Massa puzzled by dire Williams qualifying performance

Felipe Massa says he’s perplexed by Williams’ struggles in qualifying at the Red Bull Ring, three years on from his pole position at the track.

Massa – who led a Williams qualifying lockout at Spielberg in 2014 – will start 17th, one place ahead of Azerbaijan GP podium-finishing teammate Lance Stroll.

The Brazilian says the team needs to understand why it couldn’t ‘switch on’ the Pirelli tyres in qualifying when they were new.

“We struggled the whole weekend to make these tyres work when they are new,” said Massa. “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.”

Teammate Stroll was just 0.074s off Massa’s fastest lap, and also bemoaned a lack of balance on new rubber.

“It’s just tough for us this weekend,” said Stroll. “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 qually runs – that gives us some hope going into tomorrow. But this was a hard day for the team.”