Williams to investigate lack of pace on medium tyres

Williams ended up with a very disappointing result at Bahrain, as even after a very promising start in which both drivers emerged near the front of the pack, the car's lacked pace throughout the race to maintain their positions.

Felipe Massa finished eighth and Valtteri Bottas ninth in today’s Bahrain Grand Prix.

"It was a very tough day", said Rob Smedley, Head of Performance Engineering.

"It was disappointing as it’s not even close to where we should be. We’ve got a great deal of work ahead of us and we need to face that challenge head on. Compared to our qualifying pace which was reasonable, our race pace just wasn’t there.

"Felipe’s race pace in the second stint on the medium tyres wasn’t great, so we need to understand what has happened there as well. Overall, this was quite a difficult day for us, and one we need to recover from to come back stronger. We’ve got China in two weeks, so there’s a great deal of work ahead for all of us at Williams."

For Felipe Massa, the lack of pace was particularly troublesome through the second stint, as he appeared to be moved backwards while numerous cars on the soft tyres managed to get ahead on track, with the Brazilian powerless in his defence.

"Unfortunately the two-stop strategy didn’t work as expected", said Massa.

"Our pace on the medium tyre was not very good. This allowed others on softer tyres to get ahead and stay there. We started the weekend expecting more so it’s been a disappointing result, but hopefully we can learn from this weekend and have a better result in China."

While Felipe Massa just dropped down through the race to finish 8th, team mate Valtteri Bottas finished behind him still, having incurred car damage during a first lap coming together with Lewis Hamilton. A later drive-through penalty for that incident cost him even more time, resulting in his 9th place finish.