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Following a very disappointing weekend so far in Belgium, Felipe Massa has revealed that he believes that Williams is beginning to go backwards in this season's development race. At Spa - a circuit that should benefit the team due to its Mercedes power - Williams only managed to qualify in 16th and 18th, meaning that both Massa and Lance Stroll were knocked out of Q1.
“It’s quite disappointing to go out of qualifying in Q1,” said Massa, who had no running on Friday after crashing in FP1. “It shows that the main issues are that the car is not going forward. Others are going forward, we’re going backwards.
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"It’s pretty clear that we need to improve the development, and to improve the pieces we put on the car and to make the car better, which is not what’s happening at the moment," he admitted. "I was happy with my lap time, but the car is not competitive enough."
With the mid-field battle involving six teams this season, development is more important now than ever, with new technical regulations placing more emphasis on continuous development across the course of the entirety of the season.
Lance Stroll highlighted downforce as a key area that Williams could improve on, with the Canadian driver acknowledging that the FW40 particularly struggled in the second sector at Spa: “We clearly see the downforce is not there in the long corners with a lot of load, and combine entry and traction, and we’re really lacking a lot,” he said. “That’s kind of been the case for the last few events. It’s very frustrating – it’s not where we want to be.”
After 11 races in 2017, Williams has managed to occupy fifth in the Constructors' Championship having scored 41 points. With Toro Rosso, Haas and Renault all being within 15 points however, Williams is not secure in this position and could easily be jumped in the event of one of the chasing teams getting a large haul of points one weekend.
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Going backward is a mild word for it. They are basically sliding down with the speed a blue whale covered in lube would attain while sliding down an eel. It really does seem like the power from the Mercedes engine doesnt do the magic that it used to do, and they cannot rely on that anymore.