Massa says stalled rear-wing to blame for FP2 spin

Felipe Massa has blamed a stalled rear-wing for his free practice two spin which saw him miss the second half of the session after making contact with the tyre wall.

The Williams driver span as he braked for the hairpin and brushed the barrier, damaging his front-wing. Whilst he managed to reverse back, debris under his left-front tyre stopped him from making it back to the pits.

Initially the Brazilian took blame for the incident, believing it to be an error on his behalf, but following analysis by the team, it became apparent that his rear-wing stalled as he deactivated DRS.

“I got back to the pits and they saw my rear-wing stalled just under braking and I lost the downforce under braking,” he explained. “Then I lost the rear completely. It was very strange.

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“It was a shame because I lost the second part of the session. I couldn’t do my long run.

“I hit even the front wing which was the new piece which maybe I cannot use during the weekend. It was definitely not a positive what’s happened.”

Williams head of performance engineering Rob Smedley was more optimistic about the team’s running on Friday.

“We completed the majority of our plan today, unfortunately we didn’t get all the data we would have liked to due to Felipe’s spin in the second session,” he added.

“The spin was caused by a rear wing stall which was easy to rectify so we were confident when sending Valtteri [Bottas] back out.

“The data and driver feedback from the new parts we have installed seem positive, but there is still more work to do to see where we are in comparison to our rivals ahead of qualifying and the race.”