Massa says radical Williams aero can help 2016 car

The Grove-based outfit ran with a unique double decker rear wing over the two days, which along with front wing tweaks was aimed at increasing downforce levels with a view to next season.

While lessons learned will help the team in its preparations for next year, Massa was in no doubt that anything that could be brought forward to address weaknesses in this year's chassis would be welcome.

"In these two days we worked just in aerodynamics, as you could see we had so many strange things around the car," explained the Brazilian.

"But they were related to our work on developments for the future and I think it was a pretty interesting test for us. So, as you could see, we weren't here to do lap times, we were here to work on future developments.

"I hope they're not for a too distant future, I hope we can have some of the things we had here quickly and I hope we understood things that can be important to make our car quicker."

No quick fix

Massa said the 'strange' wing elements were not aimed to making the car faster, but about delivering downforce levels and the ability to change the aero balance that will allow it to better understand what is needed.

That is why experimenting with different set-ups was vital for helping Williams make progress.

"We tried a lot of things," added Massa. "Some of them didn't work, but the general feeling was very positive and we found things that were important to lead us in the direction we think we should be heading into to develop this car."

He added: "For sure it's a long-term project, it's not something that will lead to having completely different specs in the car tomorrow.

"I hope we can bring some things forward and I hope we understand things that we need to. I believe we are understanding them, to make the car better."