Felipe Massa warns not to count Williams out at Hungarian GP

Felipe Massa isn’t ruling out another strong weekend for Williams at the Hungarian GP despite a low-key Friday and widespread expectations that the track won’t suit the FW37.

In what has become a theme since their return as a podium-contending force, Williams didn’t feature prominently on the Friday timesheets at the Hungaroring and their two cars finished at the foot of the top 10 in Practice One.

While warnings about not reading too much into Williams' day-one form can be found from as recently as the British GP three weeks ago – when the finished 10th in P2 but then locked out the second row in qualifying and then led Mercedes in the dry early stages of the race – the last circuit which featured as many slow corners as the Hungaroring, Monaco, produced the Grove team’s first point-less weekend since 2013.

Massa, currently on a strong run of form, is staying optimistic however, particularly if a forecast drop in temperatures on Sunday helps tyre wear.

“When you see Friday you are never sure where we are compared to the others. It’s not the only track – even at Silverstone we were not so quick on Friday and then we were fighting even for the victory,” he pointed out.

“I hope we can see a similar picture. It’s not so easy, especially with the temperature, but let’s wait and see. The long run was not so bad as well so we will wait and see when it counts."

After track temperatures in excess of 50 degrees on Friday, Massa added: “Today was a very difficult day to understand the tyres for this temperature. We know Sunday will be cooler than today, maybe we can see a difference on the tyres.”

Owing to his higher position in the Drivers’ Championship, Valtteri Bottas ran the sole new front wing Williams have access to this weekend on Friday and Massa noted that “if he keeps it on the car it means it is what it should be”.

Williams struggled for grip throughout the Monaco weekend and subsequently expressed confidence that it would prove a one-off.

And Massa, while acknowledging the Hungaroring layout isn’t perhaps ideal for a Williams car which runs particularly strongly on tracks with long straights, reckons the situation is a world away from the idiosyncratic street circuit.

“For sure here is nothing compared to Monaco. It’s a completely different track, completely different asphalt, the way the tyres behave – everything is different,” he said. “It looks a very slow track but a lot of them are high-speed compared to Monaco so I don’t think that’s a problem for us.

“Maybe it’s not the best track, so it can be that I prefer other tracks than this, but I believe we can be there, we can fight and maybe do a good weekend.”