Felipe Massa says his eighth place finish in Sunday’s Belgian Grand Prix was ‘like a victory’ following Williams’ multitude of struggles in recent races.
The Brazilian returned to the cockpit at Spa after withdrawing from the previous race at Hungary due to illness but, in the opening practice session, destroyed the front-left of his FW40 in the tyre barriers on the exit of Les Combes ending his Friday running after just 15 minutes.
He didn’t fare much better on Saturday as both Massa and his teammate Lance Stroll were eliminated in the opening part of qualifying as well as being handed a five-place grid penalty for failing to sufficiently slow for yellow flags in the final practice session.
Massa recovered brilliantly in the race as he stormed through to finish in eighth place amid the carnage which included Williams’ main rival Force India having a disastrous day.
“I’m very happy with the race, it was like a victory,” said Massa. “Great start, great overtakes, good pace for the car we struggled with [in qualifying], so I’m really happy and also to be able to keep the cars behind at the end.
“I know eighth place is not a nice position, looking at everything I have achieved in my career, but the way I drove the car and the way I drove in this race, it was definitely like a victory and I’m so happy.
“For sure there’s a lot to understand and improve in the car, like what wasn’t working in the last two races, but I’m happy with the perfect race I had.”
Also aware of the difficulties facing Williams currently is Chief Technical Director Paddy Lowe who has admitted the team will be making “substantial changes” to its philosophy in 2018.
“There are lots of different things that we’ll be doing and we’re well into that at the moment,” he continued talking to Motorsport.com. “There will be quite a few areas where we will be changing philosophy.”
The Grove outfit is currently fifth in the Constructors’ Championship but fourth place Force India sit 58 points ahead currently with the larger threat coming from behind as just 11 points cover fifth down to eighth place in the standings.
Frustrations within the team are evident with Massa even saying he thought the team was “going backwards’ but Lowe believes he has the correct strategy to haul Williams back to the front of the grid.
“We are fighting hard in that midfield group,” the former Mercedes boss claimed. “We haven’t created any distance ahead of it but if anything we’ve slipped well into it in the last couple of months.
“We need to understand if that’s something where we’re going wrong or if we have been out-developed. We need to improve in all sorts of areas, that’s the nature of the competition.
“It’s about out-competing the other teams in all teams in all the important areas. We have a set of resources and it’s our job to do the best we can with those resources. It’s about efficiency. We can be a lot more efficient than we are being at the moment.
“As we achieve more success, that will attract more resources to improve ourselves still further. That’s the formula of Grand Prix development.”
