Pat Symonds says Felipe Massa should not have needed a second lap in Q1 after the Brazilian's surprise early elimination in qualifying for the Spanish Grand Prix.
Massa will line up from 18th on the grid after hitting traffic on his first run and running out of time to complete another timed lap. The Brazilian driver was frustrated with Williams' strategic approach to the opening session.
"I think if I say I'm happy [with 18th] something's wrong," Massa said. "I had my first set of tyres and I had traffic on the lap, I had a slower car in front which I lost time which can happen especially in Q1. And I lost time in the third corner with [Daniil] Kvyat and especially the worst was in the seventh corner with [Fernando] Alonso and then it was a slow lap.
"We went out too late in the first session and most of the other teams went before us, and if you don't have a clean lap, I mean we are fighting for three-tenths. Between two and four tenths for four teams, so if you don't do a clean lap for whatever reason you need to go again which is what most of the other teams did. I had traffic on my first lap, I couldn't pass, and we had no time to go out again, we tried but it was wrong timing plan."
Valtteri Bottas gave a proper indication of Williams' potential by qualifying seventh. Technical chief Pat Symonds thinks the car had the pace to make it into Q2 without Massa needing a second lap late on.
When asked for his comment on Massa being frustrated, he said: "I think that it would have been nice if he'd got a second run in ... It would also have been nice if he hadn't need to have done a second run. He did have a couple of cars on that lap in front of him that put him off a little bit, but we didn't really plan to have to do a second run today. I guess we paid quite heavily for it, which is a shame really."
Williams has been criticised in recent years for conservative calls from the pit wall during race weekends but Symonds thinks aggressive thinking in Q1 is pointless.
When asked if Williams needs to re-evaluate its approach to qualifying, Symonds said: "I think we will go through it all and have the normal analysis, but we'll wait until we've looked at it again. My first answer is no, they caught us [out] this time.
"It's so important to understand how to approach qualifying. Q1 is not a competition, it's just a means to an end. Q2 can start to get to competition and of course Q3 is a competition, so you just need to think your way through. Yeah you can play safe, of course you can, but you guys are always criticising Williams for playing safe."