Monaco GP: Difficult start for Williams Martini in FP1


By Andrew Hooper
May 26 2016

The opening Thursday practice for the 2016 Monaco GP would be a difficult one for the Williams Martini team. Both drivers would finish outside the top ten with Valtteri Bottas 11th and Felipe Massa a distant 19th. The session would get off to a bad start when Felipe would crash his car at Ste Devote damaging the left front and rear suspension seeing his session come to an end. Valtteri would focus his runs on using the supersoft tyre seeing him only manage his 11th position. Valtteri would also have a major moment going through the tunnel when his car was to snap sideways, thankfully he was able to recover from this and continue.

 
  Williams Martini Monaco GP Thursday 1st Practice
 
Bottas
 

Team Summary:
Both Williams drivers would complete their installation laps while it would be Rosberg who would set the first time with a 1m:23.758, running on the ultrasoft tyre. He would improve with a 1m:21.712 then a 1m:20.141 with Hamilton second. Hamilton would improve with a 1m:18.302 with ten minutes completed. Rosberg had set a 1m:19.192. Both Mercedes cars would continue to run with Hamilton improving with a 1m:17.381 and Rosberg second followed by Kvyat. Both Williams cars were back out on the track running on the supersoft tyre.

Hamilton continued to improve with a 1m:16.588 with both Mercedes cars pitting. After their first runs Felipe and Valtteri were both third and sixth. Felipe would crash at Ste Devote ending his session. He was sixth but would expect to drop down the order. Ricciardo was now second, 1m:16.764, followed by Verstappen and Kvyat. As other drivers set times Felipe and Valtteri would drop to twelfth and sixteenth. After a quick pit stop Valtteri would come back out improving to be third, dropping to fourth. Felipe was now fourteenth.

With fifty minutes remaining the order was Hamilton, Ricciardo, Verstappen, Vettel, Sainz, Hulkenberg, Valtteri, Kvyat, Raikkonen and Perez. With forty minutes run the track would clear as drivers came back in to hand in their first set of tyres. Hamilton and Rosberg were again back out running on the ultrasoft tyre. Rosberg was now second with a 1m:16.585 but he would set a 1m:15.835 to go quickest. But Hamilton would again move to the top of the times with a 1m:15.537. Hamilton would have a major lockup at Ste Devote ruining the tyres. For Williams Valtteri was on a long run on the soft tyre.

Verstappen was now third running on the ultrasoft tyre with Ricciardo fourth and Kvyat fifth. There was a real mix of tyre types being used during the session. Raikkonen would move up to ninth and Sainz tenth seeing Valtteri drop to eleventh. As the session continued drivers would complete longer runs on a range of tyres. It would be red flagged when a drain cover was to come off and come up and hit the McLaren of Button. Hamilton would finish top of the times with Rosberg just 0.101 behind. Vettel was third followed by Ricciardo, Verstappen, Kvyat, Hulkenberg, Perez, Raikkonen, and Sainz tenth. It was now the best of starts for the Williams team with one car damaged in the barriers and the other outside the top ten.

Felipe Massa:
Felipe would take to the track first for Williams running on the soft tyre. Felipe was back out for his timed run out on the supersoft tyre. Felipe would set a 1m:19.828 on his first lap to be third. A 1m:19.417 on his next lap followed by a 1m:18.914. Felipe would drop to fifth with a 1m:18.746. But for Felipe his session would see him crash at Ste Devote hitting the barrier with his left rear then the front damaging the front and rear suspensions. His car would be craned away seeing Felipe's session over.

Valtteri Bottas:
Valtteri would follow his team-mate out completing a single installation lap. He was also on the soft tyre. Valtteri was also back out and would set a 1m:23.584 on his first timed lap. Valtteri would improve with a 1m:21.352 then a 1m:19.663 to be fifth. A 1m:19.439 from Valtteri but he had dropped to twelfth. Valtteri would pit briefly coming back out. He would set a 1m:17.741 to improve to be third but would drop to fourth. Sainz would move ahead of Valtteri seeing him fifth. He would drop to eighth but was still on the soft tyre. Valtteri would continue running on the supersoft tyre up until the point where the session would be red flagged when a drain cover would come off hitting Button's car seeing the session red flagged. Replays would show Valtteri having a major moment that he was able to recover from going through the tunnel when the cars snapped sideways.

 
Massa
 

Pos  Driver         	Team		        Time     Laps
1  Lewis Hamilton	Mercedes		1m15.537s  31
2  Nico Rosberg		Mercedes		1m15.638s  39
3  Sebastian Vettel	Ferrari			1m15.956s  26
4  Daniel Ricciardo	Red Bull-Renault	1m16.308s  29
5  Max Verstappen	Red Bull-Renault	1m16.371s  30
6  Daniil Kvyat		Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1m16.426s  37
7  Nico Hulkenberg	Force India-Mercedes	1m16.560s  34
8  Sergio Perez		Force India-Mercedes	1m16.697s  28
9  Kimi Raikkonen	Ferrari			1m16.912s  24
10 Carlos Sainz		Toro Rosso-Ferrari	1m17.130s  39
11 Valtteri Bottas	Williams-Mercedes	1m17.562s  44
12 Romain Grosjean	Haas-Ferrari		1m17.599s  33
13 Fernando Alonso	McLaren-Honda		1m17.838s  27
14 Esteban Gutierrez	Haas-Ferrari		1m17.909s  25
15 Jenson Button	McLaren-Honda		1m17.920s  26
16 Felipe Nasr		Sauber-Ferrari		1m18.187s  29
17 Kevin Magnussen	Renault			1m18.274s  34
18 Marcus Ericsson	Sauber-Ferrari		1m18.301s  33
19 Felipe Massa		Williams-Mercedes	1m18.746s  10
20 Jolyon Palmer	Renault			1m18.871s  22
21 Rio Haryanto		Manor-Mercedes		1m20.528s  28
22 Pascal Wehrlein	Manor-Mercedes		1m20.868s  25
 
Williams Pitlane
 

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Monaco GP: Difficult start for Williams Martini in FP1
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