Massa too hot in Canada as PU overheats

Felipe Massa: It's a race where we're supposed to score good points with both cars, but unfortunately we didn't with mine
Massa too hot in Canada as PU overheats

Felipe Massa was disappointed to retire from Sunday's Canadian Grand Prix, especially as he was on course for a good points finish.

The Brazilian began the race from the fourth row, just one spot behind team-mate Valtteri Bottas, who went on to claim third and Williams' first podium of the season. He continued to run behind the Finn in the race as well, and was fifth when he made his one and only stop on lap 22.

However, 14 laps later, he had to peel off into the pit lane and retire from seventh following a water system issue that caused his power unit to overheat.

"Of course I'm very disappointed not to finish the race because of a mechanical issue that we had," Massa said.

"It's a race where we're supposed to score good points with both cars, but unfortunately we didn't with mine. So we need to concentrate on the next race now as it's a shame that it ended like this."

Meanwhile, Rob Smedley, Williams' head of performance engineering, said they had no choice but to retire the Brazilian as they couldn't risk damaging the power unit.

"I think that was a really good race for us with a well-deserved podium [with Bottas]. As we expected, the pace of the car in these conditions was good. We gave away very little to the frontrunners and we beat Red Bull on track, which is really positive. However, there's a bitter aftertaste with the fact that we could have had both cars up there," Smedley added.

"Felipe would have finished anywhere from fourth to sixth so that's a lot of points we've lost there with the water system issue that caused the temperatures to rise. We went through a series of counter measures to try and get round it, but none of them worked. We therefore had to take the decision to retire the car because the power unit is right at the start of its life."

Read More