Williams now further behind Mercedes and Ferrari – Bottas

2016 Chinese Grand Prix

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Valtteri Bottas says Williams have fallen further behind pace-setters Mercedes and Ferrari at the beginning of the new season.

Speaking during today’s FIA press conference Bottas said he’s hoping to get a better read on the team’s pace with a trouble-free weekend.

“It’s been quite a tough first couple of races, especially for me with the unlucky things happening,” said Bottas. “I’m just looking forward to getting a nice clean weekend and seeing what kind of results we can actually do with a proper weekend.”

“But it seems that it’s going to be a really tough year, very close. Ferrari and Mercedes are definitely more far away now than the last two years so that’s unfortunate. But we just need to keep trying, getting closer.”

“After that we are in that field of a few teams, Red Bull and Toro Rosso, they seem to be very close. So every single bit we can improve this season is going to make a big difference.”

Bottas was one-and-a-half seconds slower than pole sitter Lewis Hamilton in Bahrain this year, an increase of 0.7 seconds compared with 12 months ago.

The team’s chances this weekend could be affected by rain which is expected during qualifying. Bottas admitted Williams have tended to struggle in wet conditions in recent seasons.

“I think we haven’t really seen how competitive we are in the wet yet,” said Bottas. “That would be nice to see if we’ve made any progress because it’s been something we’ve been struggling for the last two years, so we will see.”

“Obviously if there’s rain on Saturday at some point it’s going to affect the race strategy quite a bit with maybe more graining, then that’s going to be the same for everyone.”

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    Keith Collantine
    Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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    11 comments on “Williams now further behind Mercedes and Ferrari – Bottas”

    1. As a long time WIlliams fan, i think i can speak for most of us. We knew during that resurgence in 2014 that the Merc engine advantage would decrease over time. We knew that the chassis and aero would have to improve to maintain that third place from last year. Unfortunately (for us) the time has come where Redbull’s superiority in the aero department will prevail. Fingers crossed for 2017.

    2. Williams have plateaued epically since 2014. They don’t seem to be able to improve their chassis that far beyond the great job they did for 2014. More worrying for me is that their strategies still seem a bit docile.

    3. While I admire the optimism that Williams is showing by looking forward to Ferrari, realistically they need to be focussing on catching up to Red Bull and Toro Rosso. They are probably 5th quickest at the moment (at best) and they have produced a terribly conservative car. Couple that with their terribly conservative race strategies and you have a recipe for finishing 5th in the championship. I can’t see them challenging for many podiums this season and that makes me very very very sad.

      1. ColdFly F1 (@)
        14th April 2016, 12:16

        And soon McLaren will join that group as well.

        Haas, might not be far away now, but I cannot believe they can keep up the pace.

        1. @coldfly Where do people keep finding this optimism about the entire McLaren situation?

          1. ColdFly F1 (@)
            15th April 2016, 9:28

            linear regression @xtwl ;-)

    4. A close midfeild should be a good opportunity for Bottas, but certainly bad for us Williams fan and senior engineers.

      1. 2014 Merc had a huge advantage before this Williams was a lower midfield team, that said they beat Force India and McLaren (McLaren is no that hard as very bad cars since 2013), now engines are getting closer they are slipping back down towards where they were pre 2014. If McLaren improve and Wiliams carry on like this then there may be a battle of the big 2 British teams at races towards the end of the year.

    5. I think Bottas is a bit too optimistic. They are not just further behind Mercedes and Ferrari, they had fallen behind Red Bull too and Toro Rosso is, for now, in their tails.

      I expect Red Bull to improve at a higher rate (if Williams actually improve at all) and they are lucky that Toro Rosso is on the 2015 engine that will restrict the amount of progress TR can make, but I am convinced that Williams will fall down even further behind as the season progress

    6. And reality strikes for the Williams man. All that talk about how they were closer to Ferrari and that Mercs were a light year ahead has now vanished in thin air.

      Hopefully Symonds and Smedley heard their man telling the story of their cars. They have high expectation of their car for this year. But apparently the car is nowhere near their estimations. If things are bad a Bahrain, a power circuit, I can only think Spain, Monaco is going to be one hell of a ride for them.

      1. After last year’s winter test, Symonds was confident that Ferrari was still behind them as well…

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