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Felipe Massa and Lance Stroll were left scratching their heads following qualifying in Austria. For the first time since 2014, both cars dropped out in Q1 after not appearing to show pace throughout the whole weekend.
Massa will start one place ahead of teammate Stroll, with the Brazilian out-qualifying the rookie for the eighth time this season. Massa, who started on pole in Austria in 2014, states that Williams needs to sit down and figure out where it went wrong.
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"We struggled the whole weekend to make these tyres work when they are new," he said. "Just struggling massively. Today was really tricky in qualifying to make the tyres work, it’s really disappointing because we’re not supposed to be where we are.
"We’re supposed to be more in the front fighting the proper way. It’s strange, because on old tyres on the long run the car was behaving well yesterday, but just not on new tyres. We need to understand why."
Stroll was also left heavily disappointed. The Canadian will start eighteenth on the grid and is set up for a tough race tomorrow after arriving in high hopes with a podium to his name: "It’s just tough for us this weekend," said the 18-year-old.
"We’ve been trying to work on the balance and improve the car, but we’re simply losing time in the high-speed corners compared to some of the other cars. On the positive side I think our long runs were better than our quali runs – that gives us some hope going into tomorrow. But this was a hard day for the team."
Fergal Walsh
Azerbaijan Grand Prix
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C. Leclerc
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This showing was abysmal for Williams. If anything, it looks like the upgrades they brought was a downgrade.