Qualifying Notes
• Felipe Massa qualified 14th and Valtteri Bottas 17th for the Monaco Grand Prix.
• Both drivers found it difficult to get the tyres up to temperature and found an overall lack of grip which hindered their ability to make it into Q3.
Q1
F. Massa: 1:17.679 (13th)
V. Bottas: 1:18.434 (17th)
Quickest Time: N Rosberg: 1:16.528
Q2
F. Massa: 1:17.278 (14th)
V. Bottas: –
Quickest Time: N Rosberg: 1:15.471
Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering
It was clearly a tough qualifying session for us and we are out of our usual position. We have been pouring through the data all week to try and find ways to improve our pace here, and whilst we have made some in-roads, qualifying has just come too soon for us to recover everything. Starting 14th and 17th in Monaco is never ideal because it so difficult to overtake, but we will see what we can do and the aim will be to get both cars home in the points.
Felipe Massa: There were no major issues during qualifying that caused us to be out of position; Monaco just isn’t a circuit that suits the characteristics of our car. We struggled throughout the day and found it hard to set the lap times we wanted. Tomorrow won’t be easy, but anything is possible due to the nature of the track. It’s not a great result as we have become used to qualifying higher, but I’m confident we can still get points and that must be our focus.
Valtteri Bottas: I had some traffic on my initial option run and couldn’t go at the sort of pace needed to keep the tyre temperatures correct, and on my timed lap I just lacked overall grip throughout the lap. We knew this track was not going to suit our car and we’ve been struggling to get the tyres to work throughout the weekend. Then again this is the sort of track where lots of things can happen and if we stay out of trouble and finish the race then points are still possible.
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