Williams failures caused by brake duct changes

Felipe Massa suffered two identical left rear tyre failures during the opening practice session, forcing Williams to begin an urgent investigation to get to the bottom of what happened.

After quickly concluding that rim failures were involved, a more detailed look at matters resulted in the team discovering the rims were getting broken by rubbing from the brake ducts.

Once the team had sorted out the clearance, then the issues went away.

Williams technical chief Pat Symonds told Motorsport.com: "The wheel rims failed because of the way we'd set up the whole of the back end – more brake ducts actually.

"It wasn't an easy one to see what had happened but we did figure it out and fixed it. Once we realised what it was, it was actually quite easy.

"The ducts were the same as Bahrain essentially, but there was a very minor change."

Massa relieved

Felipe Massa had said it was important for the team to have fully understood what happened, so it could focus on getting its weekend back on track.

"I think if you don't know exactly what the problem is then it can affect you, as you don't know if the tyre will blow or not," he said. "But I think when the team understand the problem that is the most important thing. So I trust and I am just trying to push as hard as I can."

Massa was able to complete long runs during the second practice session, which has left him convinced that there will be no further problems for the rest of the weekend.

"For sure you are always concerned when you see these things happen, you are always concerned," he said. "We had a problem on the wheel rims and we made a modification from one session to another session and the problem was solved.

"So that is important, but for sure it was not a very positive day because I lost one session. The second session I managed to do some laps but it would have been better to do a proper day running.

"For both sessions tomorrow, maybe the conditions will change, maybe it will rain, but we should be ready for everything."

Additional reporting by Adam Cooper