Valtteri Bottas believes that Williams have learned from their missed opportunity at the British Grand Prix where victory looked possible.
The Finn, who sits three points in-front of team-mate Felipe Massa in the driver’s standings, enjoyed a fantastic start at Silverstone which saw both Williams’ drivers head the field in the opening laps.
Bottas seemed to have the edge over his Brazilian team-mate, however initial requests to overtake were denied by the team, as the Grove based squad attempted to pull away from the chasing Mercedes.
Bottas continued to plea with his team to attack, however, by the time he was given the go-ahead, the 25-year old’s tyres had faded away, destroying any advantaged he held over Massa.
Eventual winner Lewis Hamilton then pitted before the Williams, taking advantage of the fresh tyres to undercut both in the first pit-stops.
Rain later in the race further hindered the Williams team as Bottas and Massa fell to fifth and fourth respectively.
The Finn admitted that the rain performance of the Williams was not up to standard, however believes that the team will be more intelligent when found in a similar situation in the future.
“I had the opportunity [to pass Massa] at the beginning when I wasn’t allowed to overtake,” Bottas said.
“I think, especially in the first stint, my pace was quite a bit better, as we saw with Felipe’s in-lap when I gained nearly one second.
“But it’s easy to say afterwards. The team thought that was the best thing to do at that time – to freeze the situation, not for us to battle for positions and to lose any time against Mercedes.
“The timing is sometimes critical for these things and when I got the call to be able to race again I just didn’t have that advantage any more,” he added.
“In the end it rained and we were really poor in the rain. I struggled getting the tyres up to temperature. Once you get below the temperature window it’s just so difficult to get it back.
“Should have, could have, we can always say it could have been better, but in the end it was a weekend when as a team we learned quite a lot in terms of wet performance, strategy calls.
“For sure, we are going to be clever now in the future with what we do.”
Discussion about this post