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Following a crash during first practice for the Belgian Grand Prix, Williams' Felipe Massa has admitted that Friday at Spa was "day to forget". The Brazilian crashed his car before setting a flying lap on the exit of the Les Combes section of the track in FP1. After inspecting the damage that Massa inflicted on his FW40, Williams was forced to switch to its spare chassis.
In the event of a team switching to a different chassis, rules from the FIA ensure that a driver is unable to do any running for the remainder of that day as the newly built car has to be re-scrutineered the following morning. This forced Massa to sit out practice two, meaning that he heads into Saturday without a single fast lap under his belt.
"I was on the first lap just trying to understand the track," said Massa, reflecting on the accident. "When I touched the inside kerb in corner seven the rear of the just came round. I lost the rear and I couldn't correct it. It was a very small run-off area, so I couldn't avoid a crash."
Massa came to Belgium having missed the Hungarian Grand Prix before F1's summer break due a health problem that meant that the Brazilian driver suffered from Vertigo. Massa ruled out that this illness may have been a cause of his accident in FP1.
"I didn't feel dizzy any more since the week after Hungary, for sure I didn't crash because of that," he said, going on to admit that Saturday would be a difficult day, having had limited experience of driving a 2017 car on the circuit.
"It's a track where you need to put a lot of confidence in the corners, the high speed and everything, understanding the car, and learning the new car with more downforce," said Massa. "For sure it's not positive what happened today. I don't have enough time to understand the car, this is a shame, but I really hope tomorrow will be a different day. I have to drive as much as I can and try to learn this car on this track, the set-up and everything, just to be as prepared as possible for the qualifying."
With only Lance Stroll able to compete for Williams in FP1 and FP2, Belgium looks like another difficult weekend for the Grove-based team, with Lance Stroll ending the sessions in 15th and 17th fastest.
"The car didn't show very competitively today," said Massa. "And this is a shame, as we cannot even learn so much from what you see in the other car." Stroll confirmed that the issues he experienced were similar to the problems he faced in Austria and Britain.
"It's difficult in the high-load, long corners," said the Canadian rookie. "We just can't seem to carry speed. We don't have the stability we're looking for at the moment, but that can change." When asked if the lack of data on Friday from Massa's car made the problem harder to solve, he replied: "It never helps. But these things happen and we need to make the best out of it."
Chris Soulsby
Grand Prix of Belgium
C. Sainz jr
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Time to switch drivers...