we would have had an advantage in the closing stages. Felipe was able to challenge the two Force Indias at the end, but couldn’t overtake. Lance drove a good, solid race, but he suffered some bodywork damage, at which point he was losing too much laptime and was degrading the rear tyres. We pitted for another set, but it was a struggle to the finish. Overall, it’s a disappointing result at our home race. The car was quicker than our result would indicate. We need to learn from this experience and be better next time. 

Felipe Massa: I’m definitely happy with the race after starting 14th, having had a very good start and opening lap, to finish 10th. For sure the most difficult part of the race was overtaking the Force Indias at the end. I was quicker, but maybe not quick enough to have the opportunity to overtake. I’m still not happy with the qualifying yesterday. When you start out of position things are a lot more difficult than they should be so today maybe we could have fought for more points. Unfortunately, starting 14th didn’t allow us to do that, but I’m happy with my race. We just need to make sure our starting position is better in the next race.

Lance Stroll: It was not a good race for us. The start was good and I moved up to P12. The first stint was also okay, and then also at the start of the second stint things weren’t bad. But then we picked up some damage on the car, which I believe was a broken barge board. I started to feel something was wrong, we suspected it was the tyres and so I stopped again. However, this was for nothing really as it just got worse from there. I just brought the car home but some damage on the car destroyed our race. Now I’m just looking forward to Hungary.

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