Felipe Massa says he was informed Max Verstappen was on an outlap when the pair went wheel-to-wheel during second practice for this weekend's British Grand Prix.
Massa and Verstappen ran side-by-side through Club and narrowly avoided contact as they headed onto the start-finish straight, after the Dutchman had caught a slowing Massa and attempted to make a pass. The incident is currently under investigation by the stewards, though Massa reckons the Red Bull driver had no reason to try the move in the first place.
"My engineer told me he was on the outlap, then I had a lot of traffic in front," Massa explained. "That's why I backed off and he was on his outlap so there's was no reason for him too, and then he just pushed on the exit and tried to pass me. If he was on his timed lap I would not do that definitely. He was slow on his outlap and I just changed... I mean hold him because... like everyone is doing on an outlap."
Massa revealed Williams had to abandon running its new package in second practice after both drivers picked up damage due to running wide in the first session. Pieces flew off the Brazillian's FW40 as he ran wide over the rumple strips on the exit of the high-speed Copse corner. Despite the set-back, Massa hopes Williams can get its latest updates back on the car on Saturday.
"We started with the new package on both cars but then I damaged my parts and Lance damaged his parts. So we are quite on the limit with the parts so put them back for the second session and we should go back to the new one tomorrow.
"At the last race it was more to the track that I was coming back very slowly and then I just took something outside of the track that damaged the car. This one we damaged in exactly the same place, just off corner nine, where you have the outside of the kerb, there's a little thing there which is quite easy to damage the car so unfortunately it was not great."