Massa: Williams mentality change won’t improve results
Felipe Massa says the mentality and development method inside Williams has changed dramatically in recent months, aided by the arrival of Paddy Lowe, but fears results won’t improve until next year.
The Brazilian driver braced for a tricky Singapore Grand Prix with Williams’s weaknesses set to be exposed at the Marina Bay Circuit and despite a number of cars failing to finish ahead of him Massa still missed out on points in 11th place – only finishing ahead of Pascal Wehrlein in the Sauber using year-old Ferrari engines.
Felipe Massa says the mentality and development method inside Williams has changed dramatically in recent months, aided by the arrival of Paddy Lowe, but fears results won’t improve until next year.
The Brazilian driver braced for a tricky Singapore Grand Prix with Williams’s weaknesses set to be exposed at the Marina Bay Circuit and despite a number of cars failing to finish ahead of him Massa still missed out on points in 11th place – only finishing ahead of Pascal Wehrlein in the Sauber using year-old Ferrari engines.
Massa, whose future for 2018 remains uncertain, says the British squad has changed its ‘mentality of development’ which he hopes can turnaround the team’s fortunes but is concerned the impact won’t be felt until next season with focus shifting to the 2018 car.
“I don’t think it will be addressed for this season but I think we can still improve a little bit the car this season,” Massa said. “The mentality of the development needs to be different. It is different already, but maybe not for this year.
“Many mentalities, many ideas I have pushed for three years and it has not changed. I think now the mentality has changed, but it’s not for the now, it’s for the future.”
Massa believes new Williams technical chief Lowe, who joined from Mercedes at the start of 2017, has helped change things but his impact won’t be evident until next season.
“Yes, [Paddy has helped] a lot. Not only Paddy, but I think the mentality of the team,” he said. “There were so many errors it was not really correct but now it’s correct. Unfortunately, we couldn’t improve the car in the way we wanted this year, but the mentality is completely different already.
“The idea is completely different for developing a new car, which I believe Williams can have next year in terms of even the looks. But it’s impossible to say now how it will be next year. You don’t know what the others are doing.
“Everybody knows the rules, the rules are the same next year. To be honest, we know other teams are not stupid, but it’s important to change the mentality to really build things in the right way. We’ll see.”
