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The second Friday practice
session for the 2014 Hungarian Grand Prix would again see the Williams
Martini cars lower down the times than usual, despite the fact that after
the first half hour Valtteri Bottas was sixth and Felipe Massa seventh. But
like the earlier session both drivers were well over a second off the
quickest times. With the soft tyre runs Valtteri would move up to be third,
1m:26.053 but would not remain in this position very long. For Felipe his
soft tyre run would see him spin at the chicane, having lost the rear of the
car under braking. This would see him have to return to his garage to get
his car examined and would miss out some of the runs planned for later in
the session. Valtteri was forced to have a change of plans completing the
longer runs on the option tyre.
Valtteri would finish the session in eighth, 1m:25.999, while Felipe was
tenth, 1m:26.402, seeing Valtteri a considerable margin ahead of his
team-mate. At the end of the session the quickest time was a 1m:24.482 from
Hamilton followed by Rosberg, Vettel, Alonso, Magnussen, Raikkonen,
Ricciardo, Valtteri, Button, and Felipe tenth.
The Williams team had brought several updates for the FW36 which were tested
over the Friday sessions. Valtteri felt that the team has made a step
forward with the updated car.
“We made steps forward so that's really nice to see,” Bottas said. “We went
through all the updates and were trying all the bits. I'm really that happy
that everything we put on the car – that was planned – made the car better.
So that was good to see, but obviously I think it's going to be really tight
this weekend.”
With neither Williams managing to finish higher than seventh in the two
sessions, Bottas said the team was aware it was likely to be less
competitive in Hungary.
“I think it was really expected that could be the case. It's pretty
difficult to predict where we will be tomorrow because from Friday practice
to qualifying a lot of things can change. I know we can still improve
everything for tomorrow. I can probably get a better lap in and we as a team
can get the set-up better, so it's going to be close.
“All the bits that we put on the car which were new made the car better, so
that was really good to see. I think there is still a lot of room –
certainly in lap time – to go down tomorrow. From Friday to Saturday we can
make some good steps.”
And Bottas said Williams is still aiming to beat both Red Bull and Ferrari
despite the circuit not suiting the car as much as previous tracks.
“We know here it's going to be more difficult. It's going to be really close
I think this weekend but that should be the target. We know it's not going
to be as easy as some other circuits but we need to be aiming for it.”
Over at Williams, Massa is happy with the new rear wing the team was working
with today. "It was positive so we're definitely going to keep it on the
car. We're already having both cars with the new rear wing and it was giving
what it's supposed to give." |