BARCELONA, Spain -- Felipe Massa has predicted overtaking will be "very difficult" with 2017's new cars.
Massa completed a huge 168 laps on his first day back in the wider, faster 2017 cars this week. The bigger cars have added downforce compared to previous seasons, something which will increase cornering speeds dramatically but is also likely to make it harder for one driver to follow another closely.
After his mammoth session in the Williams FW40, which included several spells around other cars, Massa joined the likes of Lewis Hamilton in forecasting less in-race passes this season.
"Well this will be the Formula One now," Massa said. "So very difficult to overtake. Not just the Sauber I was trying to pass him, there was a Renault behind me. You lose a lot of down force when you are behind. You guys will see on the races definitely less overtaking than we used to have."
Renault's Nico Hulkenberg was part of that train of cars and, with attention turning more towards performance in the second winter test, had similar feedback.
"[It was] different to last week, following a car was tougher and I did feel a good loss in downforce."
When asked if the increased width of the cars also made overtaking more difficult, he said: "Yeah you have less physical space. These things are just so wide that you miss some room. But we'll see really how hard it is or not. But that could be a factor yes."