BARCELONA, Spain -- Tuesday pacesetter Felipe Massa says it is crucial Williams avoids further problems in the final three days of winter testing ahead of the 2017 Formula One season.
On the opening day of the second pre-season test, Massa posted a huge 168 laps and went quickest overall as he set about making up for time the team lost last week when it abandoned running on Thursday due to damage sustained to its car from a Lance Stroll crash the day before. It is the joint-largest single lap haulage completed in winter so far, equal with Sebastian Vettel's from the same session, and gives Williams a good platform for the rest of the week.
Massa is satisfied he helped the team recover from the progress it lost from its lost day last week.
"I think to be honest, always when you lose a day it's not great," Massa said. "Maybe something that we've did today we could have done last week so it was not possible. But we managed to do a lot more today, we managed to get some good feelings on the car, we managed to see that the car is reliable, which is very important...
"For sure when you lose days and the car is not running for reliability issues then all this stuff is more negative, so I don't really think it was that negative for us. We still have three days in front, we haven't got many parts, so we need to try to keep everything we can, which is so easy to go off. I managed to go off once today, luckily nothing happened but we need to try to keep doing what I did today in all of these days which will be definitely great for the team."
Despite topping the order, Massa believes it is wrong to read too much into one good session at this stage.
"I think we wait and see. Mercedes has showed already amazing speed last week. Also everything they are doing they show to be very competitive and I don't think we are in the same level as Mercedes. But I think if we can fight, and have a great fight and maybe fighting for podiums it's definitely a great night. We need to wait and see in Australia."