- Second Barcelona Test - Day One
Massa confident of rear wing breakthrough for Williams
Felipe Massa thinks Williams may have made a breakthrough with the rear wing problems it struggled with throughout 2014.
Last year one of Williams' weaknesses was an inability to look after its rear tyres during races and the team spent much of the season unsuccessfully looking for a solution. On Thursday, the opening day of the third and final test in Barcelona, Massa tested a new rear wing solution for Williams and he was impressed with its impact on the car's balance.
"Yes, and it worked well," Massa said when asked if he felt the new wing was a breakthrough. "It was giving what we expected and I think that's good. We didn't have any problems or any instability, anything you can have in the rear wing is a very delicate point to work. But I think it was good."
Williams brought a raft of new parts to the final test and, though he did not get them all on day one, Massa was happy with those that were added to his car.
"The bits stayed on the car so it's positive! We didn't have everything. We should have more pieces in the next days so the car is not 100% complete. I think maybe when we finish here it will be still not 100% but almost everything we have for Australia, still missing little bits but most of them will be on the car."
Massa topped the session with a 1:23.500 on the soft tyre, though he felt he had some time left in his pocket for his quickest medium tyre lap - a 1:23.6.
"I think [the super soft run] was a good lap. On the medium we could have maybe been a little bit quicker because I had the traffic on my best lap. I needed to pass a car on corner three and I lost a tenth, tenth and a half, but apart from that it was OK. It would have maybe been 1:24.5."
Massa was then reminded Mercedes' Nico Rosberg set a 1:24.321 on the mediums last weekend, to which he smiled and said: "24.3? Yeah. So they're quick!"
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