Azerbaijan GP: Williams Martini drivers in top ten in FP3


By Andrew Hooper
June 24 2017

In what was an encouraging result for the Williams Martini team both team drivers would finish in the top ten in the final practice session for the 2017 Azerbaijan GP. Felipe Massa would finish in 7th while team-mate Lance Stroll was 9th. Both drivers had set their times using the super soft tyre. If they can continue their pace in practice qualifying is looking very positive.

 
 Williams Martini Azerbaijan GP Saturday Practice
 
Massa
 

Team Summary:
With the start of the Saturday practice everyone would come out on the medium tyre but it would be a super soft tyre that would set a 1m:49.922 from Sainz to be quickest. Kvyat would move ahead with a 1m:47.722 also on the super soft. The Mercedes and Red Bull cars were on the soft tyre. Verstappen was now second followed by Ricciardo, Sainz, and Vettel. Bottas was on the soft tyre and would set a 1m:47.262 to be quickest. Bottas would improve with a 1m:44.522 with Kvat and Sainz now second and third. Vandoorne was fifth but would drop to eighth. Hamilton would go second with a 1m:44.796 and Perez and Ocon now third and fourth.

Kvyat would go fastest but only for s short time as Bottas set a 1m:43.720. After their first runs the Williams drivers were eighth and ninth. Perez and Ocon were now second and third both on the super soft tyre. But Raikkonen would move ahead and into second. Hulkenberg was now eighth behind Sainz. Hamilton was in fifth behind Felipe but the Williams driver would move up to second. Hamilton would go quickest with a 1m:43.348 running on the super soft tyre. Ricciardo was now fifth behind Raikkonen. Verstappen would go third with a 1m:43.614 with Felipe now fourth. Bottas would improve with a 1m:43.057 to go quickest. Raikkonen would move ahead of Bottas with a 1m:42.837 but Bottas would reverse this setting a 1m:42.742 to again be quickest.

As the final minutes commenced it would be Bottas quickest from Raikkonen, Hamilton, Ricciardo, Ocon, Verstappen, Felipe, Kvyat, Lance, and in tenth Perez. Another encouraging session for the Williams team with both drivers in the top ten, Felipe seventh and Lance ninth.

Felipe Massa:
With ten minutes of the session complete Felipe was still in his pit. Felipe would finally take to the track running on the super soft tyre. Felipe would set a slow 1m:55.758 to be twelfth. Felipe would improve with a 1m:50.752 but was well, down in fifteenth. But his next lap would see him set a 1m:45.183 to currently be seventh. Felipe would again improve with a 1m:44.364 to be fourth behind Perez. Felipe was able to set an improved time with a 1m:43.844 to be second behind Bottas. Felipe would pit after a five lap run, currently third. He would return on a new set of super soft tyres having dropped to fourth. This would become sixth as the Red Bull cars move ahead. Felipe would improve with a 1m:43.738 to again be fourth. Felipe would come on the radio saying that he almost crashed at Turn eight. Felipe would drop to seventh as others went quicker.

Lance Stroll:
Lance would be first out for Williams in this session running on the medium tyre. Lance had pitted after a three lap run. Lance would follow Felipe out also on the super soft tyre. Lance would go fifth with a 1m:45.687 but would drop to sixth as Raikkonen moved into fourth. Lance would drop to ninth behind Ocon. A 1m:45.120 would see Lance move up to ninth but this would become tenth. Lance would pit having complete seven laps on his first run. He was currently eleventh with eighteen minutes remaining. Lance would come out on the new set of super soft tyres for what would most likely be a qualifying simulation. Lance was able to set a 1m:44.040 to be seventh. He would drop to eighth to be behind Felipe. He would go off onto one of the escape roads and he would say that it was not going into reverse. He would finally get going and return to his pit finishing the session in ninth.

 
Massa
 
Pos Driver Car Time Gap Laps
1 Valtteri Bottas Mercedes 1m42.742s - 21
2 Kimi Raikkonen Ferrari 1m42.837s 0.095s 14
3 Lewis Hamilton Mercedes 1m43.158s 0.416s 23
4 Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull/Renault 1m43.287s 0.545s 24
5 Esteban Ocon Force India/Mercedes 1m43.344s 0.602s 21
6 Max Verstappen Red Bull/Renault 1m43.614s 0.872s 16
7 Felipe Massa Williams/Mercedes 1m43.738s 0.996s 18
8 Daniil Kvyat Toro Rosso/Renault 1m43.908s 1.166s 21
9 Lance Stroll Williams/Mercedes 1m44.040s 1.298s 17
10 Sergio Perez Force India/Mercedes 1m44.138s 1.396s 22
11 Nico Hulkenberg Renault 1m44.312s 1.570s 16
12 Sebastian Vettel Ferrari 1m44.344s 1.602s 7
13 Carlos Sainz Toro Rosso/Renault 1m44.401s 1.659s 23
14 Fernando Alonso McLaren/Honda 1m44.741s 1.999s 18
15 Kevin Magnussen Haas/Ferrari 1m44.926s 2.184s 20
16 Stoffel Vandoorne McLaren/Honda 1m45.143s 2.401s 17
17 Romain Grosjean Haas/Ferrari 1m45.491s 2.749s 20
18 Marcus Ericsson Sauber/Ferrari 1m45.645s 2.903s 21
19 Pascal Wehrlein Sauber/Ferrari 1m45.722s 2.980s 19
20 Jolyon Palmer Renault 1m53.040s 10.298s 4
 

Stroll

 

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Azerbaijan GP: Williams Martini drivers in top ten in FP3
Discussion started by Williams F1 , 24/06/2017 13:09
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